You Are Here

Tag: happy birthday viva survivors

Nathan

Six Thoughts On Six Years

Daily Post

Six years of the Viva Survivors daily blog.

Wow. Time flies when you’re planning, writing and publishing an original and helpful blog post every day!

What stands out to me from the last six years?

  1. As time goes by I see this resource I’ve made as valuable for PGRs, but it’s also incredibly valuable to me as a way to practice, refine and explore ideas. I’d recommend a regular writing practice to anyone.
  2. For all the changes of the last few years, the viva – preparation, expectations, worries and problems – doesn’t seem to have changed. Not really.
  3. The mini-vivas resource I made remains one of my favourite viva prep ideas!
  4. For all the prep someone can do before the viva, perhaps the most valuable thing they can do is build their confidence – centred on the work they have done and the success they’ve found along the way.
  5. Publishing a daily blog isn’t “hard” but it is work. It doesn’t get easier, it evolves and stays challenging.
  6. I want to encourage more people to subscribe than currently do. I’ve been told many times that receiving an email every day with a little viva help or encouragement has been great. I want to find helpful ways to encourage PGRs to sign-up!

Onwards and upwards. No plan to stop, no need to pause. Thank you for reading, if this is your first post or your five-hundredth. There’s a lot of help here, if you need it.

Thank you!

 

And as a little bonus for today, links to the first and anniversary posts from the last six years!

  1. No Accident – April 18th 2017
  2. One Year Later – April 18th 2018
  3. The Culture Around Vivas – April 18th 2019
  4. Three Years On – April 18th 2020
  5. Four Years – April 18th 2021
  6. A Happy Accident – April 18th 2022

I wonder what I’ll share next year?

Nathan

Five Years

Daily Post

Viva Survivors started as a podcast five years ago today. A lot has happened. That’s an understatement, but a good starting point.

In five years I’ve produced over sixty episodes of the podcast, written three books, delivered hundreds of workshops to thousands of PhDs and that’s scratching the surface. That’s just the numbers, not the real achievements, not the real milestones.

Viva Survivors started as a podcast, and has only recently broadened out with the daily blog. With the Other Resources, Books and eBooks pages, there has been more than just interviews for some time. It was only seven weeks ago that I “officially” threw the switch that changed things, but the change was coming for a while. I’m really happy with how it is going and am looking forward to share more posts every day, along with more new original resources for viva prep soon.

At this five year mark I want to say thank you to everyone who I’ve interviewed; thank you to everyone who has shared or tweeted about the site; thank you to everyone who has come to a workshop; thank you to everyone who has bought one of my books; thank you to everyone and anyone who has been a supporter. Viva Survivors does not have a staff of hundreds: there’s me and my wife and our business. This “side” project would not have got anywhere without thousands of other people who have helped our work along.

A question: how has your life changed in the last five years? If you’re finishing up a PhD, what numbers or achievements are you most proud of? Why?

Nathan

The Podcast is 3! Plus Ebook Offer

Update

On the 6th of June 2012 I started the podcast, which means that this Saturday is the 3rd birthday! I don’t have cake and ice cream unfortunately, but I am still pretty excited that the podcast is something that resonates with a lot of people. I love hearing from people have found it useful – and from people who want to join me on the podcast to share their experiences.

It’s also around this time of year that I have to pay the hosting bill for the podcast *sad face* I’ve resisted putting a donate button, but am now thinking that might be a good way to cover the various expenses of running the site. What do you think? Good idea?

To help with covering the hosting, and as a way of celebrating the third birthday, I’ve set up some special offer codes for my two books on viva preparation. These codes work for buying the ebooks via Payhip, where you can get them in .mobi and .epub formats.

  • If you click here you can see my books, and by using code PODCAST3 you can get 10% off!
  • And as a special bonus, if you want to buy the Viva Books Bundle, use the code VSPEXTRA to get 20% off!

The codes are good until midnight on Sunday 7th June 2015. And on Monday there will be a brand new episode, where I’m talking to Dr Malcolm Craig about his PhD and viva, and what’s he up to now. If you want to join me on a future episode then just get in touch, I’m always looking for more people who want to share their PhD and viva experiences, and help others with their preparation.

Thanks to everyone who has been on the podcast in the last three years, to everyone who has listened and shared them, and to everyone who has helped me get this far. I’ve got ideas and plans for the future, so let’s see what the next year brings. Thanks for reading!

Nathan (@DrRyder and @VivaSurvivors)