Ten 1-Minute Viva Prep Tasks

Viva Prep!!!

Maybe you’re busy and overwhelmed, or don’t know where to start. Perhaps you only have a few moments in which you could get something done. Or simply you’re looking to be ready.

Here are ten tasks that will all help your viva prep, and each of which can be completed in a minute or less. Some are the first steps of bigger tasks, but can be compartmentalised and done to lay the foundations for future work:

1. Google and bookmark your internal examiner’s staff page.
2. Google and bookmark your external examiner’s staff page.
3. Send a message to a group of researcher-friends to see who would be willing to help with asking you questions for practice.
4. Stick a Post-it Note at the start of each chapter of your thesis.
5. Find the regulations for thesis examination for your institution (this page might make that task even quicker).
6. Find contact details for someone in your graduate school or doctoral college who could answer questions about the viva process.
7. Gather up a pile of Post-it Notes, pens and stationery to help with viva prep.
8. Sketch a basic calendar of the days between now and your viva.
9. Check out the Resources page of this site!
10. Write I DID THIS clearly on the abstract page of your thesis.

Simple searches and minor tasks all need doing – and only need doing once.

Viva prep takes more than ten minutes, but could begin idea number 10 – with clearly remembering and reinforcing to yourself that YOU have written your thesis. YOU did the work.

YOU are going to pass your viva.