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Month: May 2024

Nathan

Friends & Colleagues

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Part of being ready for your viva involves knowing your stuff: you need to read your thesis, you need to make notes and you need to rehearse for the viva.

Part of being ready involves knowing what others know: you need to talk with friends and colleagues about how they got ready, discover what their viva experience was like and explore what advice they have for you and your preparations.

Your friends and colleagues are a small part of your prep but don’t forget to ask. They’ll be happy to help, if they can.

Nathan

Preparation Pressure

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Plan your viva prep with the pressure you need to get it done.

Time and circumstances are not completely within your control. Planning ahead allows you to think about the situation you need to work well.

If you need space to think, time to make mistakes and enough freedom that you can take a day off from viva preparation then give yourself plenty of time in your plan. Pressure won’t help you. That’s your preference.

Alternatively, if you feel like you need a bit of pressure, then still plan but start closer to your viva day. Work more intensively and focus your efforts on the week and days immediately leading up to your viva. That’s your preference.

Whatever you feel you need and whatever you decide to do, don’t confuse stress with pressure. A little pressure might help you to work well, but stress will only provide pain to your preparation plans.

Nathan

Anything Else?

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When I’m asked about what a PhD candidate needs to take to their viva I typically respond by talking about their thesis, something to make notes with and something to drink.

The thesis is a valuable resource for the viva. A candidate might not make notes on a minute-by-minute basis in the viva but it is helpful to have the means to make them when they’re needed. Universities very rarely provide refreshments for a viva, so I think it’s important to remind candidates to take something to drink!

These are the typical resources needed on viva day, but your specific research and circumstances might need something else for the viva.

  • Do you have a model that shows some aspect of your research? That might be helpful to show.
  • Have you created a prototype that relates to your research success? Sharing that could be great in the viva.
  • Do you need a screen of some kind to display a video or software? Arrange to have one in your viva.

Your supervisor and department are the best people to talk to if you’re thinking of taking something else to your viva. They will be helpful at exploring the specific expectations and needs for your viva.

Thesis, notebook, water – anything else?

Nathan

1 Page, 3 Questions, 30 Minutes

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A thirty-minute thought-gathering task for viva prep!

Take a single sheet of paper, divide it into three parts and write the following questions, one in each part:

  • Why did you want to do your research?
  • How did you do it?
  • What was the result of all your work?

Then reflect and capture your thoughts for each of these questions. Why did you want to do this? How did you do it? What was the result?

Thirty minutes of thinking and writing won’t give you every single detail of years of research and the many pages in your thesis.

Thirty minutes of work will give you a good overview of what you work means, how you got it done and why it’s a valuable contribution to your discipline.

Nathan

Remove Obstacles

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Viva prep can be challenging. To remove friction from the process, find ways to remove obstacles that get in the way. For example:

  • Gather the resources you need before you start.
  • Plan how you will do the work.
  • Ask for help in advance.
  • Find somewhere to work that suits you.
  • Make a good, relaxed space for yourself.
  • Tell people to give you space if you live with others!

These thoughts are off the top of my head. Viva prep is personal: consider your situation and what you might need. Whatever it is, think about how you could achieve a good, quiet, relaxed environment to prepare in. Then take steps to make that a reality.

Viva prep can be challenging to do – so do what you can before you start to remove obstacles from the process.

Nathan

Imagine Your Success

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What will it be like to hear your examiners congratulate you?

What do you think your friends and family will say?

How do you want to celebrate passing your viva?

It helps to imagine what success might be like. You can use it to make future plans and motivate your viva preparation. Looking ahead can build your confidence up too. If you can dream it, maybe you can make it real.

 

What corrections do you think you might get?

How long are you given to complete minor corrections at your university?

How busy might you be during the likely correction period?

It helps to think about the likely practicalities of viva success! Most candidates are asked to complete minor corrections, so it’s probable that you will have to do that too. Looking ahead can help you to think about the weeks after your viva realistically.

 

Imagine your success, both the happy realities of passing your viva and the practical nature of finishing your PhD.

Nathan

Fortunate vs Lucky

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Being fortunate means working hard and that hard work paying off.

Being lucky means that you didn’t need to apply yourself for the success you’ve found.

Being fortunate is achieving something through your labour.

Being lucky is getting something through a lottery.

As you get to your viva, be careful of the words you use to describe your progress.

Were you lucky to get this far or are you fortunate to have found the results you have?

Nathan

The Wrong Thing

Daily Post

There’s a chance that you could do something wrong in relation to your viva.

  • You could say the wrong thing in response to a question.
  • You could believe the wrong thing about what to expect.
  • You could remember the wrong thing about an examiner.
  • You could do the wrong thing to prepare.
  • You could think the wrong thing about yourself and your ability.

Any of these are possible. So what can you do?

You could rehearse to get more practice at responding to questions and more generally prepare. You could learn about what to expect of the viva process and have a conversation with your supervisors about your examiners. You could take your time to prepare and be ready. You could reflect on your journey to be sure of who you are and what you can do.

All of these steps could help guard against doing the wrong thing.

Realistically though, if you did something wrong, how negative could that be for you?

For all the little things that could go wrong you’re much more likely to be doing the right thing at your viva.

Nathan

Serious And…

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The viva is an exam. It’s a relatively short exam to explore years of work and the specific outputs of that work. The examiners are accomplished academics in relevant fields.

While every viva is different there are regulations and enough known experiences to inform a reasonable set of expectations for a candidate. Vivas are challenging discussions.

Three or more years of work plus many hours of deliberate preparation. Candidates might be expected to succeed but that doesn’t mean the viva is not difficult.

So the viva is serious.

And it can also be fun. It could be short. It could be rewarding. It could be exhausting! It could be an anticlimax. It could be fine. It could be disappointing. It could be fairly informal.

What do you expect from your viva? What do you hope for?

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