Daily viva help for PhDs
What can you do now that you couldn’t at the start of your PhD?
What skills have you developed that you didn’t have when you began?
What do you now know that you didn’t when you started your research?
What have you created, in your thesis, that didn’t exist when you started your PhD?
Before your viva, reflect on how you’ve changed and how you’ve changed things. You’ve done so much – more than enough to find success at your viva.
Getting ready for the viva can feel hard sometimes. Reading your thesis, checking old notes and papers, finding time for a mock viva, and so on. The whole point is to get to a point where you feel ready.
But when do you know? How do you know that you’re all set and ready for the viva?
As “readiness” is based around how you feel there is always space for doubting yourself. Try some of the following if you’re uncertain or worry about feeling ready:
Perhaps we can’t set a time or standard for when you will be ready for the challenge of your viva – but you can set out how you might get to that feeling.
A short pause between hearing your examiner’s question and responding.
A little break to check you understand and think things through.
A simple beat to get things right in the viva.
Your examiners don’t expect you to rapid-fire responses to their questions. The viva is a discussion, not a quiz. Take your time to listen, think and respond well.
In preparation for the viva you can reflect on possible questions, talk with friends or have a mock viva – but don’t forget that you’re not the only one in the spotlight on the big day!
Your thesis is centre-stage with you. Your examiners have read it cover to cover, so you’d best do the same as well. Your examiners will be thinking about it a lot, so it helps if you do too. They’ll be considering it carefully so take some time to do likewise.
Being in the spotlight, for you or your thesis, might not always feel great – but the only way to get around that feeling is to spend more time in the spotlight. More time rehearsing, more time reading and reflecting.
I didn’t feel particular nervousness about the viva, but I don’t remember feeling great about it either. To feel a tiny bit better I wore my most comfortable shoes. I continued to do this for years afterwards when I was in situations – mostly work-related – where I felt uncomfortable.
In fact, I did everything I could to make my situation comfortable. Comfortable shoes. A preparation routine. Arriving early to make sure I had plenty of time. Anything and everything I could think of to feel more comfortable and more capable.
The nature of the viva can make it very uncomfortable for some candidates. It’s to be expected: general nervousness or apprehension about what might happen can be unsettling. Feelings of nervousness about the viva aren’t bad in themselves – they’re normal responses to the environment you’ll be in – but they aren’t comfortable and they aren’t always helpful.
So, if the event could feel uncomfortable, what could you do to increase your comfort?
What could you do to increase your comfort at the viva? Once you have some options, decide what you will do to be more comfortable on viva day.
I like thought experiments, both philosophically and in fiction. It can be fun to ask what if? and then follow that thinking to see what might happen next. It’s useful in the kind of work I do too, thinking through how a session might run or how a new webinar might help someone. It can identify issues that need addressing in advance – or eliminate headaches before they happen!
Thought experiments allow us to get ahead of problems sometimes, but they can also be a distraction. A lot of what if questions about the viva are completely understandable but can also be very distracting:
I have specific advice for each of these, but the general response to all of them is: “Then you would pause, think and ultimately respond to the situation in the moment in whatever way seems best.”
Because that’s all you can do.
You can prepare, you can practise and you can ask yourself what if – in the end you have to stop worrying and wondering about thought experiments.
Remember who you are, what you did, what you can do and what you bring to the viva.
Annotating your thesis as part of viva prep is useful: it creates a better resource to be consulted during the viva and also focusses your attention while getting ready. You have to engage again and again to add value by underlining, highlighting and making notes in the margin. There’s plenty of space to add details but it helps to be concise and clear.
A specific, short idea for today then. Write a little list at the start of each chapter; five bullet points to capture something of the pages that follow:
A micro-review of each chapter will help sharpen your thinking while you get ready for the viva and continue to support you when you meet your examiners. Invest a little time in some little lists.
For all the nerves you might feel, despite any knocks to confidence or worries about research, it’s worth remembering that if you are headed towards your viva date you are precisely where you’re meant to be.
You did the work. You learned. You grew. You got better. Your thesis is proof of that. It’s not perfect, and neither are you, but by now both of you are good enough to meet the standard.
If you don’t feel that, you’re the only one who can change that feeling. Find out more about the viva perhaps, work to boost your confidence, do the necessary work to get ready – and remember that this is where you’re meant to be.
Right here, right now, on track to succeeding in your viva.
Rehearsal for the viva is essential because it simulates some of the aspects of being there. If you’re nervous about how you will respond, what will come up or what it will feel like to be there then you can’t do better than rehearse in some way.
A mock viva is the best way to simulate the viva experience. Questions from experienced academics in a relevant field or disciplines. Time to think and be in a viva-like environment. Facing uncertainty of what the next question or opinion will be. You can practise what you will do and get a sense of how you might feel.
A mock viva, a simulation, however polished, can’t be as accurate or as good as the real viva. How will it differ from the real thing? You can’t know beforehand. You can simply be better prepared for talking to your examiners.
Postgraduate researchers find out a lot of things during the PhD through whispers.
Of course, some conversations have to be held quietly: perhaps the topic is sensitive or difficult. More often, there’s a lot that could be talked about openly in academia, but we don’t because of culture, power structures and “the way things have always been done”.
Thankfully, despite all of this, there are people who do share good, helpful advice. You’ll find quite a few curated on the Whisper Collective site – a great initiative that’s been running for a year now. Over a dozen blogs, including Viva Survivors, standing around saying, “Can I help?”
Whatever stage of the PhD you’re at, you’ll find helpful, practical advice by checking out the Whisper Collective. And when you find something helpful don’t whisper: pass it on! 🙂