{"id":4676,"date":"2019-05-18T12:35:13","date_gmt":"2019-05-18T12:35:13","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/blogs-staging.imperial.ac.uk\/student-blogs\/?p=4676"},"modified":"2019-05-18T12:35:13","modified_gmt":"2019-05-18T12:35:13","slug":"on-the-other-side","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/blogs-staging.imperial.ac.uk\/student-blogs\/2019\/05\/18\/on-the-other-side\/","title":{"rendered":"On the other side"},"content":{"rendered":"<p><span data-contrast=\"auto\">I can\u2019t believe it\u2019s already been a year since I participated in the\u00a0<\/span><a href=\"https:\/\/blogs-staging.imperial.ac.uk\/student-blogs\/2018\/04\/27\/180-seconds\/\"><span data-contrast=\"none\">Three Minute Thesis competition<\/span><\/a><span data-contrast=\"auto\">. According to tradition, the winner judges the contestants in the following year, so on Wednesday I had the honour to sit next to prominent science communicators and\u00a0<\/span><span data-contrast=\"auto\">watch excellent young scientists explaining their research in&#8230; three minutes<\/span><span data-contrast=\"auto\">.<\/span><span data-ccp-props=\"{&quot;201341983&quot;:0,&quot;335551550&quot;:1,&quot;335551620&quot;:1,&quot;335559739&quot;:160,&quot;335559740&quot;:259}\">\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span data-contrast=\"auto\">This year the Graduate School replaced the Three Minute Thesis competition\u00a0<\/span><span data-contrast=\"auto\">by the<\/span><span data-contrast=\"auto\">\u00a0<\/span><a href=\"https:\/\/www.imperial.ac.uk\/study\/pg\/graduate-school\/events\/scicommcomp\/\"><span data-contrast=\"none\">4Cs Science Communication Competition<\/span><\/a><span data-contrast=\"auto\">. Although the idea is similar, there are some differences:<\/span><span data-ccp-props=\"{&quot;201341983&quot;:0,&quot;335559739&quot;:160,&quot;335559740&quot;:259}\">\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n<ul>\n<li data-leveltext=\"\uf0b7\" data-font=\"Symbol\" data-listid=\"1\" data-aria-posinset=\"1\" data-aria-level=\"1\"><span data-contrast=\"auto\">Not only PhD, but also\u00a0<\/span><span data-contrast=\"auto\">MRes<\/span><span data-contrast=\"auto\">\u00a0students c<\/span><span data-contrast=\"auto\">ould participate<\/span><span data-contrast=\"auto\">.<\/span><span data-ccp-props=\"{&quot;134233279&quot;:true,&quot;201341983&quot;:0,&quot;335559739&quot;:160,&quot;335559740&quot;:259}\">\u00a0<\/span><\/li>\n<li data-leveltext=\"\uf0b7\" data-font=\"Symbol\" data-listid=\"1\" data-aria-posinset=\"2\" data-aria-level=\"1\"><span data-contrast=\"auto\">While Three Minute Thesis contestants could use only one static slides, this year almost everything was allowed: Power Point presentations, props and whatever else they\u00a0<\/span><span data-contrast=\"auto\">were able to\u00a0<\/span><span data-contrast=\"auto\">carry on stage.<\/span><span data-ccp-props=\"{&quot;134233279&quot;:true,&quot;201341983&quot;:0,&quot;335559739&quot;:160,&quot;335559740&quot;:259}\">\u00a0<\/span><\/li>\n<li data-leveltext=\"\uf0b7\" data-font=\"Symbol\" data-listid=\"1\" data-aria-posinset=\"3\" data-aria-level=\"1\"><span data-contrast=\"auto\">After the performance, judges had\u00a0<\/span><span data-contrast=\"auto\">two<\/span><span data-contrast=\"auto\">\u00a0minutes to ask questions.\u00a0<\/span><span data-contrast=\"auto\">I<\/span><span data-contrast=\"auto\">\u00a0really had to stay alert!<\/span><span data-ccp-props=\"{&quot;134233279&quot;:true,&quot;201341983&quot;:0,&quot;335559739&quot;:160,&quot;335559740&quot;:259}\">\u00a0<\/span><\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<p><span data-contrast=\"auto\">I could sympathise with all contestants as I had gone through the same experience. If someone ever claims that they don\u2019t get stage fright, I\u2019m pretty sure they\u2019re lying! No matter how often I speak in front of audiences, it\u2019s sill terrifying &#8212; but also fulfilling.<\/span><span data-ccp-props=\"{&quot;201341983&quot;:0,&quot;335559739&quot;:160,&quot;335559740&quot;:259}\">\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span data-contrast=\"auto\">Every single contestant did a great job, and I\u2019m not exaggerating here. They managed to explain engineering, biology or medicine to an ignorant mathematician, this is indeed a great achievement. However, we had to choose the excellent among the good. And there was a pretty clear pattern to what stood out.