Advice from GRC Winners

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 “Definitely the first one would be to have fun with it, because if you’re not having fun, the audience won’t have fun with you.” 

 “Number one advice is definitely do it. This has been the thing that people have come back to me most about over my entire PhD. Someone even offered me a job.” 

 “Try and go back to your fresh self. Remember why you’re excited about this field or excited about this project, because there’s something that caught you. If you can capture that in your speech, that helps a lot.”

 “Keep it as simple as possible. Minimize jargon. Practice without a script. Try to finish with something strong and memorable.” 

 “Definitely be authentic.  I stumbled across some performances that were very theatrical. You get to chat with [other competitors] before the performances, and they came across as one person before the performance, and another during the performance. The audience knows that, so it’s always about the authenticity." 

“Be yourself. Know that this is your research. You are the expert in your research and you got this. Just go there and do what you can do. But then most importantly, practice and practice and practice, because practice is important.”

 “Practice. Practice makes perfect. It’s really the thing.” 

"I would say that the first thing would be to trust your gut. I took a leap of faith doing it in drag, and trying to combine drag with science, which I had never seen done before. I was very nervous, but it paid off. The second thing is to be comfortable being uncomfortable. Try to push yourself out of your comfort zone and try something new.”  

 “[The competition is] a very good exercise, especially as you start to progress as a researcher, pursue an academic career, even industry. No matter which way you end up going, the communication piece is never going to fail you, right?” 

 “It’s not important to explain every single technical detail of your work. What’s important is that your audience walks away with what you want them to walk away with. That requires a lot of personal reflection and sitting down with yourself and being honest about these three main points that I want my audience to walk away with.” 

 Just do it. The single most important thing that has helped me improve my communication ability is doing it over and over and over and over again. Because the first time is never going to be perfect.  It doesn’t matter if you get up there and you freeze for 30 seconds, you were up there and that’s something to be proud of."