The Three Minute Thesis competition is coming to Kent State University for the first time this fall to encourage the development of academic presentation and research communication skills in graduate students.

Registration will be open until Oct. 9. Kyle Reynolds, assistant director of student services, is expecting 60 graduate students to compete and the audience will be able to vote for their favorite presentation.

“This is the first year we are hosting and as long as students are interested,” Reynolds said. “I imagine this is something that we will do in the future.”

Reynolds said he saw a need for a competition like this at the university.

“Multiple universities hosted this event every year. Basically, at Kent State we saw a need to host a competition like this,” Reynolds said. “We thought it would be a very valuable experience for graduate students. The thing is, a lot of time, graduate students don’t get the opportunities to present outside of their department,” Reynolds said.

This is an academic competition developed by the University of Queensland for graduate students that encourages graduate students’ to effectively explain their research in just three minutes. Students have three minutes and one PowerPoint slide to present their research.

The preliminary rounds go from October 21-23 in the Kent State Center in the Ballroom Balcony, going from 12-2 p.m. The finals are October 30 from 12-2 p.m. in the Kent Student Center in the Kiva. The top presenters have the opportunity to get prizes once they get into the finals.  First place gets $500, second place gets $300 and third place gets $200. The audience also gets to decide who they like and the competitor of the people’s choice will earn $200 if chosen.

Simon Hannig is the graduate affairs reporter. Contact him at shannig@kent.edu.