Challenging
It’s natural to not want to talk about challenging parts of work or research in your viva. It’s human to focus on the good stuff and hope you won’t need to explain something tricky. It’s not wrong to be worried...
Daily viva help for PhDs
It’s natural to not want to talk about challenging parts of work or research in your viva. It’s human to focus on the good stuff and hope you won’t need to explain something tricky. It’s not wrong to be worried...
It’s one of the most common things people say about the viva. I believed my examiners would grill me but instead we just talked about what I had done… I thought I would go blank but it was just good...
It can take a candidate some time to read their whole thesis. A mock viva is hours of prep and then the event itself. Sitting with your thesis to add notes to the margins and other annotations can also take...
If you check the viva regulations and talk with friends who have been through the process then you can start to appreciate the possible timing of your viva. Ask how long people had to wait for a viva date and...
Expectations for a viva fall within ranges. There are common lengths, probable questions and likely areas of interest. It’s not as simple as rattling off a bullet point list of what will happen. There are ranges of aspects to consider...
I often describe the work of viva prep as being similar to the work of a PhD. The work has a different focus but it exercises the same knowledge and abilities. For the most part it continues to be something...
Writing a summary of some aspect of your thesis or research before the viva can do a lot of things to help you. It forces you to focus on something, to highlight the best parts or the most difficult sections...
Submitting your thesis can feel like a finish line has been crossed. Passing your viva could be the end – but for most PhD candidates there is another step of submitting corrections, then having them approved. Then there’s the final...
There’s always more. More research. More prep. More you could say in the viva. At some point you have to say enough. You have to figure out and decide when you have enough research and you’ve done enough in your...
There’s a chance that something could go wrong before, during or after your viva. It might a small thing, but if something does go wrong: Stop. Ask yourself why this thing is wrong. Ask yourself if you can solve this...