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Nathan

Prep & Placebos

Daily Post

Prep helps to you get ready for your viva. Placebos help you to feel ready for your viva.

Prep is the practical work that gets you closer: read your thesis, make notes, check papers, rehearse with a mock viva and so on.

Placebos are the necessary activities and artefacts that help you feel better: the routines and rituals, the music that is just right or the outfit that helps you feel confident.

Both have an element of personal preference. Prep involves specific kinds of work done in particular ways to meet your needs. Placebos can be cultural but are more typically unique to each person.

(my paperweight is just for me!)

Prep helps you get ready. Placebos help you feel ready. Together they help you to be ready.

Nathan

Hole In One

Daily Post

It’s really unlikely that any person playing a game of golf – even the most experienced professional – will get a hole in one during a game.

It is still possible though. Players do get them from time to time, but it’s not why most people play.

Similarly, at your viva it’s possible you’ll get no corrections but it’s not very likely. It’s possible your viva will be finished in less than an hour but there’s not much that you can do to bring it about. And it’s possible that you’ll be asked a question that brings you to shocked silence, but far, far more likely that you’d have something to say.

You didn’t do all of that the work for a quick viva, an easy time and a hope that you wrote your thesis perfectly. You did the work and in the process learned how to do it well. You learned how to be a good, capable researcher.

Now the viva is your time to show your examiners you can do it. It’s not a rush, it’s not a game and it’s not done with a hope that it will be done as quickly as possible.

Nathan

Getting There

Daily Post

How are you going to get to your viva?

If your viva is on campus, what route are you taking? Are you relying on public transport, driving yourself or getting a lift from a friend or family member?

When will you leave to be on time (or as early as you like)? How much time are you allowing in case of a delay?

What will you wear? What will you take? What will you take just in case you need it?

Decide in advance so that you remove some pressure – and hopefully stress – from your viva day.

(if your viva is going to be over Zoom many of these questions have counterparts worth considering)

Nathan

Important Past Dates

Daily Post

A companion post to these thoughts from November 2024!

The first day of your PhD: it was a long time ago and you’ve come a long way since then.

Your first supervisory meeting: whatever your relationship over the course of your PhD, you’ve grown as a result of your supervisor.

The first new thing that clicked: do you remember the moment when you made a significant connection?

Your biggest setback: what happened and what did you do as a result?

When you finished your first draft of your first chapter: how did it feel to get it done?

The final problem: why was it a problem? How did you solve it?

Looking back over all of these, whether you remember exact dates or not, the important thing is that you have grown. You were good at the start of your PhD and you have become more.

Viva prep involves relatively simple work like reading and making notes. The more difficult work is to reflect on your journey, what happened, what it means and why it makes you exactly right for the challenge you’ll face at your viva.

Nathan

Resting

Daily Post

Include some rest time in your viva prep plan.

Your circumstances might not allow for proper time off. Holidays and breaks might be out but certainly give yourself time away from your research.

Your day-to-day life might be filled with work, family obligations or caring responsibilities. If this is so, don’t then go straight from submitting your thesis to viva prep.

Rest from your research. Rest from your thesis. A little breathing room will help when you return to your work.

Nathan

Any Questions

Daily Post

It’s possible to make well-educated guesses about the questions you’ll get at your viva. You know a lot of the material your examiners will want to talk about. Even if you can’t speculate on specific questions you can have a good understanding of themes that might come up.

Any question at the viva is being asked for a purpose: your examiners might want to know more, understand something more clearly, explore around a topic, check your thinking or generally move the discussion forward.

Any question at the viva is being asked with the expectation that you will respond. You listen, pause, breathe, maybe check your thesis, maybe make a note, think a bit and then talk. You need to add to the discussion. Give more evidence that you are a capable researcher.

And don’t forget that you can ask questions at the viva too. Any question you have for your examiners is fine. Seek their opinion, ask for clarity and explore what you need to – but keep in mind that your priority has to be making sure that you engage with what they are asking.

Nathan

Who Are You?

Daily Post

No, this isn’t an existential post following yesterday’s birthday post!

