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Month: May 2013

Nathan

Episode 18: Dr Anna Krzywoszynska

Episode, Podcast

In this episode I talk with Dr Anna Krzywoszynska, who completed her PhD in Human Geography at the University of Sheffield last year. Anna’s research was in organic wine production in Italy. It was really interesting to hear about how she did her research – something very different from my own research experience.

In the podcast, Anna mentions lists of questions that she used to help prepare for her viva, and she very kindly sent them through to me to share here. I’ve included them at the end of this post. If you have any questions or comments for this episode or any other, then please get in touch, either through the site, on Twitter (I’m @VivaSurvivors and @DrRyder) or by emailing me. I would love to hear from you if you would like to share your story on the podcast.

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Nathan

Episode 17: Dr Stacey Habergham

Episode, Podcast

In this first podcast after my house-moving hiatus I talk to Dr Stacey Habergham, who completed her PhD in Astrophysics earlier this year. Stacey did her research at Liverpool John Moores University, and is now a post-doc and outreach officer there as well. You can find Stacey on Twitter as @AstroHabs.

Stacey and I talked a bit about some of the outreach activities that she is involved with, and she very kindly sent through the following links!

If you’ve got questions or comments about the podcast then please leave them on the post, or email me – or get in touch via the site’s Twitter account: @VivaSurvivors. And please get in touch if you would like to share your PhD and viva experiences!

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Nathan

Restart!

Update

Hello all!

The last few months have been really busy for me: my wife and I bought our first house, we’re halfway through the pregnancy for our first child and I’m entering a busy period of work (May is always busy it seems!). So it seems like it’s about the right time to get the podcast going again. Coincidentally, I’ve had a lot of emails and tweets over the last week since Viva Survivors got a little mention in a Times Higher Education article about the viva* – so I’m hoping to record a few interviews over a couple of days and then edit in the evenings.

I’m very attached to the idea of continuing occasional podcasts on related topics – academic jobs and interviews with examiners to name two – and if you would like to contribute to those or the main podcast series then please get in touch! I would love to hear from you.

I’ve also started self-publishing books this year: Fail Your Viva is available in the Kindle Store, and will be available in some form soon as a print-on-demand paperback. I’m writing several other books at the moment, but I’m not currently planning another viva preparation related book for this year – although there are some ideas that didn’t quite fit in Fail Your Viva.

So: coming soon, more podcasts, more questions asked about the viva – and if you have any particular questions, maybe now is a good time to ask them. I can’t make promises, but maybe we can find some answers.

It’s good to be back 🙂

Nathan

*sooner or later I’ll try to blog about the article. I had mixed feelings about the picture it painted of the viva…