Verbs
Endure or enjoy?
Fear or focus?
Survive or thrive?
You may not have total control over how you feel about the viva, but you can steer yourself.
Choose your verbs carefully.
Month: January 2018
Three Useful Lists
Make three lists for the viva:
- Things You Want Your Examiners To Ask You About
- Things You Want Feedback On
- Things You Do Not Want To Discuss
And then, of course, for every item you’ve listed, the first follow-up question is “Why?”
- Why do you want your examiners to ask questions about X, Y or Z? (are you proud, happy to share more, just plain enthusiastic?)
- Why do you want feedback on this? (you’re intrigued, you want to see how it’s come across, you want to develop it more?)
- Why do you want to avoid this? (you think it’s bad, you find it difficult to talk about, you’re sure there’s a problem?)
Reading and refreshing your memory helps. Reviewing your work helps more.
In The Moment…
…it’s possible that you forget something.
…it’s possible you don’t understand something.
…it’s possible that you realise something.
…it’s possible that you think about something.
…it’s possible that you doubt yourself.
…it’s possible that you convince your examiner.
…it’s possible that you know something no-one else does.
…it’s possible that you’re the expert.
…it’s possible that you’ve made a mistake.
…it’s possible that you’ve got the answer to that unexpected question.
There’s a non-zero probability of all of the above. They can depend on a lot of things, but there’s a chance they all could happen, good or bad. Focus on some and you can find help, focus on others and you’ll only find distraction. You get to choose what you focus on, and what you do as a result.
Remember: it’s impossible to get to the viva without doing the work. You’re the reason you’ve got this far.
Fill In The Blanks
Who could you send this to? (after completing it of course)
Hi ______________________
My viva is coming up soon and I need your help please!
I feel _______________ about my viva because _______________________________________ . I was wondering if you could help me by ______________________________ ?
I know that you’re busy, but I also know that you’ll be a great help because _______________________________________________ . If you’ve got a lot on and can’t help, I’ll understand. If you can help, then let me know what will work for you.
If you’re free soon maybe we could chat about it over coffee at ____________________________ !
Thanks for reading, speak soon,
__________________________
Maybe your supervisor? Maybe a colleague? Your office-mate? Best friend? Think carefully about why someone could be a big help to you, and tell them.
Or maybe it’s useful just to write down and get out of your head that second short paragraph: how you feel about your viva, why you feel that way, and what steps could help.
Breezy
The wind blows. That’s what it does. Some days it’s fast, some days it’s a gentle breeze, and some nights it sounds like it is bringing the end of the world. Depending on the situation I might wear a coat, bunker down, pick up the bins in our garden, or just go for a stroll and try to smile as my hat flies off.
Experiences shape perceptions and responses.
Back to the blog about viva help!
The viva is questions. Questions about your work. And you’ve been asked questions before. Maybe not this or that, but you’ve been asked questions. And you’ve answered them. You know how to deal with difficult questions about your research. You know how to explain your work. You know how to think around your research area.
You can worry about a unique or novel situation, but you can also still prepare for it. You did the work, you wrote your thesis, you can succeed in the viva.
Helpful
Every now and then I look at the stats for the blog to see which of my posts have helped or resonated. Here are the ten most read posts from 2017:
- First Thoughts
- 9 Questions For The End Of The PhD
- Hierarchy of Worries
- Six Whys
- Who’s In The Room?
- Your Greatest Hits
- Cheatsheet
- Who’s Who
- Six More Whys
- The Perfect Thesis
There’s a mix of practical advice about preparation, reflections to get a candidate thinking and also discussion about examiners and worry. I’ve written on these themes a lot more on the blog, so you don’t have to look far beyond these posts to find something useful.
It’s also interesting because it gives me a perspective on what people find helpful and worth sharing. I’m really grateful whenever I see that someone has posted a link to one of my posts. The fact that these are the most read will help me to think about how I can do more to help people feel ready.
