15-minute (elevator-pitch-style) presentation for PhD interview in RF/mmwave IC Design.

[melkord]

I am asked to give a 10-15 minute presentation that should cover about myself and my skill/studies which are related with the PhD position.
Many people suggested that I should present the achievements during my previous research, i.e, Master's Thesis.
This makes sense indeed.
There are many other suggestions like in here, here, here, and many other.

However, I did not make any publication out of my Master's Thesis in Analog IC Design and did not do tape out.
So, frankly speaking, I feel that my Master's Thesis is not outstanding.
I worked really hard though and learned things which I did not know before.
But, I still feel that they are still textbook knowledge, if you know what I mean.

Any suggestion how should I set my mindset to do this presentation?
What content should I cover considering my situation I mentioned above?

 

[barry]

Since you don't have specific "things" that you can hold up and say "I made this", you should focus on your abilities and talents, what your strong skills are, and how you have grown technically. You can still talk about some of the details of your thesis even though it didn't get built. There are plenty of people with PhDs who have hardly even touched a piece of hardware. (But don't be one of those.)

 

[c_mitra]

When we ask a candidate about his work, we know perfectly well that we must not expect some "outstanding" - this is your word, not mine- piece of work. Even if I do not understand very well what he has done, I focus on his presentation about these following points:

1. Can the applicant spell out clearly the objective and methodology of the work he has done?

2. Did he actually understand the design principles or the architecture of the project?

3. It is perfectly natural to seek help from others whenever you get stuck; what is the main purpose of the interview is the extent you have learnt.

"Man will occasionally stumble on the truth but most often he will pick himself up and proceed on"