That’s Just What Happens

If you open a cafe then you can expect occasional customers who want to make changes to what’s on the menu. They’ll ask for toast instead of bread, or wonder if you can take the tomatoes out of the salad.

That’s just what happens.

If you live near a primary school then you’ll come to expect that twice a day a lot of children and their adults will be moving through the area. Twice a day there will be more street noise and the roads will be more difficult to cross.

That’s just what happens.

And if you pursue a PhD, stay determined through years of work and produce a thesis, then you can expect that a couple of academics are going to want to talk about.

You could reasonably expect that, at your viva, you will get questions about what you did. Questions on anything and everything because your work is important. Your research makes a difference and that – among many other things – is interesting to the two people who will take on the role of your examiners.

More than anything, questions and discussion are what you can expect from your viva. That’s just what happens.