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Month: July 2018

Nathan

Find Your Firsts

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Build your confidence by identifying your achievements from your PhD. There’s more than just your thesis. Reflect on the first time you…

  • …gave a seminar in your department. When was it? What did you talk about?
  • …delivered a talk at a conference talk. Where was it? How did it go?
  • …wrote the first draft of a chapter. What feedback did you get? What did you learn?
  • …networked. Who did you meet? What did you share?
  • …realised you were going to finish. When was it? What prompted that thought?

Find your firsts: these are key moments in your PhD. They plot out a fantastic journey that’s brought you to today.

Nathan

A STAR For Confidence

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A great way to build your confidence before the viva is to find stories from your PhD to inspire you. I’ve mentioned finding STAR stories in the past to point to specific skills or parts of your work, but the same four-point structure can help to build stories of talent generally.

Try using this process to find stories that help you. Answer the following four questions in success:

  • Situation: Find a situation or project that was challenging. How did it stretch you?
  • Task: Detail what exactly you had to accomplish. What were the specifics?
  • Actions: Lay out the sequence of steps you followed. How did you try to solve the problem?
  • Results: Clearly state the outcome. What happened in the end?

How you think about your PhD and your talent is a story. If you need to, find a new story, or several! Find stories that boost your confidence and lay out how you got your research done.

Nathan

All Post-its Great And Small

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Tiny Post-its are good for marking the start of chapters. You can clearly highlight where important parts of your thesis are.

Large, square Post-its help to expand on a point. Postcard-sized Post-its can be a brief summary of a key section or chapter.

Post-it Notes come in a variety of colours too! If you really want to you can think about some kind of way to code for different information. Different colours for different chapters, certain colours for certain kinds of work.

There’s a lot you can do to help annotate your thesis. A trip to the stationery cupboard is a good start.

Nathan

Unforgettable

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PhD graduates have rarely told me they’ve forgotten an important detail in the viva. Usually everything comes to mind when needed.

But nevermind others: if you’re worried that something important will slip your mind you can do things to help yourself. Just for starters:

  • Make notes, don’t just read and re-read your thesis.
  • Bookmark details, make it clear where you can find them.
  • Highlight important passages on pages.

Your examiners don’t expect you to commit three or more years of work to memory. The worry comes from you. The solution can too.

Nathan

Making A Cup Of Tea

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How do you make a cuppa?

I prefer it from a teapot, served in a cup with a saucer. I add milk after I’m sure it’s strong enough.

Most of the time though I make it in a mug, a couple of minutes steeping, quick stir, splash of milk, stir and take the teabag out.

I used to take two sugars! (can’t quite believe it)

And my mum often makes her tea in a cup but puts the milk in first, then the teabag and hot water. A great-aunt insisted you have to do it that way, to “scald the milk”.

The end result of these and so many other similar processes? A cup of tea. This one’s stronger, that one’s milkier, and some might not be to your taste at all, but they’re all undeniably cups of tea.

The most important question though is what does this have to do with vivas?

Some vivas are long, some are short. Some start with a presentation, while others are a long conversation from the start. Some will have an independent chair, some might have a supervisor present. Some people will relish the thought of their viva, some will tie themselves in knots for months in advance. Most will get minor corrections, some will get none.

And at the end of all of these variations you simply have a viva. Many possible differences, all producing something recognisable as the exam for the end of a PhD.

Nathan

A Stone In Your Shoe

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A little piece of grit just nudged your toe.

It’s a tiny pain, an annoyance, nothing serious but now you’ve felt it you can’t stop thinking about it. You have a choice:

  • Ignore it, just keep going. It’s a little thing and you can bear the discomfort.
  • Wiggle your toes. Push it to one side and wait ’til you’re done.
  • Take off your shoe. Bang the heel, see the stone fall to the back and pick it out.

Simply: you can ignore a little annoyance, spend the minimum effort to push it away or stop everything to resolve it. All three strategies have merit. All three can be applied to the end of your PhD, your viva prep and even in the viva.

  • Find a small mistake? Ignore it, make a note and fix it later, or drop what you’re doing and correct it.
  • Missing a reference? Ignore it, pencil it in your diary to sort out or go straight to your literature review and figure it out.
  • Critical comment in the viva? Ignore it, make a note and think about it, or ask your examiner for more so you can respond now.

There are pros and cons to all the approaches you can take when annoying little situations show up.

You have a choice about which one you pick.

Nathan

The End Is Nigh!

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I’ve met people who are doom-and-gloom because they’re near the end of the PhD. Typically this is because their viva is coming up, though there can be a host of reasons – general concern about examiners, wondering about corrections, worries about the future, and so on. It is worth spending effort to work on these issues. Figure out what’s troubling you, start to think about what you could do to work it out.

It’s also worth finding out more about general viva experiences and expectations. A lot gets said about the viva, not all of it good, not all of it true. Generally? The viva’s an interesting discussion about your work.

If you can find enough true stories of the viva, then perhaps other concerns might melt away.

Nathan

14,400 Seconds

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That was my viva. It sounds a lot, but it’s only four hours. Tick-tick-tick times 4800 and I was done!

I’ve met a handful of people with similar or longer vivas. Sometimes the viva is long, or can feel long, but often they just fly by no matter what the clock says.

And really: they don’t compare to the 20-something million seconds you’ve invested in your PhD.

Nathan

A Non-Trivial Pursuit

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Viva candidates pretty much have all the answers. That’s not because the viva is easy or the questions are predictable or because candidates can somehow prepare for every possibility. The viva’s not a quiz game.

Some questions in the viva might be trivial in the sense that they are easy for you to answer. The fact that something seems easy to you doesn’t diminish it in any way.

The viva generally is non-trivial. It’s not a game. Any ease you might feel with questions is down to your hard-earned talent.

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