Explain you grad thesis ... in three minutes
Graduate students spend years compiling research to write thesis papers of a hundred-or-more pages. On Wednesday night, they’ll have to whittle their findings down to three minutes.
During the Three-Minute Thesis (3MT), eight University of Regina students will present their research in an easy-to-understand way.
Getting there, though, hasn’t been so easy.
“When we’re writing a thesis, of course you want to explain yourself as fully as possible … and get down to all the details,” said psychology master’s student Katherine Mazenc. “Suddenly having to condense all of that into three minutes, I found really challenging.”
But she successfully provides the nuts and bolts in 180 seconds: Her research explores online therapy training for parents of children with anxiety.
Five to 10 per cent of children experience anxiety, and gradually exposing them to their fears can help them get over it.
“Say eight-year-old Jason has a fear of dogs. He might begin exposure with something small, like looking at a picture of a dog, and then gradually work up to scarier steps, maybe eventually petting a dog. The idea is that Jason receives support as he learns to face his fear,” Mazenc explained.
She hopes her thesis will result in a pilot project to help children with “low intensity” anxiety, beneficial for people who live in rural areas or can’t otherwise access a therapist.
The system would screen out patients who have higher needs — like children who have been diagnosed with post-traumatic stress disorder or obsessive compulsive disorder.
Mazenc isn’t the only student presenting on mental health.
Fellow psychology master’s student Nichole Faller is looking at mental-health disclosure in the workplace.
She was inspired by a friend, who once said, “I wouldn’t hide a diagnosis of diabetes, so why would I hide a diagnosis of postpartum depression?”
For her research, Faller returned to her 10-year employer, the CoOperators, where she surveyed 26 employees — 13 who had disclosed a mental illness to their employer, and 13 people who had been disclosed to.
She said 500,000 Canadians each day call in sick for mental-health reasons, which costs employers an estimated $6 billion, but disclosing illnesses can help reduce that cost.
She hopes to take her research to offices for hour-long sessions on mental health in the workplace.
“The bosses are saying they don’t know what to say to staff, so they can see that there’s symptoms … (but they’re) really struggling as well as to how to open up these conversations,” said Faller.
Luba Kozak’s research is something completely different.
Her interdisciplinary arts thesis explores “the complex relationship between humans and domestic animals” in English 17th and 18th century art.
She hopes her work can help “approach contemporary issues of animal rights from a new perspective: by looking to the past for answers about their future.”
“Animal rights, it’s a very contemporary issue, and I think looking to the past has a lot of answers that we can learn from and move forward,” she added.
The U of R 3MT takes place Wednesday, 7 p.m., in the U of R Riddell Centre ShuBox Theatre.
Other students’ research touches on antibiotic resistance, fictional love stories, and grasslands songbirds.
Three judges will award the winner, who will move forward to the regional competition in Saskatoon next month and receive a $1,500 scholarship.
The 3MT will be taped for broadcast on Access7.