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Month: February 2020

Nathan

3 Questions To Ask Your Supervisors Before Submission

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Viva preparation starts after submission, but the right questions – asked in advance – can help you submit well and set up your success in your preparation and viva. Before submission, ask your supervisors the following and build on these in discussion:

  1. Who do they think would be good examiners and why? Many supervisors invite opinions from students; final decisions rest with supervisors. You could offer ideas, but understanding the criteria they are using (or the names they are choosing) can give you confidence for the process and useful information.
  2. In advance of submission, what constructive feedback can they offer of your thesis? Make the most of this. Use their thoughts to help how you communicate your research.
  3. What are some of the trickiest areas they see candidates struggling with in the viva? Generally, what questions or topics do they see problems with? Or what are topics that they see as perfectly natural to talk about, but which candidates might not prepare for?

These questions will not paint the whole picture for your thesis, your preparation or the viva. They will be a good start. You can trust that your supervisors want you to pass, and want to give you appropriate assistance.

Use these discussions to help your submission and state of mind as you head towards the viva.

Nathan

Three Word Reflections

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Reflection is useful in many areas of life. It takes time though, and good reflection takes a lot of time. You can start small. Try taking three words, just three associations you have with whatever you want to reflect on. For your viva, this could be helpful in a lot of ways.

  • What three words come to mind when you think about your thesis? Why?
  • What three words do you think of when you think about your examiners? Why is that?
  • What three words describe your methods? Why?
  • Think of three words to summarise your bibliography? Why are those so important?
  • What three words would describe how well prepared you are? What do you need to do?

Three words can start a reflection. Typically ask yourself “Why?” to dig deeper. Maybe that leads you to a slightly better understanding. Perhaps you have to do something now. Three words is just a starting point, but you can go a long way.

What three words do you associate with your forthcoming viva? Why?

Nathan

Start With Your Calendar

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Let’s say you have a month before your viva. You know you need to do something to get ready, but there’s lots packed into that something (reading, making notes, talking and so on). You have a life too, maybe a job and other responsibilities. Lots to juggle before you start preparing for your viva as well.

So start with your calendar:

  • Sketch the month on paper, every day between now and the viva.
  • Cross out every day when you know, realisitically, you can’t get anything done – where you couldn’t sit down for at least thirty minutes.
  • Cross out any day where you feel you just won’t want to do prep; it’s not wrong to take time off and better to be honest about it!
  • Mark down days where you have other big commitments. Maybe you could still fit in an hour’s reading or thirty minutes of thinking and making notes, but you know you have to schedule it.
  • Pay attention to any days that look “free” – days where you could comfortably schedule productive viva preparation work.
  • Look to the closest date with a bit of freedom. That’s your start date. What will you do there? What would start you off well?

Start with your calendar to be honest about how much time you have. Compare it to your list of something to get a handle on all the things you will do to get ready.

Start!

Nathan

Are You Ready?

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There’s always a thought that you could do more.

  • One more experiment before you write up.
  • One more section before the chapter is done.
  • One more paper to check or question to answer before your viva.

Before you ask yourself if you’re ready, maybe ask if you’ve done enough.

Before you ask yourself if you’ve done enough, maybe define what enough would be.

Enough research, enough of a thesis, enough prep for the viva.

Decide on enough, so you can confidently answer “am I ready?” when the time comes.

Nathan

It Was Fine

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So many people told me this about the viva before my own, or have told me since about theirs. For most people it’s the simplest way to say something about their viva. But there’s no detail, and in the absence of information, doubts and worries can creep in and play for future candidates who simply hear, “It was fine”…

  • “Fine… So only OK? What happened I wonder?”
  • “Well they passed, but still…”
  • “What do they really mean?”

If you want to find out about vivas, ask for details. You don’t need a minute-by-minute breakdown. You need more than “fine” to make a useful set of expectations and banish worries.

If you’re asked about your viva, give details. Tell candidates how long it was, what surprised you, what questions stood out, what the process was like.

