Practice makes perfect: a 3MT journey

This time last year, Katrina Jan, a PGR in the Department of English Literature, took part in the UoB 3MT competition and she shares her experience here. There’s still time to sign up if you’re interested in participating in 2024 – sign up here before 28 March.

Last year, I decided to challenge myself and throw myself to the lions by participating in 3MT. I went through many emotions whilst participating in the competition. From, “What am I doing?!” to “I can’t do this”, and then “Okay, maybe I can sort of do this”, “Oh no, definitely shouldn’t have signed up for this” and “Right, I’m doing this and I’m going to give it my best shot” and I’m so very glad I did.

The 3MT contest was a journey and a challenging one for me, especially with all my other commitments. I had just started a new research project on top of my current job at the University and alongside my role as a University Graduate School scholar, as well as the PhD itself and all my other extracurriculars, to say I was busy would be an understatement. To top it off I was battling a cold and a mouth ulcer by the time the 3MT practice heats had started, I was not feeling my best and barely had time to prepare.

Katrina’s 3MT performance in the finals

My first practice was not great, and I would probably go as far as to say that was probably one of the worst presentations I’ve given. A painful mouth ulcer and a stuttering performance with a judging panel staring at me, were not what I envisioned when I first signed up. However, the feedback I received from the judges was encouraging yet critical and helped spur me on for my next heat.

By the time my next practice heat came, I was cured, and had a little more rehearsal but by no means had I put enough time into it as I would have liked. Except I realised the night before, that this was in fact NOT A PRACTICE. It was the elimination stage. I wasn’t even off-script and although I was not ill this time, I was ill-prepared.

How I managed to get off-script for the next day is beyond me. I’m dyslexic and therefore my short-term memory is not great, so forgetting words is my speciality. However, my BA is in Drama and English, and my background prior was in Theatre and Performance, and whilst it had been nearly a decade since I had done a show, I tried to think of this as a performance.

I wrote my 3MT speech like a script and took out any jargon.

1. So, it would be easy to remember
2. A non-specialist audience could grasp what I was saying
3. See first point

This time I would be presenting at the 3MT Heats mouth-ulcer-free but sleep deprived. Nervous? Most definitely! The nice part? So is everyone else. The other contestants (although far less clumsy and more prepared than I) were so lovely and encouraging, that not for a second did I feel like we were competing against each other. Everyone gave genuinely positive feedback and the advice I was given from another contestant was:

• Practise
• Practise
• Practise

Once I had (by some miracle) got through to the Final, that’s exactly what I did.

I practised with the other contestants, PhD colleagues, to random undergraduates who wouldn’t leave the lecture hall and to the security guard who tried to kick me out of the lecture hall, and this made a huge difference to the way I presented. I didn’t expect to be runner-up against such brilliant contestants (some even became close friends), but if I somehow managed to pull this off, so can you.

for (you in PhD): “self-taught code” to “professional code”

In this post, Seb Gilbert, a PGR in Mathematics, introduces us to the “We Don’t Byte” PGR coding club and talks about the value he has found in setting up and contributing to the club.

More and more often, coding is becoming an essential skill in academic research. Whether you are in a subject closely related to the language of logic (such as me in Mathematics) or having to analyse large datasets in the humanities; being able to code can enable you to process, compute and visualise data in a matter of minutes which previously would have taken months.

The problem is that, for many, coding is often a lonely self-taught experience. Even for the few subjects which touch upon coding during their undergraduate degrees, you only skim the surface of the vast technicalities. Teaching yourself how to code is a valuable experience in itself, yet, it can only take you so far.

Before beginning your endeavour with code, you might have had an image of multiple black monitor screens, running lines of luminescent green text and progress bars showing how long you have until you’ve hacked into the nation’s secret database… okay maybe not the last bit but that’s what you see on TV or in films. However, the reality for many involves writing line after line of carefully typed code to only be rewarded with the dreaded “Error” message. I know in the office I share with other PhD students, the comparison between expectation and reality is more like this…

With this in mind, and inspiration taken from BlueBEAR’s Coding Club, we thought to start a PGR coding club, calling it “We Don’t Byte”. The idea was to understand how as PGRs we could a) share solutions that help reduce our frustration, and b) bridge the gap between writing self-taught code and professional code. Specifically, how can PGRs early on in their coding journey pick up the essential tools needed to write reliable and reusable code.

