Last Saturday, May 4, 21 seniors presented their theses to the community — but with a catch. These students took on another challenge by competing in the Three Minute Thesis competition, hosted by the Oral Communication Center. Each student had only three minutes to explain their thesis topic and findings to the audience; topics covered an array of fields including biochemistry, creative writing, and government.
The Three Minute Thesis or 3MT competition was started at the University of Queensland in Australia. According to the official website of the competition, 3MT is held at over 600 universities across more than 65 countries worldwide. The goal of the competition is to cultivate “students’ academic, presentation, and research communication skills.” By presenting their thesis in only three minutes and to an audience of non-specialists, the students are challenged to showcase their ability to effectively explain their research in a short amount of time.
At Hamilton, the students were judged by community members for the first-, second-, and third-place prizes. One “people’s choice” award was awarded to the audience’s choice in addition.
The first-place winner was Geoscience major Austin Ford ’19, who presented “A Reference Collection of Devonian Mollusca from Greer Road Quarry in Eaton, New York.” Second place went to Kaitlyn Thayer ’19 for her presentation on “Understanding Perceptions of Climate Change within Central New York’s Naturally Adaptive Apple Industry” for Environmental Studies. Third place went to Michael Wang ’19, who researched the “Inconsistent Incognito Mode: Exploring States’ Online Privacy Law Variance in the U.S.” for Government.
Christina Plakas ’19 took home the People’s Choice award for her thesis in Sociology on “The Revolution Will Not Come with Flowers: What Motivates Some Greeks to Join the High-Risk, High-Cost Anarchist Movement.”
Second-place winner Thayer said the experience of the competition was memorable. “Presenting was honestly really nerve wracking,” she said, “but I loved being able to share all the work I’d put in this semester with my friends, peers and community members. Plus it was so fun to see what people have studied and what they’re interested in.”
