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Month: March 2021

Nathan

Solved

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Outside of maths, solutions can sometimes be tricky to find.

  • There isn’t a solution for the problem of how to best prepare for the viva.
  • There isn’t a never-fails approach to responding to a question from one of your examiners.
  • There’s no perfect format for opening your viva with a fantastic summary of what’s in your thesis.

There are, however, lots of approaches that might work for all of these for you. You need to sit back, think about your needs, your research, your situation – and your solution will present itself.

  • Your way for getting ready: the plan you need, the tools you require, the space only you can make. Your solution and nobody else’s.
  • Your way for responding to questions in the viva. Not standard scripts but your thoughts put into words. You are the only one who can respond to your examiners’ questions.
  • Your way of summarising the years of work that makes up your research, your thesis.

You have the solution to all of your problems. Advice and expectations help – but if you solved the problems you found along the way through your PhD, you can solve any and all problems you find around your viva.

Nathan

The Whys of Prep

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Read your thesis to refresh your memory, not commit it to photographic recall.

Make notes in the margin or highlight sections to make things stand out; don’t seek to find problems or more to add to your thesis.

Read recent papers or your examiners’ publications to build your competence, not to expand your bibliography.

Have a mock viva to rehearse for your own, not to predict or perfect your approach.

Preparation is not about perfection at all. It’s about finding confidence in what you’ve done already; being sure that you’ve already reached a point where you are good enough.

Lots of work, a little prep and you are ready for the viva.

Nathan

Repeating

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Repeating.

You’ll probably be doing this in the viva. Saying similar things to what you’ve said or thought before. Rehashing old arguments and reasons. That’s OK – the viva is about exploring what you did and what you can do, so there’s bound to be an element of covering old ground (for you).

You need to do this in preparation of the viva too. Reading your thesis again, checking old notes and making new ones that summarise points. Checking papers you’ve read. Rehearsing with friends or supervisors the kinds of things that you might say in the viva itself. That’s to be expected.

But you could be repeating all through your final year too. Carefully, calmly repeating to yourself: I’m doing this. I’m good enough. I succeeded when I did X. I did something important when I finished Y. This chapter is good. I’m good. I’m good enough.

Repeating to yourself that you’re good enough isn’t magic or wish-making: it’s repeating the truth. It’s a reflection of yourself. Repeat the truth of how you’ve got this far, and you’ll find the confidence you need for your viva.

 

(this is a message I share a lot in my work, but let me know if you need to hear it again)

Nathan

Mismatch?

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I don’t know what I will do if my viva is four hours long!!!

You could ask for a break… And most vivas aren’t that long.

Ahhh, but when the examiners ask me really mean questions what if they won’t give me time to think???

They’ll ask questions but they won’t be mean. Questions might be tough, but they will definitely give you time to think.

And another thing: I’ve spent three years on this, what if they ask me to complete corrections????!!!!

Most people are asked to complete corrections. Most of the time they don’t take too long to do.

 

I’m not being flippant: viva worries and concerns are legitimate and they need to be addressed. In my experience a huge part of worries about the process of the viva comes down to a mismatch between personal expectations of candidates and general experiences in the viva.

You could have an idea about what the viva is like that is radically different from the experience of the viva. You won’t know until you find out more. If an expectation for your viva is troubling you then check it with some friends, colleagues or your supervisor.

  • They may simply say, “That’s not so common.” That won’t dismiss the worry completely perhaps, but it will start the process of working past it.
  • They might say, “Well, actually, yes, that does happen a lot.” In that case you can still start the process of working to where you need to be.

Being worried won’t help you though. Worry is the first thing. You have to work your way to a better place.

Nathan

Video Viva Prep

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Let’s keep it simple.

  • Check the regulations and requirements for your institution. Find out who will organise the viva, what platform you will use and the procedure for a video viva.
  • Practise using the tech. Check you can use the software, so you know where the buttons and options are. At the same time check your wi-fi and internet connection are up to the task.
  • Consider where you will be for your viva. You may have a regular workspace, but that might not be the best place to have your viva. Think about light, think about quiet and consider your options. There won’t be a perfect place, but there will be a best option.
  • Rehearse using the tech. Practise means knowing how the software operates. Rehearse means investing time to simulate the experience of being in the viva with your examiners. Do this to get confident in your ability to manage the practical elements of that situation.
  • Let go of the idea of a video viva being “wrong”. Put to one side the idea that it would be better to have your viva in-person, in your department, around the seminar table at the end of the corridor.

These points are all simple. The last one, however, might not be easy.

Nathan

Still Interesting Times

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A year ago, just before the first UK lockdown, I wrote “Interesting Times” – an extra post for March 16th, recognising that difficult change was coming hard and fast.

A year later, it feels like that change has never stopped.

It’s strange to read that I thought I would be working from home and doing webinars for “a few months”. That became a year. That will most likely be the rest of this year too. And that’s fine.

