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Month: December 2024

Nathan

What’s My Line?

Daily Post

I hate the thought of forgetting something important.

I prepare before any webinar that I deliver – even if, like Viva Survivor, I have delivered the session many, many times before.

  • I have a 1-page session sheet on my desk. I write it out again before every session.
  • I also have a prompt sheet on-screen with key points and timings. Again, this gets reviewed before every session.
  • And I take at least an hour to look over my slides in parallel to reading my notes.

I have shared Viva Survivor with postgraduate researchers over 350 times. And yet, every time before I start, I think, “Wait, what do I say?”

 

You can’t take notes like mine to your viva. Your examiners are looking for a presentation not a conversation. But still you can do things to help yourself if you think you’re going to forget something.

  • You can annotate your thesis with helpful notes.
  • Invest time in reviewing your thesis’ key sections.
  • And it’s essential to rehearse responding to questions to help how you feel.

The last point is especially helpful.

Like me, you might feel bad at the thought of forgetting something that matters. Like my situation though, there are an abundance of things you can try to help you remember.

Nathan

Bumbling Along

Daily Post

There was a time when I would have described my PhD journey as incredibly lucky. Somehow, I made it through.

I had months where it seemed like nothing worked. Weeks where I couldn’t figure out how to get something simple done.

I don’t think it’s a coincidence that I arrived at viva time and felt a lack of confidence in myself. How could I feel good about my chances of success when I had somehow bumbled my way to submission?

I had a little confidence that my thesis had some good results – but what about me? Was I any good?

 

Sixteen years later, a little hindsight and a lot of self-reflection and I feel differently.

I wasn’t perfect but I worked hard. It wasn’t luck that got me through but I had my share of good fortune. I had funding, I had a good supervisor and I found topics to explore that lead to interesting results. I developed myself and my research.

But I didn’t see it that way at the time. I just kept thinking, because of all the challenges in my projects, that somehow I was “luckily” making it through.

If you’re looking for confidence for your viva start by reflecting on the journey. Recognise the work you’ve done. Appreciate the good fortune you’ve encountered. Highlight the success that you have made.

There’s no way you can get to submission by simply bumbling along.

Nathan

Steep Going

Daily Post

Seth Godin’s post on the topic of mountains came back to my memory recently.

“There’s a lot to be said for showing up, one foot in front of the other. In fact, those are the only people who make it to the steep part in the first place.”

It resonated with the definition of survive that I always have in mind: manage to keep going in difficult circumstances.

Perhaps viva prep and the viva seem like a tough time. It can be particularly difficult but it’s worth remembering that you’ve got this far because you managed to keep going. In the last few years we really have had a LOT of difficult circumstances because you persisted.

Don’t forget how far you’ve come and how you got this far. The end is in sight.

Keep going.

 

(and please check out the blog and work of Seth Godin who is, in my opinion, simply the best!)

Nathan

At The Last Minute

Daily Post

Don’t wait and start your viva prep in the week of your viva.

Don’t wait to ask your supervisor about something important until a few days beforehand.

And don’t wait until the last minute before your viva to think about how you feel about it all!

Sooner, rather than later, think about how you’ll get ready.

Sketch plans. Ask questions. Reflect on your PhD and how you’ve developed both yourself and your research.

Nathan

Needs & Preferences

Daily Post

There’s a difference between needs and preferences.

Both can have a great impact on how you feel about and approach your viva.

 

If you need something for your viva – from regular breaks, examiners to wear microphones or anything else – then you need it. That shouldn’t be up for debate with anyone else; the best thing to do is make sure the appropriate people in your department, doctoral college or graduate school know and know what to do for your viva.

A need is something you absolutely have to have. A preference is something that would be helpful. You might prefer if your examiner was someone you’d cited. You might prefer to have your viva in-person or over Zoom. You might prefer to have your viva sooner rather than later. But if that preference isn’t met an alternative way can be found.

 

Whenever something feels like a need or a preference for your viva, unless it’s unambiguous, reflect again and just be clear for yourself.

Is it a need? Is it a preference?

And whichever it is you have two questions to respond to: Do you need help from someone? What do you need to do next?

Nathan

Run The Numbers

Daily Post

Success at your viva is not directly determined by:

  • The number of papers in your bibliography.
  • The number of pages in your thesis.
  • The number of words on all those pages.
  • How many days you showed up to do the work.
  • How many meetings you had with your supervisor.
  • How many times you failed.
  • How often you were challenged.
  • The number of times you overcame significant obstacles to get your thesis done.

Success isn’t directly determined by any of these numbers but your capability and confidence can be helped by simply considering just how much you’ve done to complete your PhD.

Run the numbers. Reflect on how much you’ve done, how far you’ve come and what that all means for you and your viva.

Nathan

Further

Daily Post

A reflection and summary task for viva prep.

Take a sheet of paper, divide it into three parts and respond with some quick thoughts on each of the following questions:

  • How much further have you advanced knowledge in your field through your PhD research?
  • How would you take your research further if you had the opportunity?
  • How could someone else potentially take your research further?

It’s definitely helpful to remind yourself how far you’ve come on your PhD journey. It’s a valuable exercise to think about how you or others could take things further.

Continuing in research might not be your plan, but it can help your viva prep to explore the context of what you’ve achieved and then think about how it could go further.

Nathan

Manageable Tasks

Daily Post

Viva prep is manageable. Compared to the massive scale of a PhD it’s a speck of effort.

A candidate might take weeks to get ready, but only in bits and pieces of time.

Half an hour of reading. Ten minutes of looking something up. An hour to bring some notes together.

You can run these sorts of tasks together into longer prep sessions but that’s not an essential part of the process.

Even a mock viva, if you have one, is manageable.

Viva prep is a series of manageable tasks that make the viva itself manageable.

Nathan

Control The Controllables

Daily Post

This is how an attendee at a recent webinar summarised what I’d said about getting ready for the viva.

Control the controllables.

He was absolutely right. That’s how I think about a lot of things connected with the viva.

There are things you can’t control or won’t know until you get there. These range from questions to feelings to the approach that your examiners will take.

There are things you’ll know but won’t control too: the purpose of the viva, the date or location of your viva venue.

But there’s also a lot you could take control of.

  • You can choose what you wear.
  • You can select the words you use.
  • You can plan out your preparation.
  • You can decide on how you’ll get to your viva.
  • You can choose what you do on the morning.

All of these things and more can help how you feel about your viva.

There are a lot of things you can take control of for yourself in advance of the big day.

If you do that then the things that are beyond your control won’t seem so bad.

 

Many thanks to Luke C for offering this observation!

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