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Nathan

What If You Have No Community?

Daily Post

At workshops I often advise people to talk to their colleagues when preparing for the viva:

  • Ask about their viva experiences to get a sense of what vivas are like;
  • Offer to take someone for coffee and use the time to chat about your research;
  • Find out about other research in your field.

Simply: you have to pass the viva by yourself, but you can get a lot of help from others.

At a recent workshop, someone chatted to me afterwards, “That sounds great, but I’m a part-time researcher. I’m not based on campus. I only come in to see my supervisor. I don’t really know anyone in my department. What can I do?”

I had to think for a few minutes. Over the years I’ve tried to clear out my own biases of what a PhD is. I was full-time, funded, had a shared office in a busy department, compulsory development programme – and I learned soon after my PhD that wasn’t always the case.

Still, I felt safe to assume that everyone has colleagues they can talk to. But what if you don’t?

I don’t have definite ideas, but here are some initial suggestions:

  • Email recent graduates, introduce yourself and ask about their viva experiences.
  • Decide to give a seminar about your work, a PhD in sixty minutes with time for questions. Invite people to come.
  • Ask academics in your department about their process when they take on the role of examiner.

I hope these thoughts help. I doubt that the person who chatted to me is unique. I’ll be thinking about this topic more in the coming months. Please get in touch if you have any suggestions too!

Nathan

Two Thesis Book Clubs

Daily Post

Two ideas that popped into my mind at a Viva Survivor workshop last week:

  1. If you and some colleagues are currently writing: go exploring in your department’s thesis collection. See what people have submitted in the last few years. Meet once a month to discuss what you’ve found. Perhaps you could all read a thesis per month or take it in turns. You might find something interesting but your goal should be to look at style, formatting, layout and argument construction. As a group, create a list of helpful thoughts for your own work. How can you best layout your thesis? How can you setup a good structure? and so on. Use this to make writing up better.
  2. If you’ve submitted and are preparing for the viva: invite some colleagues into a very special book club. Only one book involved: yours. If you have time, get them to read and think about a chapter per week, then invite them to ask you questions. If there isn’t time for a regular meeting, you could arrange a one-off event. Your friends get a copy of your thesis in advance to read, you give a short overview of your research at the start and then take questions.

As option two is geared solely around your thesis you might have to pay for some refreshments – but that’s a small investment compared to the benefits of valuable questions from your colleagues!

Nathan

Phone A Friend

Daily Post

I used to love the game show Who Wants To Be A Millionaire? The “phone a friend” idea fascinated me. Who were these people? How were they confident Jim would know about Oscar winners? What would they do if Janet couldn’t help them figure out 18th century philosophers? That’s a lot of pressure!

You can’t phone a friend in the viva. It’s all up to you. You can’t ask the audience either or bring the options for answers down to a 50:50 choice…

…because the viva’s not a game show of course! It’s not all about factual recall or tiny closed questions that you can know or not. The viva is discussion, opinions, ideas and arguments.

And there’s just no place for your friends to help you in the viva.

It’s completely different before then. Phone your friends. Make plans with them. There’ll be lots of ways they can support you.

And if you have a friend with a viva coming up, see if they need some help. See what you can offer.

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