Daily viva help for PhDs
Think about what might be good in the viva.
What are you looking forward to? And how could you try to make it happen?
There’s so many things that can be awful in the PhD.
Tight deadlines, fuzzy goals, abstract references, weird politics, bad supervisors, hard topics, vague questions, and a lot more…
And that’s the tip of the iceberg, the general postgraduate researcher problems. Some people have it much harder.
A lot could be good though. It might not all be, but as you get to the end of the PhD, when the viva is just around the corner, I’d encourage you to think about all you are grateful for from your time as a PhD. What opportunities did you have that you might not otherwise? What did you learn? How did you grow? Who helped you and how?
Being grateful can help shift your focus. If you’re feeling down about your work or the journey, look for the brighter stuff to help steer you into a positive place for your viva preparation.
Candidates often worry about “what they don’t know” but frame it as a nebulous fear that waits out of the corner of their eye… What they don’t know is something that examiners do know, and examiners are looking to use that against them perhaps. What they don’t know is unpredictable, unclear and uncertain. That makes it something to be afraid of.
It can seem unclear, but I think we can examine this more clearly by contrasting what you don’t know with what you do know.
What You Don’t Know
What You Do Know
Seth Godin has truly timeless advice on this sort of thing: you get to choose which list you focus on.
In this case, the second one is much, much more useful.
Confidence isn’t like flicking a switch. Confidence has to be fine-tuned by practice and experience. Confidence in your own ability can be dented by the importance of a big event (like the viva) and the nervousness that can come with it.
While I don’t recommend trying to “hack” your confidence or fake it, if you feel you need something to boost your confidence you could start with some of the following questions:
No tricks, no hacks, just questions. The answers might help you find a little more confidence for the viva.
I chatted to a PhD candidate recently about her viva prep.
“I don’t know where to begin,” she told me, “I’ve got so much material, so many questions I think about, and my examiners, my methods, my results – my life outside of my PhD! Where do I start?”
I could feel how overwhelmed she was. All she saw was more and more work. She hadn’t submitted yet, but was trying to plan her preparation. She hadn’t done her preparation but just thought about what her examiners would ask. Hadn’t been to the viva but was worried about managing her corrections.
I told here what I would tell anyone in this state: you have to treat all of these as distinct stages of the PhD. Get your thesis done before you start to prepare; prepare before you start obsessing about “what if’s”, and so on.
If it helps, map out the different stages on index cards. Limit yourself to focus on the task though, to really put boundaries on how much effort you sink in:
If you’re still writing, then map out the different stages on four cards. Focus on the first one, getting your thesis finished, and only start on the next one when you’ve reached the end of your thesis writing. Start your path to the end, but only go one step at a time. That’s all you need to do.
A Bank Holiday PhD Craft Project.
You need a jar, some small pieces of paper and decorations: fun stickers, labels and so on.
Stick a label on the outside that proudly says, “I, Future Doctor insert last name here, am Awesome!”
On the pieces of paper write things that have been awesome during your PhD so far, one thing per slip. When have you succeeded? What have you done that has been cool? When did you get the right answer? When did you master a skill or process? When did you make a breakthrough? When did you do something well? When did you feel proud?
Put all the slips in the jar, and put the jar somewhere prominent in your workspace.
From now on, when you do something awesome, write it on a piece of paper, add it to the jar and shake it up.
If you find yourself having a tough day, feeling unsure, losing confidence – particularly close to submission or the viva – take a slip out to remind yourself how great you are.
Because you are great. You have to be, to be doing this.
You don’t get to submission and the viva without filling your jar full of awesome.
(big thanks to an idea I read in Tim Ferriss’ Tribe Of Mentors for this post!)
It won’t be perfect.
Accept that, listen, then:
Just get them all done!
There’s always something. “No corrections” means your examiners didn’t see the typos! Nearly everyone is asked to do something to help make their thesis better. Smile, say thank you for the help, get the corrections done and then move on.
(more short viva-related haiku posts here!)
Both have a place in shaping your expectations of the viva.
Stats can give you an outline, a pencil drawing that is a reasonable shape of the viva experience.
Stories can help to colour in that picture, give you details to help you see what vivas are like and how they feel.
Both have a place: your outline might vary a little, you might paint with different colours, but listening to stories and putting them together with the statistics for viva experiences should give you a useful blurry picture for your viva.
Squint and maybe you’ll see your future! Ask for advice, ask to hear about experiences, and then see how they make sense with where you are. No-one needs to go to their viva with a blank page for expectations.
I have failed many times.
Three years ago I spent a lot of effort and time developing an independent viva preparation workshop. I found a great venue and booked it three times upfront. I spent a lot of time and money making resources, promoting the events, and I got a lot of attention from people who said it was a great idea. Dozens of people expressed interest in going.
Then only four people came to the first session.
Only one person came to the second.
I cancelled the third session a few days before it was due to happen. No-one was signed up. Months of work and thousands of pounds. The idea just didn’t connect. It wasn’t what people wanted, or maybe I didn’t find a way to explain what it was.
In any case, my independent viva preparation workshop project had failed.
I remember during my PhD I spent months of time (thankfully not thousands of pounds) on calculations to prove something I thought was true. Hundreds of hours, hundreds of sheets of paper and in the end, I didn’t get the answer. I couldn’t find the answer. I couldn’t show that I was on track or that I had gone wrong.
I had failed in my research.
For some time, in both cases, I felt bad. I had failed, I hadn’t done what I set out to do.
But in both cases, I realised, I didn’t have nothing. For my PhD, I still got a chapter in my thesis. I was able to show the limits of calculating things in a certain way. I was able to improve on what was known previously. I didn’t have a final answer, but I had some new questions. I couldn’t tell you what happened in every case, but I was able to show some new examples.
My independent workshop idea didn’t work. That’s OK. It pushed me to do more and do better. I made lots of new resources, was able to share them, and started thinking about different ways I could deliver the session in universities. Ultimately that failure lead me to doing this daily blog. If I hadn’t explored the independent session, this blog wouldn’t be here.
Now, all of this isn’t simply looking for silver linings, or making lemonade from life’s lemons: it’s honestly reflecting that failures can still lead to later wins. Just because something didn’t work out the way you wanted, doesn’t mean you’ve got nothing.
So think: what didn’t work out in your PhD the way you wanted? What did you get even though you didn’t get the victory you were perhaps looking for? How could you communicate that to your examiners?
How can you convince yourself too?
There are always some. For the viva think of them as exceptions to the expectations…
That last one was me. Totally unexpected, not unpleasant or terrible, just different. At the time I didn’t have either knowledge or experience to know it was out of the ordinary. I’ve never met anyone else who has stood for their whole viva.
There was a reason for why my viva happened that way: I was asked to give a presentation, and I stayed at the blackboard.
There are reasons for all of the exceptions; they don’t just happen, particular circumstances lead them that way. Not all exceptions to the rule can be seen in advance, but some – like the make-up of your examining group, or being asked to give a presentation, or doing the viva over videochat – can be. In all of those cases, there are rules and regulations for what happens.
Expectations for the exceptions.