Show them it was fine, don’t simply tell them it was.

Nathan

A Valentine For The Viva

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A sappy rhyme

A silly card

Could never really say…

So little time

Easy or hard?

One important day!

 

A great big book

A lot of work

And now it comes to this…

Another look

No way to shirk

A date you cannot miss!

 

A thousand days

Or maybe more

And by that time you’re steady…

So many ways

And none a chore

And then you can be ready.

 

It’s not easy

You could worry yet

But you’re a survivor.

This poem’s cheesy

But I’d bet

That you’ll pass your viva.

 

It’s not one in a million, Cupid’s Arrow, or a lightning bolt that doesn’t strike twice.

Consistently you’ve done good work. You can do that one more time for your viva.

You might not love it, but you’ll survive it!

Nathan

Inventing New Questions

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You had to ask original questions to find the original contribution in your thesis. You had to do something new and different. What was it? What did you ask that was new? What were the answers or ideas that you found?

Now, to make the viva happen, your examiners might have to invent more new questions. Predicting viva questions isn’t simple or easy, but finding people who can ask you new questions, questions you’ve not been asked before, can be useful. Get your supervisors and colleagues to ask you questions so you can practise responding.

You built your contribution on new questions. Now cement your confidence with them too.

Nathan

Every Little Thing

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The success you’ll find in your viva is cumulative. It’s built on top of everything you’ve done over the last few years.

It’s not an all or nothing, once-in-a-lifetime event. You’re there because of every little thing (and quite a few big things) that you’ve done well, got right and been amazing at over the course of your PhD.

Find your confidence for your viva in all of your other successes that have come before.

Nathan

Solve The Right Problem

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Early last year, I was sharing my Viva Survivor session to a dozen people in large room. It was a cold day outside but a warm room thanks to the heating. The session got off to a good start after introductions and sharing the outline, and I was moving on to the first topic.

I’d not been talking for long, when a tremendous noise started up from the windows at the far side of the room. Really loud, regular banging, like construction workers fixing scaffolding. After a minute we all realised it couldn’t be that, it was going on for too long. So we looked around outside for the cause of this terrible banging but couldn’t see anything. With nothing in sight and nothing to do we just tried to ignore it.

I presented for another hour before our break. The noise was still going. My voice was hoarse and all our ears were aching.

So I went to check and couldn’t see anything again. And it was only then that I realised that the noise sounded like it was coming from outside…

…but was actually coming from near the windows. From the radiator. A regular banging noise was vibrating outwards from the radiator, shaking the metal window frames.

And was silenced by turning a valve on the base of the radiator’s pipework. The room laughed and cheered! Then we all groaned as we saw how simple the solution had been; we could only have resolved it when we knew the real problem.

Keep this in mind for your viva: if your examiners have a criticism, or think there is a problem, make sure you know what it is before you start to respond. Ask questions to get more information or to find out their reasons. Sometimes you might know what to do. But other times you might need a little more to then simply turn the valve off at the base of their concerns.

The viva isn’t a one-way Q&A. Engage with your examiners to respond to all of their questions as well as you can.

Nathan

The Best Of The Best

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It’s awards season. Great movies, shows, actors, directors, writers are all in competition. Five great people are up for this award, who will win?! Ten movies could all get that award – except, they can’t, only one can. Not just the best, but the best of the best.

Of course, PhD candidates don’t compete that way, not for their viva, not for their PhD, but language and mindset creep in.

You have to be better than good, better than great, you have to be perfect, you can’t make mistakes, you can’t go blank, you can’t slip up, you have to be better than anyone else!!!

To which I say, simply: no.

For the viva, for your PhD, you only have to be good. You have to be your best. Everything else is doubt and worry. We can’t sweep it away by saying “don’t worry.” You don’t have to focus on it either. Be your best. Be as good as you’ve become by the end of your PhD. Keep going.

And eventually, cross the stage and claim your prize.

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