Graduate school hosts second annual Three Minute Thesis competition

For the second year, USD graduate students will have the opportunity to explain the societal benefits of their thesis–all in three minutes or less.

The Three Minute Thesis (3MT) competition, put on by the USD graduate school, allows graduate students to present their research in a condensed version, restricting them to explain years of their studies with only three minutes of speech and one powerpoint slide, with no props, laser pointers or costumes.

The 3MT competition is for students currently enrolled in a Master’s (Thesis option A) or doctorate program.

Kulatheepan Thanabalasingam, a second-year graduate student studying chemistry, was the first place winner of USD’s 3MT last year. He said a challenge of 3MT is learning to present research in a way that a normal audience can understand it and without technical jargon.

“It’s like when you are home for holiday and your grandma is asking you what you are doing in school, you have to explain it to her in normal words,” Thanabalasingam said. “It’s a kind of tough task… you have about 9,000-10,000 words of document, but you have to present that thesis in three minutes, in like 200 words.”

Although many students competing in 3MT are STEM majors, Ranjit Koodali, dean of the graduate school, said this year he is hoping more students from a variety of disciplines will participate.

“Last year was our first 3MT competition at USD, so our response was modest. We had students primarily in the (STEM) discipline, and this time we have been more proactive,” Koodali said. “We hope to get disciplines across the university; so we are hoping that we will get humanities, social sciences, natural sciences, business, health sciences, so that as a whole these graduate students can showcase the amazing research that we are doing.”

After attending a regional conference and having the opportunity to judge 3MT competitions, Koodali was inspired to bring 3MT to USD last year.

“It was always of interest for me to have a competition for graduate students at USD so that the community, faculty and staff can actually really understand the complex research that graduate students perform in a language that is very simple,” he said. “That’s the whole beauty of 3MT, it is meant to communicate the research… it helps the graduate students, but it also informs the community, our legislators, our leadership on campus to the importance of graduate education.”

Thanabalasingam said participating in 3MT benefits students in their communication skills and helps them gain confidence, and he encourages all graduate students to give it a try.

“It’s increasing your public speaking ability, and your ability to express what you are doing in research and how it is helpful for the community,” he said.”Winning or losing doesn’t matter, participating means you are giving a try and it will be really good experience for you.”

Edith RezaMartinez, program assistant in the graduate school and in charge of marketing 3MT to students, said undergraduate students should attend the events to see future possibilities for themselves. 

“We want all students, undergrad and graduate students, to come who aren’t participating because ultimately what we want to do is showcase all the talent that we have here at USD and all the research that’s being done,” she said. “We encourage everyone to attend, even if they aren’t participating or know someone who is participating.”

The preliminary competition of 3MT, where approximately five students will be chosen to move on to the finals round, will take place on Jan. 30 in Muenster University Center (MUC) 211. The finals round will take place on Feb. 8 in the Al Neuharth Media Center Freedom Forum, where the winning student will be selected to attend the Midwestern Association of Graduate Schools (MAGS) competition in St. Louis, Missouri.

The first place prize is $350 and an all-expense paid trip to the MAGS competition, and the second and third place prizes are $250 and $150, respectively.

Students can still sign up to participate in the 3MT competition until Jan. 28. An information session for students looking to compete will be held in MUC 211 on Jan. 23 at 3 p.m.