3 Minute Thesis Contest

[Adelaide9216]

Hello,

my university is doing this 3 Minute Thesis Contest in which students can present their masters or doctoral thesis topic in only 3 minutes. I just ended my first semester in my master's program. But my research topic is well defined (I was funded by SSHRC for this academic year and am going to do the ethics process next semester). Should I still give it a shot to 3MT even if I haven't started writing my thesis and collecting data? 

[TakeruK]

Are you allowed to compete as many times as you want? The previous universities I was at limited it to one competition per degree only so most people waited until they were done or almost done. Although my PhD school had really strict rules to enter (for dumb reasons) and it led to only 3 students entering so they had to cancel it!

If you can compete every year, then why not? It's good practice even if you don't feel 100% ready. The main cost is whether you can spare the time to practice and do it. The ones I've seen usually include their results and findings too and I found that these presentations are always way more engaging and better than the presentations that just say what they are going to do instead of what they achieved. At the places I've been to, the judging is on both the presentation clarity/style and also the research. 

[Hope.for.the.best]

2 hours ago, Adelaide9216 said:

Hello,

my university is doing this 3 Minute Thesis Contest in which students can present their masters or doctoral thesis topic in only 3 minutes. I just ended my first semester in my master's program. But my research topic is well defined (I was funded by SSHRC for this academic year and am going to do the ethics process next semester). Should I still give it a shot to 3MT even if I haven't started writing my thesis and collecting data? 

3MT competition is all about presenting your thesis topic in layman terms in an interesting way. No one cares about how much data you have generated. As TakeruK says, if there aren't any restrictions on how many time you can compete, go for it. My school allows students to compete every year until their dissertations are approved.