 

What title do you give yourself as a researcher? How do you describe what you do?

When I was doing my PhD, to people outside my immediate circle I would say I was a PhD student. To other people at my university I might say I was a mathematician; perhaps a pure mathematician if I felt they would understand the distinction.

In my department I would say I was a knot theorist. If it was someone fancy I would say I was a low-dimensional topologist. If it was someone knowledgeable I would say I was interested in finding effective algorithms for calculating certain polynomials of particular classes of knotted objects.

Who you are and how you describe yourself might change from person to person.

How do you describe yourself to you? What labels do you use? Are they accurate? Are they kind?

And, whatever your work, whatever your stage of your PhD or however close your viva is, do you remember that you are more than your research? You are a researcher but that’s just one part of who you are and what you do.

Who are you?

Nathan

A Lot Of Little Steps

Daily Post

Today is my birthday and I’m old.

How did I get here? My beard is turning grey, various joints ache and I still have a moment of confusion now and then that I don’t look as I expect in the mirror.

Seriously, how did this happen?!

As the title of this post suggests, through a lot of little steps. Birthdays come around and burst the bubble that we’re not changing, but the path from last year to this was many little steps along the way.

 

The same is true for the PhD journey. How did you get to where you are now?

Through a lot of little steps.

You worked, you thought, you reflected, you worked some more, you wrote some things, you talked, you grew and developed and became someone very similar to who you were at the start and also a little bit different. That’s how you got this far.

It’s how you’ll get to your viva too. You don’t have to take one big leap to be ready: you take a lot of little steps to read, review, reflect, rehearse and re-orient your thinking before you meet your examiners.

 

I should add, by the way, that despite my gripes at the top of this post, all of my little steps have lead me to a place where I am happy, with a wonderful family, a happy home and work that fulfils me and helps others. What more could I ask for on my birthday? 🙂

 

It’s also my annual custom to offer an age-related discount to some of my paid resources on my birthday. However a 44% discount sounded odd, appropriate as it may be – so let’s round it up to 50%!

Until Friday 31st January 2025 you can find the Viva Help Bundle for half price. The sale runs automatically, there’s no code to enter or anything like that. If you like the look of it, please take advantage of this sale now. Thanks for reading 🙂

Nathan

Find The Right Direction

Daily Post

Rowing harder doesn’t help if the boat is headed in the wrong direction.

This phrase, attributed to Kenichi Ohmae, is something I try to keep in mind whenever I find myself stuck or working on something for a long time. It’s a reminder that working hard doesn’t matter if I’m not doing the right thing.

It’s a sentiment I wish I had known during my PhD!

Be sure that you’re working on the right things as you prepare for your viva. It’s good to work hard but you might not need to do as much work as you think.

Obsessing over every detail, finding every typo in your thesis, checking every reference – you could work really hard at these sorts of things, but will that help you to be ready?

Read, review, rehearse. Keep it simple. Work hard but find the right direction.

Nathan

Mindsets Can Change

Daily Post

A mindset sounds fixed by definition. Your mind is set on something, in behaving a certain way or doing a certain thing.

I’ve talked to a lot of PhD candidates who get worried about their examiners. They think that they’re out to get them. They think examiners will solely focus on “the bad stuff” – even if they can’t quite define what parts of their thesis they think that will be. And sometimes they’re intimidated by examiners; their level of general knowledge and experience could make a candidate feel small by comparison.

Examiners are often cast as the bad guys (by the candidate) but really they’re just doing a job.

  • They prepare. They plan. They explore ahead of time what they might ask.
  • At the viva they facilitate. They make notes. They listen. They ask questions. They decide.
  • And more generally, they have PhDs so they can empathise. They know what it’s like to do what you’ve done and to be sat where you’re sat.

Have I changed your mindset with these little thoughts? Maybe not. But perhaps it’s chipped away a little worry. You now have to think about what else you can explore to change your mindset about your examiners.

Perhaps there are other mindsets about the viva (the tone, the expectations, the questions) that you can challenge. Perhaps by changing your mind about a few things you can find a better way to think about and prepare for your viva.

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