1. Kansas State University
  2. »Division of Communications and Marketing
  3. »K-State Today
  4. »The return of K-State's Three Minute Thesis competition

K-State Today

January 19, 2017

The return of K-State's Three Minute Thesis competition

Submitted by Kelsey Peterson

An 80,000-word thesis would take nine hours to present. A graduate student's time limit is three minutes.

The Graduate School announces the 2017 Three Minute Thesis, or 3MT, competition. 

Graduate students will have the opportunity to present their thesis or dissertations to the community in three minutes or less on Feb. 8 and Feb. 16.

Last year's winners, Ryan Schmid, Bondy Kaye and Jere Noel, walked away with monetary awards, sponsored by the Office of Vice President for Research and the University Distinguished Professors Group.

Faculty, staff and alumni are invited to come back to campus to witness the final competition at 5:30 p.m. Feb. 16 in the K-State Alumni Center's Banquet Room. The judges for the final competition will be Coach Bill Snyder, Tom Giller and Usha Reddi. 

Preliminary competitions, or heats, will be Feb. 8. Top presenters from each heat will be selected by judges to move forward and compete in the final competition on Feb. 16. From the final competition, a judging panel will select the top two presenters, and a people's choice award winner will be selected by the audience. The first place presenter will represent K-State at the Midwestern Association of Graduate Schools 3MT Competition in April.

The goal of 3MT is to celebrate the discoveries made by research students and develop their academic, presentation and research communication skills. The competition focuses on the students' ability to communicate the importance of their research to the broader community.

The 3MT, first conducted at The University of Queensland in 2008, is an academic competition that challenges graduate students to present a compelling oration on their thesis/dissertation topic and its significance in only three minutes using just one PowerPoint slide.

Learn more and register for K-State's Three Minute Thesis competition online.

In this issue

From the administration
From the Kansas Board of Regents
News and research
Events
Human resources, benefits and training
Health and safety
Kudos, publications and presentations
Technology
Newsletters, magazines and blogs
University life