Grad Slam 2023: Perfection Not a Prerequisite

It’s often been said that the journey is more important than the destination—which is why for the 2023 UC Grad Slam season, UC Davis Graduate Studies is offering a more robust training schedule to help graduate students make the most out of this UC-wide competition.

UC Grad Slam is an annual contest where master’s and doctoral students across the University of California—in disciplines ranging from the hard sciences to the humanities—sum up their research for a general audience. Students are given three minutes and are allowed one slide to convey their topic. The top 10 online applications are selected to participate in the UC Davis Qualifying Round in Walker Hall on April 6, 2023. The winner of the UC Davis competition then participates in the UC-wide competition later in the spring quarter.

For the first time in the 2023 season, UC Davis Graduate Studies is offering a series of practice sessions starting in January. (See the 2023 Grad Slam practice session schedule.) The office also started hosting training workshops earlier in the fall quarter and has posted all recordings of past workshops online. Participation in past workshops is not a requirement to attend future trainings—all are encouraged to attend (See upcoming workshop schedule.)

Graduate Studies staff said they were motivated to make these changes for the 2023 season to let students know that perfectly polished presentation skills are not a requirement to participate in Grad Slam. Professional development experts are available to support any students interested in refining their presentation skills.

“Several students have mentioned to us that they didn’t participate in Grad Slam because they didn’t feel like they had enough experience presenting their research; but that is exactly the type of student who we want to participate in Grad Slam,” said Erum Abbasi Syed, executive assistant dean of Graduate Studies. “We want people to feel that participating in Grad Slam will be a good use of their time even if they don’t win a cash award at the end. Everyone who enters will have the opportunity to hone their skills.”

Staff added that this was a particularly important message to convey to students in the arts and humanities who feel the competition is only focused on scientific research.

“Grad Slam is an event that welcomes every graduate student,” said Abbasi Syed. “We want to make sure graduate students from every discipline at UC Davis know they are encouraged to participate.”

To help emphasize the importance of participation, Graduate Studies will also be offering $25 gift cards to the first 40 people to submit their full Grad Slam submissions. This includes finishing an application form on the Grad Studies website and submitting a video via the Grad Slam box link. Submissions for the UC Davis qualifying round are due by February 17, 2023.  

“We want students to feel welcome to come as they are,” said Abbasi Syed, “and know that we, at Grad Studies, are here to help support them as they try something that may be new and add to their professional skillset.”

For more information about Grad Slam, visit https://grad.ucdavis.edu/grad-slam.