We first invited our friends and soon their friends would come along too. Starting within one School and then expanding across the College, we now have members spanning all across the University.

The sessions so far have included talks presented by PGRs (in topics such as “Code Structure” and “Version control with Git”), peer feedback sessions (such as our “Advent of Code code review”) and an interactive workshop on data visualisation, with invited lecturer Dr. Ilija Rašović. The sessions are all decided and organised by the club’s members, so if you had something in mind, then please let us know!

This is now a rare way that PGRs can gather, irrespective of academic subject, to share their enthusiasm and share their ideas. Setting this up has truly been gratifying and not only through the improvement in my own coding but how the club has found a way for PGRs to help one another. Finally, as I am coming to the end of my PhD, I have the confidence to search for jobs that involve coding in their description, with the knowledge that my skills are to professional expectations.

At the very least, I know that my coding experience now includes less expletives than it did before.

Promoting STEM for Britain

Paris Pasqualin, a PGR in the Department of Civil Engineering, was recently selected to be a finalist in a prestigious national competition designed to connect early-stage researchers with Members of the Houses of Parliament. In this post, he shares his experience.

As a finalist of the STEM for Britain 2023 poster competition, I had the opportunity to showcase part of my PhD project at the House of Commons on Monday 6 March 2023. My poster’s title was “ADDRESSING WATER AND FOOD SCARCITY THROUGH A NOVEL SYSTEM FOR GREENHOUSES, EXPERIMENTAL VALIDATION AND MODEL PREDICTIONS” and focused on a technology that can recover almost 100% of the freshwater required by greenhouses, thus representing a solution to water scarcity. This is important because globally, agriculture accounts for around 70% of annual freshwater utilisation.

Paris standing with his poster in the House of Commons.

This was my first poster presentation, so I did not know what to expect. After putting up my poster, I was struck by the chaos and noise created by people trying to overcome other people’s conversations.

I had some visitors from the industry who were interested in sustainable agriculture and found my work impressive, especially considering the UK’s tomato shortage after the high energy cost of greenhouses in Spain due to the colder weather and inflation. I also had the honour of being visited by the MP for Bristol West, Thangam Debbonaire, who found my research could benefit England since, excluding public water supply, East of England is estimated to require more than 60% of their freshwater for agriculture.

Once the judging session started, the chaos intensified even more. During the judging session, we were required to stand in front of our posters for an hour and a half and wait for the judges to come. The rules stated that we would be visited by at least two judges, but I received none until five minutes before the end of the judging session. The judges then rushed me to finish as quickly as possible. Considering that this was a competition, I believe that I was not treated fairly compared to other participants. For example, I noticed that one participant next to me discussed their research with one of the judges for 15 minutes.

I really hope that future participants will have only good memories from the event, and I sent an email to the organisers suggesting some rules to be considered, such as allowing the same time for every participant to present their work. They replied, saying that they will ensure that what happened to me will not happen again.

This experience taught me that we cannot always expect everything to go smoothly, and that when things don’t go as planned, it’s important to keep doing our best. Despite the turndowns, I found encouragement from the visitors who were interested in my research, showing me that my PhD is headed in the right direction.

3 lessons we can all take from 3MT

It’s nearly my favourite time of year! The University of Birmingham 3 Minute Thesis competition is coming up, and I really, really love it. It’s the point in the year where some of UoB’s brilliant PGRs share their research and their enthusiasm for it in three-minute presentations, and it always gets me how interesting and impactful all the research is and how engaging our PGRs are.

The UoB 3MT 2021 winner

If you want to participate in this year’s 3MT competition, there’s still time to sign up – the deadline for expressions of interest is Sunday 10 April. However, there are three key lessons I think all researchers can learn from 3MT, whether or not they participate.

Anything but daunting (once the viva started)

Diana Oliveira, a PGR from the Department of Mechanical Engineering, passed her viva before Christmas, and shares her experience and advice with us here. Congratulations to Diana!