<\/span><span data-ccp-props=\"{&quot;201341983&quot;:0,&quot;335559739&quot;:160,&quot;335559740&quot;:259}\">\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n<ul>\n<li data-leveltext=\"\uf0b7\" data-font=\"Symbol\" data-listid=\"2\" data-aria-posinset=\"4\" data-aria-level=\"1\"><span data-contrast=\"auto\">Surprisingly many contestants decided to stick to slides, so the ones who used meaningful props caught our attention. On the other hand, props which didn\u2019t add anything new to the presentation had negative impact.<\/span><span data-ccp-props=\"{&quot;134233279&quot;:true,&quot;201341983&quot;:0,&quot;335559739&quot;:160,&quot;335559740&quot;:259}\">\u00a0<\/span><\/li>\n<li data-leveltext=\"\uf0b7\" data-font=\"Symbol\" data-listid=\"2\" data-aria-posinset=\"5\" data-aria-level=\"1\"><span data-contrast=\"auto\">A few students were brave enough to interact with the audience. This is always risky, especially with the clock ticking. And all contestants who tried managed it flawlessly!<\/span><span data-ccp-props=\"{&quot;134233279&quot;:true,&quot;201341983&quot;:0,&quot;335559739&quot;:160,&quot;335559740&quot;:259}\">\u00a0<\/span><\/li>\n<li data-leveltext=\"\uf0b7\" data-font=\"Symbol\" data-listid=\"2\" data-aria-posinset=\"6\" data-aria-level=\"1\"><span data-contrast=\"auto\">While presentations about the general research area were very interesting, I appreciated any information about findings and methods used by the presenter. Don\u2019t underestimate your research, as your everyday tasks might fascinate lay audience.<\/span><span data-ccp-props=\"{&quot;134233279&quot;:true,&quot;201341983&quot;:0,&quot;335559739&quot;:160,&quot;335559740&quot;:259}\">\u00a0<\/span><\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<p><span data-contrast=\"auto\">Not surprisingly, the laureates satisfied most of these, admittedly subjective, criteria. Alastair, Emmanuel and Leah, huge congratulations!<\/span><span data-ccp-props=\"{&quot;201341983&quot;:0,&quot;335559739&quot;:160,&quot;335559740&quot;:259}\">\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span data-contrast=\"auto\">All PhD and\u00a0<\/span><span data-contrast=\"auto\">MRes<\/span><span data-contrast=\"auto\">\u00a0students at Imperial, make sure you participate next year. I promise, you won\u2019t regret!<\/span><span data-ccp-props=\"{&quot;201341983&quot;:0,&quot;335559739&quot;:160,&quot;335559740&quot;:259}\">\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>I can\u2019t believe it\u2019s already been a year since I participated in the\u00a0Three Minute Thesis competition. According to tradition, the winner judges the contestants in the following year, so on Wednesday I had the honour to sit next to prominent science communicators and\u00a0watch excellent young scientists explaining their research in&#8230; three minutes.\u00a0 This year the [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1026,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[272456,127224,385,148187,299433,625],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-4676","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-272456","category-communicating-science","category-imperial","category-life-at-imperial","category-masters-2","category-phd"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs-staging.imperial.ac.uk\/student-blogs\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/4676","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs-staging.imperial.ac.uk\/student-blogs\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs-staging.imperial.ac.uk\/student-blogs\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs-staging.imperial.ac.uk\/student-blogs\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1026"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs-staging.imperial.ac.uk\/student-blogs\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=4676"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/blogs-staging.imperial.ac.uk\/student-blogs\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/4676\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":4677,"href":"https:\/\/blogs-staging.imperial.ac.uk\/student-blogs\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/4676\/revisions\/4677"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs-staging.imperial.ac.uk\/student-blogs\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=4676"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs-staging.imperial.ac.uk\/student-blogs\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=4676"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs-staging.imperial.ac.uk\/student-blogs\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=4676"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}