Yes, I participated in the 3MT competition. If you do not know what the 3MT competition is about, it is a 3 minutes thesis competition that started at Queensland University, Australia. The intention or aim of this competition is for Ph.D students to be able to present their thesis to a wide range of audience within a limited time.

The moment I saw the opening for the competition, I was excited to participate but I was not sure I would be able to catch up to it due to too many activities I had on my list. As always, I was determined to try. However, I was not able to attend enough training and feedbacks that were organized by the doctoral college at Coventry University but I attended 2 sessions and presented during one of the sessions. The feedback session was very important because I got relevant feedbacks and opinions from both the organizers and other participants, this helped me in restructuring my content to fit the understanding of the audience.

I was glad to be amoung the finalists at the Coventry university finale. The news caught me unaware and I got really good feedback from other participants, lecturers and organizers of the competition.

One mistake I realised I made was that I was talking too fast during my presentation.

The key things I addressed in my presentation are

1. An engaging topic and introduction. I started my introduction by saying ‘spare the rod and spoil the child’. This is a popular religious phrase, however, I briefly explained the use of that phrase in my presentation. My advice is that when preparing for your 3MT, you should use a catchy topic and introduction.
2. I involved my personal experience in the presentation and I made the audience feel what the victim
3. The presentation was simple and straightforward. The presentation had a coherent and consistent flow by explaining why I decided to work on my thesis, what my research is addressing, the methodology that I used and that will be used, the importance of my research and who or what organisations it will be beneficial to.

I hope you enjoyed readng this and you have been able to have a broader understanding about the 3MT competition.

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