Red Flags
Are there any red flags for examiner selection? Are there people I should try to avoid? Let’s start with a caveat: there are people in every sphere of life who build up a clear reputation for behaving badly. In academia,...
Daily viva help for PhDs
Are there any red flags for examiner selection? Are there people I should try to avoid? Let’s start with a caveat: there are people in every sphere of life who build up a clear reputation for behaving badly. In academia,...
Viva prep involves practical tasks like reading your thesis, making notes and having a mock viva, as well as building up your self-confidence for meeting your examiners. There’s no particular checklist that every candidate must do. You figure out what...
Some candidates feel nervous because of what they did in their thesis. Is it enough? Some people feel nervous because of what they haven’t done. Have they missed something? Some feel nervous because of who there examiners are. Will their...
We’ve become a little obsessed with puzzles and escape rooms in our house. It’s odd because we’ve not actually visited a real-life one yet! My family has been enjoying mystery and challenge programmes that involve escape rooms, as well as...
Viva failure is exceptionally rare. I’ve asked graduate schools, doctoral colleges and doctoral training programmes: they consistently tell me around one in one thousand vivas result in failure. That’s not zero, but I think we can reasonably deduce a few...
Lots of viva worries are centred around responding to questions. Viva Worry 1: I’ll freeze. Viva Worry 2: My examiners will ask me something difficult. Viva Worry 3: I’ll get a question I can’t answer. A deeper worry is that some combination of...
Five minutes is enough time to do something to help your viva prep. Add bookmarks to the start of every thesis chapter. Highlight important information in a section. Make notes on your thesis contribution. Draft one hundred words to summarise...
Good is the standard you need to meet for your thesis and your viva. You don’t need to have thought every thought. You don’t need to have followed every idea. You don’t need to have an answer for every question....
A Bank Holiday is a good reminder to rest. Maybe today’s not the day. A Bank Holiday in the 2020s isn’t a guarantee that you can take a break! But rest is an essential part of how we get things...
Every viva is unique. Every viva is similar and different to every other viva. Vivas follow patterns. Vivas are not mysterious but you don’t know what will happen until you get there. Expectations are not guarantees. Hearing about someone else’s...