In the UK we have dates in the diary for the coming months when restrictions might lift and things could change. They’re all provisional though, and things could change again – conditions in the autumn or winter might make things harder for many people once more.

A year ago I wrote this:

I’m going to continue to publish and share a post every day about the viva. I don’t know how vivas will change, temporarily or otherwise, but I know what examiners are looking for, I know what candidates can do to meet the challenges of a viva, and I can help people to see the kinds of work or ideas that can help them be ready.

If you are struggling, ask someone for help. Ask me: email me, tweet at me, and if I can I will help. I may not have an answer that solves things for you, but I’ve helped a lot of people. If you need to, just ask.

In and amongst everything this last year, that’s stayed the same. It’s no silver lining that the interesting times of the last year have opened interesting doors for me to connect with PhD candidates, but within all the chaos I am grateful for the opportunities I’ve had to help. I’m grateful for more time with my family. I’m grateful to friends and colleagues I don’t get to see in-person any more who do amazing work to support researchers and inspire me to do more.

I finished Interesting Times by writing:

Ask for help if you need it. Offer help where you can.

Survive means “manage to keep going in difficult circumstances.”

Keep going.

Let me reframe: get in touch if you need help. Help your friends, family and colleagues. Survive, keep going.

Pause, reflect, reset – change tactics if you need to – but keep going.

Nathan

A Good End

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I’m a little wistful lately, remembering the final days of my PhD.

Not my viva, not corrections, but those last few days when I was packing things up. It is late-summer 2008. My office-mates are either on holiday or have heads down trying to get things done while the campus is quiet.

I had stacks of papers I’d never read, filed away into a box where they remain never-read. Notes for ideas that I thought I might get to, which stayed filed away until a few years ago when I recycled them. Drawers with odds and ends, emptied out now into containers so they could be sorted.

There was no celebration though; no marking of the occasion by me or anyone else. We’d had dinner after passing my viva; months later I’d celebrate graduation, being Dr Nathan, with my family. On those days of finishing though, there was just me, the excess clutter of my research being loaded into boxes and a collection of bittersweet feelings rattling around my brain.

Endings can be complicated and not always within our control. We can try though. My wish for you today is that you have a little space to think, to reflect and then to plan what the end of your PhD might be like.

Your PhD doesn’t end with your viva. Graduation is the epilogue to your story. What would be a good end for your PhD?

Nathan

Spider Shadows

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Every now and then my daughter goes through periods of worrying about spider shadows in her room at night: not spiders, but things that look like the shadows of spiders in the dim half-light of her nightlight.

We’ve explained they’re not real, we’ve shone torches in the past to show there’s no arachnid casting the hazy outline she thinks she sees. But when she feels she’s spotted one, she can’t help but fixate on it – and so my wife and I have to act again, try something new.

 

What are the viva shadows that keep you awake? Do you worry about things that your examiners might ask you? Are you finding yourself concerned about what might happen in your viva? Or how it might feel if you’re not quite ready for anything and everything that could happen?

Viva shadows can only be resolved through action. Like my daughter’s spider shadows, you might need help to expose the reality of the worries and concerns you have. A supervisor can shine a light on what you’ve done, and show you that it really is good. A friend could tell you about their viva to reassure you that yours will be too. Your supporters can give you the space and time to get ready.

Spider shadows and viva shadows don’t go away by themselves. Find someone who can help you with your viva worries. You’re the only one who can be ready for your viva, but you don’t have to get ready alone.

Nathan

Do One More Little Thing

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There are big things that need to be done to get ready for the viva, but lots of small things too.

Small things build up. Small gains in preparation. Small tasks that set up larger activity.

If you’ve done everything on the “one little thing list” I shared last year, here are a few more little things that could help you get ready, when you’re tired or pressured or time is tight:

  • Write two sentences about one great paper you used.
  • Stick one Post-it in your thesis to mark something amazing.
  • Find one song that helps build you up and add it to a playlist.
  • Scribble down one question you think you could answer really well.
  • Take five minutes to just rest.

A thesis and a PhD are typically made up of big things. Lots of small things help stick them together. Small wins, small gains, small improvements.

Prep for the viva isn’t so different.

Nathan

Let Go

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All the things you didn’t do. All the things you couldn’t do. All the ideas you didn’t follow. All the questions you couldn’t answer. All the opportunities you had to turn down.

You have to let them go when you prepare for the viva.

Whatever they mean, and whatever you might do with them in the future. They might be of interest in some way, or add context to something you could need to talk about. Exploring them might be a small part of your preparations but they can’t be your focus for getting ready.

Focus on what you did. Focus on the ideas you explored. Focus on the questions you answered, the results and conclusions you found. Focus on the opportunities that lead you somewhere.

Focus on who you are, not who you might have been.

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