Graduate students from across campus went head-to-head in UND’s 10th Annual Three Minute Thesis Competition last Tuesday, Jan. 27.
Held in the Memorial Union large ballroom from 10 a.m. to 3:00 p.m., the event saw 17 graduate students take the stage in order to present a panel of judges—and a large audience—with a simple, easily understandable explanation of their graduate research projects and nothing more than a single slide acting as a visual aid. The competition was divided into two preliminaries and one final round.
The Three Minute Thesis Competition is an international competition with the aim of helping students everywhere become more adept at explaining their research. In addition to the $1,000 grand prize provided by the City of Grand Forks, this year’s winner, Johan Dominguez Lopez, will continue to the regional competition this March. Kim Berthet and Chidiebele Oraegbuna, who took second and third place respectively, earned $750 and $500 prizes.
For the graduate students who agreed to participate in the 3MT Competition, preparation began in October of last year, when the first of three communication training sessions took place. In these sessions, they were guided by designated trainers whose job it was to help the students turn rough drafts of their three-minute thesis into a smooth and audience-friendly presentation.
[The graduates] already know about the research they do,” said Dr. Soojung Kim, interim dean of the School of Graduate Studies. “It’s about the practice of translating these technical and complex ideas and knowledge in a way that everyone can understand.”
Kim has been involved in the Three Minute Thesis Competition since 2018, originally serving as a trainer. In 2019, then Lead Trainer Dr. Matt Gilmore chose to take on a role as a judge, and still serves as the competition’s lead judge. Kim took over his position and has served in the role ever since.
“[3MT] does involve a lot of logistical things,” Kim said. “It starts in August, when we get the nominations from program directors, and training the judges, training the trainers…so it involves multiple collaborations with different groups of people.”
Now that this year’s event has concluded, Kim says that her and the rest of the Three Minute Thesis organizers are busy gathering feedback on how they can make next year’s competition even better; a goal Kim is passionate about due to her strong beliefs on the benefits that the competition gives to its participants.
“Communicating complex and technical knowledge in a way that everyone can understand is a skill that sets [students] apart,” Kim said. “This type of a skillset is transferable not just in the research areas, but anything our students do.”
For those interested in watching this year’s competition, a recorded livestream of the competition will be uploaded soon to the Three Minute Thesis tab on the UND website, which is located on the School of Graduate Studies page.
Quinn Berg is a Dakota Student Section Editor. He can be reached at [email protected].