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Tag: not perfect

Nathan

Rose-tinted Reflections

Daily Post

I have fond memories of my PhD, but also a background feeling that it could have been so much more than it was.

I could have been more pro-active; I realised quite late that I could set my own directions and goals. I could have achieved more. I spent a long time following dead ends and trying to force ideas and results to work, without stopping to see what the real underlying problems were with my research.

Maybe I could have worked better had I realised what my own underlying problems were.

Like me, you’re not perfect. Your research and thesis won’t be perfect. But focussing on the imperfections in advance of your viva probably won’t help you to get ready. Instead, acknowledge the things that could be better, make a note of anything that might need special attention and then start your prep centred on the things that you do well.

Start with your successes, your results, your talent, and use that to build on. Not everything can be amazing when you look back on your PhD, but hopefully there’s enough there to help you feel good for your viva.

Nathan

Summary Focus

Daily Post

How small could you make your thesis?

It takes years to create, through research and writing, to make it what it is. But could your thesis be summarised in a few thousand words before your viva, to help you remember key points, important references and essential ideas?

Perhaps you could present the best ideas in, say, three minutes? A valuable and entertaining presentation for a general audience, not dumbing down, but not sharing all of the details.

Or could you capture everything essential for you in a single page? What would be essential? How would you decide on what to leave out and what to include?

You can’t walk into the viva having memorised tens of thousands of words and hundreds of references – and you don’t need to. A useful part of preparation is breaking down your work to find the most important details, to help your memory and make present the most valuable or necessary things that you might have to discuss in the viva.

You might want to explore several different scales of summaries, or ask yourself several different questions to help your preparation. To begin with, ask yourself what information you need to look over. What do you think would be useful to have almost at your fingertips? And what might others need to know or be interested in?