Who Is At The Viva?
In the UK there have to be at least two examiners, one internal and one external. Both are important. It’s not true that the external has the final say or is senior to the internal. Both will have read your...
February 2022
Getting Prep Done
If viva prep seems hard – you’re tired, stretched, stressed, busy – then think about how you can make doing it somehow rewarding to you. Can you incentivise getting it done? Can you record doing it in a fun way?...
Don’t Deny Nerves
If you feel nervous about your viva there is a reason. Don’t try to put it to one side or squash it down, because that feeling is trying to draw your attention to something. If you feel nervous because you...
Different Kinds of Mistakes
Different kinds of mistakes require different actions in the viva. If you find a few typos during your viva preparation you don’t need to go out of your way to mention them to your examiners. If you find a sentence...
Writing A Thesis Blurb
I’m not a fan of the abstract in my thesis: This thesis uses Kauffman skein theory to give several new results. We show a correspondence between Kauffman and Homfly satellite invariants with coefficients modulo 2, when we take certain patterns...
Either/Or
I hear a lot of people describe vivas in binary terms. The viva is long or short. Either you’ll love it or hate it. Expect examiners to be fair or critical. Questions are either easy or hard. Preparation is straight-forward...
Prove It
In your viva you might be able to handwave some details. To have time to explore the truly important aspects of your work you might want to skip past tricky things, or make a short point that captures something big....
This Might Not Work
I was halfway through my PhD journey before I accepted a truth about my research: “I’m trying this, but it might not work.” I spent weeks trying various methods to get an algorithm to act as I expected. It took...
Investing In Confidence
The specific tasks involved in viva prep – reading your thesis, making notes, rehearsing and so on – don’t need to happen until after you’ve submitted your thesis. Until then your goal has to be getting your thesis written and...
You Pass
In most cases the viva is a tough, fair, interesting conversation. In most cases the candidate finds out they have to complete some corrections afterwards. In most cases the candidate discovers that their worries about what might happen didn’t match...