Important, Not Urgent
Whenever I start a big project I treat it as important – worth doing well – and not urgent – worth doing without time pressures that could compromise me, the work, or stress me out. I’ve seen similar sentiments in...
Daily viva help for PhDs
Whenever I start a big project I treat it as important – worth doing well – and not urgent – worth doing without time pressures that could compromise me, the work, or stress me out. I’ve seen similar sentiments in...
Exploring what makes your research a significant, original contribution is an essential part of viva preparation. Taking different perspectives, finding alternative words, telling other people about your work – all helps strengthen your confidence about saying, “I did this and...
You have to do this all the time for your viva. Take the first step to the viva when you submit. Take the first step with your prep by sitting down and getting your thesis out again; or by asking...
Tread carefully when preparing for your viva, in case you find yourself tumbling down a rabbit hole. Read one paper by your examiner, and find yourself lead to another, then another, then… Spot one typo and you’ll wonder what else...
Three words that need to be on every candidate’s to-do list for the viva. The Regulations page I put together – a list of every uni in the UK’s thesis examination regulations – might be a good starting point for...
I started the year helping to deliver a Leadership In Action workshop in Manchester. As part of the course, each of the facilitators had to deliver an “insight” – a thirty minute, one-off presentation about something connected with leadership. I...
Things might go a little wrong in your viva. You might forget a word. You might mis-pronounce something. You might go blank. You might mis-remember a reference. You might start a sentence and half-way through lose your thread. You might...
Viva Survivors started in 2012 as a podcast, but since April 18th 2017 it’s been a daily blog. Apart from the odd day off for Christmas I’ve published a post every day for three years! Too much has happened, particularly...
Following Wednesday’s post, you could be a person, in a place, with a problem at the end of your PhD too. The mammoth task of submitting your thesis is done, but then you wonder: What if my examiners don’t like...
It’ll take time to figure out what vivas look like now. Old, settled norms of “vivas are about this long” or “vivas have this kind of structure” will be in flux a little. Examiners will have to tweak their approaches,...