Throughout my PhD, I have always been intrigued about the viva experience. Questions such as “Will I be able to remember all the details of my thesis to answer the examiners’ questions? What if what I have done is not to the examiners’ satisfaction?” did linger in my head, especially during the months prior to the viva. Regardless, the day where you finally defend your research is something to look forward, and such an experience stays with you forever.

Diana celebrating her viva success with her family.

My viva happened during the midst of the Coronavirus pandemic, in December 2021. The prospect of doing it online had never occurred to me before, but after almost two years of this pandemic, remote working and virtual meetings were the “new normal”. During my thesis submission, I was not sure if an online viva would be better or worse than an in-person experience; in fact, I had heard pros and cons of doing an online viva, so I was determined to not let myself be biased and approach it with an open mindset.

Survive & Thrive: Persuading, Negotiating & Influencing

Continuing her occasional series, “survive and thrive”, Katie Hoare from Careers Network explores a key skill sought after by employers in the post-COVID-19 world.  It’s likely that you are already developing and using these highly transferable skills in your research.

What

During a March 2021 PG Skills workshop, UoB PGR alum Rob Pilbrow provided a useful definition of each of these three inter-connected skills. Persuading is the ability to convince others to take a desired viewpoint or action; negotiating is the ability to discuss and reach a mutually satisfactory agreement; and influencing is the ability to effectively persuade and negotiate.

The peacock “persuades” the peahen he is a good mate

It is also important to emphasize what these skills are not. Proper use of persuading, negotiating and influencing should NOT be confrontational or antagonistic. It is not about arguing, forcing your will, harassing, pestering or using a power imbalance. Applying these skills should result in a positive, supportive, beneficial and evidence-based discussion, underpinned by an understanding of the person or people being addressed.

Online groups for international networking and collaboration

In this post, Joanne McCuaig, a distance learning PGR in the College of Arts and Law, explains how and why she set up online discussion groups using Twitter.

I’m a part-time, distance student in my 2nd year, in the department of English Language and Applied Linguistics. I’m a Canadian, living in South Korea, studying with a UK institution; I wanted to take advantage of any networking opportunities. First, I set up my Academic Twitter account – regular Twitter but used as a research profile to share about your skills and work.

I then decided to start two different student groups. I got the idea after attending an online conference that had breakout sessions for PhD students. It was energising to be able to share about our research, ask questions to others, and offer suggestions for literature, methods, or approaches.  A few months after the conference I contacted, via Twitter, a few of the students I’d “met” at the conference to ask if they wanted to continue the conversation. 

Presenting virtually

We’ve recently heard about attending virtual conferences, but what about presenting your research online?  Ciara Harris has recent experience of this, for the 3 Minute Thesis (3MT) competition and her Annual Progress Review (APR).  Here, she shares her experiences.

First things first, presenting virtually might have some additional challenges compared to ‘traditional’ presentations, but it has advantages too – there’s no travel time, so you can go straight from another project into your presentation (maybe grabbing a cup of tea in between), you can practice your presentation in the exact environment you plan to present in, and you can have chocolate on your desk ready for as soon as you turn your camera off after presenting!

 

Ciara’s 3MT – see all the finalists and vote for your favourite!

There are, however, some additional challenges.

How to Navigate an Online Conference

Kish Adoni, PhD student in the School of Biosciences, recently attended a two-week online conference hosted by The American Society of Mass Spectrometry (ASMS).  He shares his experience in this post.

What do you think about online scientific conferences?

Logo for the ‘Rebooted’ edition of the 68th ASMS Conference on Mass Spectrometry and Allied Topics

It’s weird! That’s the first thing I’d say. No more loitering around the confectionary section of a big hall, waiting to speak to a professor from another university whose papers sprawl across your office desk. There is also no chance of having one too many pints of Guinness and spilling your latest confidential scientific idea to another academic in your field. I suppose whether those things are a positive or a negative depends on personal preference, but one thing is for sure: online conferences are going to become more normal and the chances are that you will attend one.

So how do online conferences work?

Take away the need for expensive flights, food, hotels and transport and you are basically left with the bare essence of what a conference is for: exchanging knowledge with experts that work in the same spheres as you.

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