Watch Winning Student's Elevator Pitch in UC 'Grad Slam' Contest

Not exactly an elevator pitch, but longer than a TED talk: That's one way to describe the student presentations we'll see at the University of California's Grad Slam finals, webcast live at 10:30 a.m. PT today.

The competition in its third year, pits against each other 10 graduate and Ph.D. students, one from each UC Campus, in a contest of who can give the best three-minute, jargon-free talk explaining their research. The participants have all won similar contests at their individual universities.

Meet your finalists …

The winner gets $6,000; second-place earns $3,000; third place $1,000. That should cover a few textbooks and lattes at, say, the University of California, San Francisco. (More so, perhaps, at UC Davis.)

This year, for the first time, an audience choice award will also be given; the winner of that will also get %1,000. So maybe whoever has the most friends watching wins that one?

Nah…

The competition is being held at LinkedIn's downtown San Francisco office. According to UC, “Participants will be judged on how well they engage the audience, how clearly they communicate key concepts and how effectively they focus and present their idea — all in 180 seconds or less.”

UC considers the contest a professional development opportunity, says Pamela Jennings, executive director graduate studies for the system's Office of the President.

“It used to be when people talked about getting a Ph.D. in particular, you thought about it only as a vehicle to pursue a professorship or teaching at a university or college level,” Jennings said. “And really our students come to graduate school with a mindset to do all sorts of careers, and it's particularly important that they have the ability to translate their [research] in a way that's relatable to others. We're seeing that's very critical on Read More ...

Source:: Future of You