Student Competitions

PSU’s Launch-in-9 capstone program provides a real-world learning experience that helps technology and business students gain the skills and working business knowledge they need to succeed in today’s competitive job market and startup community — while meeting PSU graduation requirements. Whether you’re interested in pursuing entrepreneurship or a career in product or business development, Launch-in-9 can jumpstart your successful future.

Launch-in-9 is a joint program of the Maseeh College of Engineering & Computer Science and The School of Business. Through a nine-month process, collaborative teams of engineering and MBA students explore and develop potential business and product ideas, following the highly relevant lean startup methodology utilized by thousands of successful companies worldwide. 

MBA students are eligible to participate.

Take your cleantech innovation from concept to reality while learning from Oregon entrepreneurs, cleantech experts and investment professionals.

The Three Minute Thesis is a research communication competition designed to help students develop presentation skills by consolidating their research and presenting it succinctly to a non-specialist audience, all in just three minutes. The Three Minute Thesis (3MT®) is an academic competition developed by The University of Queensland, Australia for Masters and Doctoral students. 3MT began in 2008 and has since spread to 80 universities in a dozen countries.

The ACG Cup® case-study competition provides MBA, graduate and undergraduate finance majors an opportunity to solve a real-world issue in a high-pressure setting. Students are challenged to find solutions for a finance-related case in the field of mergers and acquisitions, investment banking, financial advisory and private equity. After the teams analyze the case and agree upon a course of action, the students make presentations to a panel of judges comprised of successful corporate executives in the field of finance.

The CFA Institute Research Challenge is a global competition held every year. Students have hands-on mentoring and intensive training in equity research and financial analysis. It provides students with an opportunity to meet and mingle with the best and brightest of their peers and get direct exposure to wall street professionals. PSU has participated in the competition for a number of years and once made it as far as the semifinal round for the Americas.