While writing a graduate thesis can feel like a marathon, presenting it at BYU’s Three-minute Thesis (3MT) competition feels more like a sprint.
The annual competition presents graduate students with the challenge of explaining their theses to a non-expert audience in three minutes. To add some perspective, most Studio C sketches are longer than that.
Each college will hold its own 3MT competition prior to the campus-wide event. The CPMS 3MT event will be held on Friday, February 26, 2016, at 11:30 a.m. in the Hinckley Center Assembly Hall.
The first, second, and third place winners from the CPMS 3MT competition will receive prizes of $1,000, $750, and $500, respectively. The first and second place winners from the CPMS competition will then represent the college at the university-wide event on Thursday, March 10, 2016 in the BYU Varsity Theatre at 11 a.m. The first, second, and third place winners of the university-wide competition will win $5,000, $2,500, and $1,000, respectively. The college competition also includes five $50 awards for honorary mentions, as well as pizza for all in attendance.
Students are allowed a single PowerPoint slide to accompany their presentation. Judges will critique their presentations based on the students’ ability to communicate to “an intelligent but non-specialist audience.”
Twenty CPMS graduate students will be permitted to compete in the college’s 3MT competition. Applications must be submitted online before January 25, 2016.