What does it take to win the 3 Minute Thesis (3MT®) Competition? Insights from Basima Rashid, 2025 OVC 3MT® Winner

The 2026 3MT® competition OVC heat is quickly approaching, slotted to take place on April 1st from 2-4pm, in the Lifetime Learning Centre (room 1714). To better understand what to expect from this year’s competition, we looked to Basima Rashid, the winner of the 2025 3MT® competition OVC heat.

Basima Rashid is a graduate student with the OVC, completing her PhD in veterinary epidemiology. Her research focuses on engagement and retention of registered veterinary technicians in practice, which is what she presented on at last year’s 3MT® competition.

The 3MT® competition requires graduate students to present on their research in just three minutes. In that time, they must effectively summarize their research in plain language using only one-slide to represent their work.

In 2025, Rashid decided to present her work at the 3MT® competition on a whim – she saw a poster on campus, asked her advisor if she could compete, and the rest was history. “Looking back, I feel that the most challenging element of the 3MT® was the level of detail that I was expected to include in the short three-minute window,” shares Rashid, while adding that the most rewarding aspect of the 3MT® competition was learning to present her work in a way that almost anyone could understand.

This year, Rashid will serve as a student judge for the OVC heat of the 3MT® competition. As a judge, she will be looking for the student’s ability to connect with the audience, without coming across as over-rehearsed. She hopes to see that students can present their work in a concise manner with an enthusiastic and confident attitude. “Most of all, I hope that students competing in the 2026 3MT® competition will just have fun with it. Try not to stress too much, and just let your passion shine through in your presentation” says Rashid.

When asked how it feels to go from winning last year’s competition, to judging this year’s, Rashid stated “it just feels surreal, and exciting”. Rashid is the perfect example of an OVC graduate student success story – she seizes every opportunity she’s given, and makes the most of them.