There’s lots of help on this blog, but there’s also lots of viva help elsewhere. Figure out what you need to feel ready and go looking.
Three Whens
It’s easy to forget the great stuff in the hustle and bustle of getting to submission and the viva. Draw on your past to remind yourself, if you need to, just how good you must be.
- When did you give your best presentation during your PhD?
- When did you have your biggest breakthrough or realisation?
- When did you have your best conversation with someone about your research?
The highlights of your journey are assets you can use in your prep. Don’t forget.
The 99th Percentile
“Excuse me, can you reach that?” Usually, yes. I’m six feet and four inches tall and in the 99th percentile for height in the UK. I didn’t have to work on it much, it just happened.
PhDs don’t just happen. Nobody gets onto a PhD programme, or gets through one, by being lazy or unskilled. You have to know things and you have to do things. Yet you compare yourself to others and you grow to doubt yourself. The viva comes around and you wonder, “What will the examiners think? What will they ask? How will they rate me?”
There’s a background fear in some candidates that examiners are just better. And not in a small way. “Examiners are at the 99th percentile!”
They’re six feet four, looking down on you.
Right?
I’m not so sure. It matters what you measure. Does it matter, assuming that it’s true, that your examiners are at the 99th percentile? Are you being examined on your total knowledge of your field? And if you were, wouldn’t you comfortably be in the top 90% or higher?
And what percentile are you at when it comes to more than your field? Where are you when it comes to you niche? When it comes to your research? Your thesis?
Your examiners may know a lot, and they may have experiences and knowledge that you don’t – but they don’t have YOUR knowledge and YOUR experience, or YOUR considered perspective from years of study.
GROWing a Plan
I was reminded earlier this month of the coaching tool GROW, and how useful it can be to start conversations that help people change.
- Goal: what is it you want?
- Reality: where are you now?
- Options: what could you do?
- Will: what will you do?
When I heard this again a little thought started to form about the kinds of questions that relate to these words. I was at a three-day workshop on leadership, and as my friend described GROW to the participants it struck me that this could also be a neat framework to help someone prepare for their viva.
- Goal: what does prepared look like for you? What are you working towards?
- Reality: how much time will you have available? Who could help you?
- Options: given your resources, what could you do to be ready? And what do you not have time for?
- Will: how are you going to make time for what you need to do? When will you get the work done?
A short, four-step sequence for figuring out options or a plan for viva prep. There’s no sense in making a plan that won’t work for you.
It doesn’t need to take long to get to work.
Strikethrough to Simple
The viva is not a mysterious unknown cobbled together from the worst-case scenarios that keep you awake at night about your research. There are regulations and best practices, a structure that rests on and comes from your own work. It’s not thrown together in the moment or something that jumps out of left field. Yours will be unique, but based on a common structure with others, and if you ask the right people the right questions then you can prepare for it.
Vivas don’t just happen. You can learn about them and prepare for them.
Effective preparation is based on a continuation of the types of work you must have done throughout your PhD. The kinds of work that create good research are the kinds of work that will serve you well on the run up to the viva. Asking questions and making summaries, finding opportunities to discuss your work and answer questions, making space for deep thinking – all will be valuable, you just apply them a little differently.
You know all the stuff that you did to do your research? Keep doing it.
A PhD thesis can vary in size wildly between disciplines, and academic language in your field may allow for or necessitate a grandiose usage of words, sentences and other meaning-bearing symbols. But you don’t need to focus on every single word in order to feel fully prepared for your viva voce: what if you took some parts of your work and actively crossed things out, leaving only the most important and needed ideas? Do you need everything, or would it be good to strikethrough and make it simpler? Would that be an effective tool for you in order to help figure out what matters most? There could be a great freedom in doing it – although perhaps you might want to use a separate copy of a chapter to help, rather than obliterate parts of your thesis!
Strikethrough to simple: cross things out and leave the most important material. But maybe use a spare printout!