No Different?
One of my favourite scenes, in one of my favourite movies, is when Yoda is trying to teach Luke Skywalker in The Empire Strikes Back. Luke is learning to be a Jedi, but is not finished. He can lift rocks...
Daily viva help for PhDs
One of my favourite scenes, in one of my favourite movies, is when Yoda is trying to teach Luke Skywalker in The Empire Strikes Back. Luke is learning to be a Jedi, but is not finished. He can lift rocks...
You’re not a failure if you don’t answer every question you asked during your PhD. You’re not a failure if your thesis is smaller than your friend’s thesis. You’re not a failure if you’ve not submitted papers for publication. You’re...
Viva soon! OK? Nerves are normal; fine is fine. How do you feel? It’s alright to be nervous! There’s a reason for how you feel. Take a look at that reason and reflect: Is it enough to feel how...
It’s understandable to be nervous, anxious or scared about the viva. It’s not just any other day of your PhD. You can be nervous, and hope that it doesn’t affect you too much, or you can be nervous and think...
They matter. But the little things that evade memory or fast recall probably don’t matter as much as you think they do. You’re primed to notice the little things you forget more than you notice all of the things that...
I do not like that man. I must get to know him better. An old friend of mine used to say this regularly. It’s a quote attributed to Abraham Lincoln, and my friend would use it to help him think...
I often write about looking for ways to boost or find confidence. I’m not sure I’ve wondered too much about why someone might have a lack of confidence on the blog, except for mentioning surface level things like “what if...
Anxiety and negativity crop up around the viva. There are lots of unhelpful associations. If you have negative thoughts then it’s important to take a step back: Make a list, get it all out in the open, what are you...