Like Your Viva
Because even on Valentines Day it might be a bit much to hope that people love their viva! You could like your viva because… …you’re almost done! …you get to talk with two academics about your work! …you know you’re...
Daily viva help for PhDs
Because even on Valentines Day it might be a bit much to hope that people love their viva! You could like your viva because… …you’re almost done! …you get to talk with two academics about your work! …you know you’re...
Video games have been a big part of my pandemic coping strategies. Interactive stories, complex challenges, puzzle solving and sometimes great big emotional experiences to distract me from the background of life right now. Save points have featured a lot...
The viva experience might be sometimes unclear, but it’s not mysterious. There’s a variety of experiences, but a clear range of common expectations. There’s structure from regulations, academic practice and norms from departmental procedures. Every viva is necessarily unique, but...
You can’t somehow look ahead and know the outcome of your viva. You can take a good guess that it will be a pass and minor corrections. You can’t grab hold like a birthday present and give it a squeeze...
We’ve not quite found the new form of the viva. In the UK, they’re all over video for now, but it’s too soon to say if that’s going to be normal from now on. There’s definite benefits: potentially greater choice for...
I don’t think I knew – at all – what the result of my viva might be. I naively expected that I would pass, and I was right in expecting that. I suppose I expected I would have to make...
PhD candidates are generally nervous about the viva. In my experience, most will feel a portion of nervousness at some point before they meet their examiners. Some will continue to feel it during their viva too. I don’t know that...
Getting ready for the viva could take twenty hours of work spaced out over several weeks. What’s the first task on your list? Gathering stationery supplies? Reading the first page? Chatting to your supervisor? Clicking for a random piece of...
I ask “How do you feel?” a lot. By my records I’ve asked this question in seminars and webinars at least 300 times, to over 5000 PhD candidates. It’s good to reflect on in a seminar but that’s one moment,...
I try not to be clickbait-y in the titles that I choose for posts. Numbers are sometimes really useful to help me round up ideas, and they also help to draw attention too. It dawned on me that in and...