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Nathan

Status Bars

Daily Post

How close am I to levelling up? How much more do I need? When do I get the next thing?!

Video game status bars tickle my brain in just the right way. Not every game has them, but they help me a lot when I’m playing challenging games. They track experience and help me know I’m moving forward, even if sometimes I still have a lot to do.

As a PhD candidate, you can be sure your personal status bar has been moving in the right direction for a long time. As you get closer to submission and the viva it could feel like there’s always more to do – or things you could have done but have missed.

Just like most video games you don’t need everything in order to be complete. You don’t need every achievement in order to be good enough. The status bar leading up to your PhD completion needs to be fairly full but you don’t need to be superhuman to succeed.

By the time you get to submission and your viva you’ve levelled up enough.

Nathan

Making It Look Easy

Daily Post

Have you ever watched someone do something amazing AND make it look easy at the same time? How do they do it?

A comedian doesn’t make a whole theatre laugh at the same time because they have a magical ability that no-one else can have. They may have a talent or skillset – but they have deep practice as well.

A chef demonstrating how to make a superb meal can do so with ease because of years of work, repetition, knowledge and understanding.

A good speaker or presenter at the front of a room can stay on track for thirty minutes, engage an audience and help them to learn or think because of the many hours they did before they got to the room.

If you ever doubt the value of what you’ve done before your viva – “it can’t be that good because now it seems easy!” – remember that it only seems easy thanks to all of your hard work.

How did you do it? Talent, work and time.

Nathan

Bag Of Tricks

Daily Post

While your examiners will want to explore your research with you, they also want to explore your capabilities as a researcher. To prepare for your viva you need to explore your research, but also invest time in reflecting on your own development.

What’s in your bag of tricks? What can you do that others can’t? What have you learned over the last few years doing your PhD?

Nathan

Relative

Daily Post

Compare your experience and knowledge to your examiners and you might feel pretty small. They’ve had longer to see more, learn more, do more and know more. A candidate could easily worry as a result.

But more is not the same as better. Yes, your examiners know more in general, but you know more specifically. They could have a better view of the big picture, but you have a clearer perspective of your research.

Remember: your examiners have read your thesis, but you made it.

Nathan

Hours & Hours & Hours

Daily Post

There’s lots of hours spent on a PhD, but different ranges depending on the stage you’re at:

  • Five to six thousand to do a PhD.
  • Twenty to thirty in prep for the viva.
  • Two to three for a viva is quite common.

Each of these matters.

Your research and your talent develops over a long period; after that it doesn’t take much to get ready to defend your thesis.

And not too long at all to discuss the important things with your examiners.

Nathan

Why am I researching the viva?

Research

Well, there might be a clue in the name of this site… But more seriously, here’s why I’m doing what I’m doing.

Why?

A few days ago I set a survey in motion asking seven quick questions of PhD graduates from UK universities. I talk to a lot of people about the viva – some of them are graduates, and I try when possible to interview them for this podcast – but most of them are candidates. They’ve worked hard for three or more years, become experts in their field, and then I meet them at workshops where some of them are terrified that their world is about to come crashing down. Having spoken to quite a few PhD graduates there are stories and experiences I can pass on, but sometimes the “official” stats seem unclear. I thought it might be interesting to capture a snapshot of what PhD graduates from the last fourteen years have been through – both to see what the stats are, and to see what kind of a picture it creates. And who knows, there might be some interesting things in the data!

(more…)

Nathan

Episode 17: Dr Stacey Habergham

Episode, Podcast

In this first podcast after my house-moving hiatus I talk to Dr Stacey Habergham, who completed her PhD in Astrophysics earlier this year. Stacey did her research at Liverpool John Moores University, and is now a post-doc and outreach officer there as well. You can find Stacey on Twitter as @AstroHabs.

Stacey and I talked a bit about some of the outreach activities that she is involved with, and she very kindly sent through the following links!

If you’ve got questions or comments about the podcast then please leave them on the post, or email me – or get in touch via the site’s Twitter account: @VivaSurvivors. And please get in touch if you would like to share your PhD and viva experiences!

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Nathan

Episode 16: Dr David McGrogan

Episode, Podcast

In this episode I talk to Dr David McGrogan, who recently had the viva for his PhD in international law. Dave is my best friend, and I’ve been asking him since I started the podcast whether or not he would be willing to come on eventually and talk about his experiences. He recently took up a position at Northumbria University in the School of Law.

If you’ve got questions or comments, then leave them on this post, tweet @VivaSurvivors or email me – particularly if you would like to share your story on the podcast.

And finally, if you’ve read “Fail Your Viva – Twelve Steps To Failing Your PhD (And Fifty-Eight Tips For Passing)” then please get in touch, I’d love to know what you think!

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Nathan

Episode 5: Dr Ben Libberton

Episode, Podcast

In this episode I’m talking with Dr Ben Libberton, who runs the website Literature Review HQ. Ben completed his PhD in Microbial Ecology last year, and recently graduated from the University of Liverpool. As well as running his site, he holds a post-doc in Electrical Engineering.

It was great chatting with Ben, particularly because of his continuing interest in things relating to postgraduate researchers. His site has some great resources, so please go and check it out. He’s also on Twitter: @litreviewhq.

Viva Survivors will be back soon with another episode! I have several interviewees in the pipeline, including a couple which will make for slightly out of the ordinary podcasts. If you have ideas and thoughts for future episodes, even for doing something different (whatever that might be!) then please get in touch. As ever, follow me on Twitter at @VivaSurvivors.

Podcast: Play in new window | Download

Nathan

Episodes 1 and 2 Comments

Podcast

I am not entirely sure why the comments didn’t work for the first two podcast posts, but they seem to be working well enough for future posts. So if you have any comments or questions for Episode 1, featuring Dr Shaine Bushell, or Episode 2 with Dr Anna Tarrant then please write them here! Thanks.

Also you can follow me on Twitter, @VivaSurvivors, or email if you want to with any questions or comments.

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