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Year: 2021

Nathan

Hundreds To One

Daily Post

The viva: hundreds and hundreds of days of work that come down to one day. One day when you have to do well.

That could sound very worrying, but remember that all that work is the price of admission for the viva. You have to invest all of that time and effort to get that far. It’s not idly or blindly spent; all of that effort helps to make you ready for that one day with your examiners.

One way to look at the viva is telling yourself, “After all this time, it all comes down to this!”

A more helpful story is to think, “After all this time, I’m ready for this!”

Nathan

Reboot

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Things have gone wrong. We can’t change them. We can’t alter what’s happened already and we don’t know when we can find a space or time that will feel like things are supposed to feel. So for now we have to survive – we have to manage to keep going in difficult circumstances.

There have been times lately, when managing has felt like a struggle. Difficult has felt almost like too much.

Not for the first time in the last year or so I’ve had to start over with myself. Pause, take a day, breathe a lot and really reflect. Then try to figure out what my next steps are. Reboot myself and get going again.

If you’ve been finishing a PhD at this time I can only imagine the angst and overwhelm that must be in the background (and foreground) as you come to your viva. Like me, you might need to reboot yourself to keep going.

Starting over doesn’t mean a blank slate or doing something wholly new. It doesn’t mean you ignore what’s happened or happening. Rebooting means taking the best of what’s come before, and channeling it for what you need now. Take the things that have worked, that could still work, and build on them.

  • So what’s at the core of your talent? How can you use that now things are different?
  • What methods have helped you make progress throughout your PhD? How can you use them now to help you prepare for and succeed in your viva?
  • What’s helped you to feel confident before? How can you use that to build your confidence now for the viva?

Rebooting isn’t always easy, and it’s rarely ever perfect, but it might be very helpful in the coming year.

Keep going.

Nathan

Internal & External

Daily Post

There are differences between your examiners, but it might be more useful to focus on what they have in common than what separates them. They’re both academics, both experienced, both prepared.

They’ve both read your thesis, both thought about your viva in advance. Now they’re ready to ask questions, steer discussions and listen to what you have to say.

You can’t know everything they will ask, say or do in advance. Instead, use a little time to look at who they are and what they’ve done. Get a sense of what might motivate their questions and their approach to your viva.

Nathan

Concerning Publications

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I’ve met plenty of good candidates who tie themselves in knots about the publications they do or don’t have, and how that impacts their viva.

Your examiners are most interested in you and your thesis in the viva. Prior publications are helpful, but don’t determine success. A chapter that has been accepted as a journal paper may still need corrections for your thesis; there could be more that needs to be said for the purposes of a thesis that was not needed in a journal.

Success in the viva cannot pivot on how many publications you do or don’t have; it’s a confidence boost for you if your work has been reviewed well elsewhere, but it’s not counted against you if publications don’t align with your own goals.

Nathan

Review Your Records

Daily Post

Progress during a PhD can be hard to see sometimes. Days and weeks of incremental gains, the occasional epiphany soon pushed into the background by more hard work.

If you’re nearing the end of your PhD, review your records. Maybe your research journal or diary, perhaps a progress record that your institution insisted you keep. Maybe even the remains of notes or plans that have now evolved or been fulfilled. If your records are scrappy in places then work to remember and fill in the blanks.

Whatever you have, reflect on it all and remember: you did this. The successes you’ve found are yours. The results you have flow on from the work you’ve done and the talent you’ve developed.

It’s easy to pause and think, “How did I get here?” As you come to the end of your PhD, do the difficult work of really reflecting on that question. You’ll find confidence in the answer that you can take to your viva.

Nathan

Types of Response

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You might not have an answer for every question in your viva.

But in response you could offer an opinion or share a thought. You could ask a question for clarity or reveal how you feel about a topic. You could have a hunch or hypothesis, or you could have nothing, and say simply, “I don’t know.”

Responding to questions or comments is a fundamental part of the viva – but remember that you don’t need an answer for everything.

Nathan

Running On Empty

Daily Post

If you’ve nothing left when you sit down to get ready for the viva, then you’re not ready to get ready.

Take a break.

Submit, then stop.

Pause, then prep.

Relax and restore, then ready yourself. You can’t get ready for the viva if you have nothing more to give.

A few weeks or even a few days can be enough to recover from that final push to get your thesis finished and submitted. Viva preparation does not require fantastic efforts either, so if in day-to-day life, after work and other commitments you only have a little, then only give a little. You don’t need to ruin yourself to get ready.

Rest, restore and refuel first.

Nathan

You Have Passed

Daily Post

It’s a minute before your viva starts. You’re probably a little nervous. Ready but recognising the importance.

As you begin remember you have passed…

  • …whatever requirements you had to in order to get on to your research programme…
  • …the difficult first months of a doctorate when you have to figure so much out…
  • …all reports, upgrade and transfer vivas along the way…
  • …probable scrutiny in the eyes of your peers by giving conference talks or paper…
  • …your supervisors’ standards by meeting them many times…
  • …your own doubts and concerns, or enough of them, to get the work done…

…and now you have one more thing to pass.

Given that you’ve passed so much already, it’s fair to assume that you’re going to pass this one too.

So go pass.

Nathan

The Best Of The Best Of Viva Survivors 2020

Daily Post

Between Christmas and New Year I shared some of my favourite posts from the blog from 2020. In case you missed them here’s a link to those posts, and a link to my favourite post from each category!

Best of Viva Survivors 2020: Viva Prep – Six Steps For Friction-free Prep does exactly what it says in the title. I explore all the different aspects of this post in detail in other posts, and they’re topics that I like to come back to again and again. I like the simplicity of this post.

Best of Viva Survivors 2020: Long Posts – Being Thankful stands out to me. Gratitude helps. It can’t always solve problems immediately, but can help frame the situation better. Viva prep and the viva can both be challenging, but being aware of what has helped you (and what could help you still) can encourage you to look again at where you are and what you have to support you.

Best of Viva Survivors 2020: Short Posts – I realised in May that I had latched on to a few new ways of expressing something about being “ready” for the viva. Better & Ready was a neat way of sharing these thoughts.

Best of Viva Survivors 2020: Surviving – for the last few years I’ve finished off my best of series with posts on confidence. Exploring confidence has helped me personally a lot over the last decade. But for 2020 it felt appropriate to reflect on surviving a little more, another topic that comes up in my work a lot. Is Survival Enough? raises the point that while survive is a good verb to have in mind for the viva, it’s not the only thing you could find through the process.

Interesting Times is an important post for me too; back in March 2019 it had to be written. At the start of that week I went from being a guy who travelled up and down the UK most weeks between different universities, to being a guy who stays in his little home office and smiles into the camera to deliver a seminar.

Going back to gratitude: I’m very thankful that I was able to keep maintaining this blog all through 2019 and keep helping where I could. Thank you for reading! And if any of these posts resonate with you, or you know someone who might benefit, do pass them on!

Nathan

Pick A Place

Daily Post

Following yesterday’s post, consider the environment that you’re going to work in to get ready for the viva. What can you do to make it as supportive as possible? Where will you go?

  • If you’re at home, where will you be? What could you arrange to make it a nice space for working?
  • If you’re somewhere else, what do you need to take with you? How can you find a little peace for getting what you need to do done?
  • And wherever you are, what resources could you bring together to make your viva prep space as effective as possible?

A little thought before you begin can make a great difference.

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