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Nathan

How You Find Confidence

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You have to look for it.

If you want to feel confident for your viva it’s not enough to hope that you will feel good on the day. You have to do something before then to feel confident.

Reflecting on your PhD journey is a good start. Remembering and reminding yourself of the successes you’ve made and the growth in your knowledge and capability.

Highlight your particular achievements. Make a list and write about why these things matter and help you to feel good.

Explore viva expectations to get a sense of what happens in vivas. Consider how suitable you are to thrive in that situation: talking about yourself and the work you have done.

Decide on specific actions to take in the days leading up to your viva to feel better. What can you do to prompt confident feelings? What can you do to remind yourself of the many successes you’ve had?

It’s not enough to hope you feel confident. You have to search for and find confidence.

Nathan

Imperfect Reflections

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Looking in a mirror shows things reversed. Looking in a spoon shows things distorted. And reflecting on research doesn’t automatically reveal everything we want or need.

  • Gathering thoughts or summarising ideas doesn’t tell the whole story.
  • Focussing questions mean that some points have to be left out.
  • Memory can be faulty and our biases can cover up things that they shouldn’t.

With all of that in mind, perhaps the best thing you can do when when reflecting on your research for viva preparation is to reflect a lot.

Ask lots of questions. Create lots of small summaries. Find many different ways to look at what you’ve done, how you did it, why you did it and what happened.

A reflection is never perfect, but by exploring different perspectives you will find more than if you just looked back one time on one aspect.

Nathan

The Many Ends

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Submitting your thesis can feel like a finish line has been crossed.

Passing your viva could be the end – but for most PhD candidates there is another step of submitting corrections, then having them approved.

Then there’s the final thesis submission.

And still there’s more because a PhD journey isn’t really over until a candidate has graduated. They have to have the opportunity to go across a stage and shake someone important’s hand while dressed in their academic finery!

 

For some candidates this still isn’t the end because they continue the work. Or perhaps they continue thinking about it. For some, there’s also an aspect of being a postgraduate researcher that they need to unpack afterwards. What did all of that mean? What have I done? And what now?

There are lots of ending points of the PhD. The finish line isn’t submission or the viva. It helps to know what the practical process is, but that’s easy to find out from regulations and asking others.

It may help even more to think ahead and consider what the end of your PhD really means to you.

Nathan

Before The End

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A long time ago I would regularly help to deliver residential learning programmes for researchers. Two or three days at an isolated retreat centre, long hours, creative project work, sharing ideas and experiences and thinking about what it all meant. I loved it.

The course director had a good way to close each experiential learning programme. We would all sit down, two or three staff and maybe a dozen or so postgraduate researchers and talk about what the programme had meant. Before the end, we would go around in a circle and just say anything we needed to in order to finish.

This might be something that had stood out. Something we were thankful for. In some cases something that was bothering someone. Something that had been a surprise. Something that had been learned.

And when each person had said their piece they would finish simply with, “I’m done.”

I’ve been reminiscing a little lately and thinking about the end of my PhD. Looking back I do think I could have finished things off better. After my viva I was so focussed on getting my corrections complete and my thesis finished. Then I was wondering what I would do next. Before I knew it I had to pack my desk and office space up, move things out and start something new.

I don’t wish I had had more time, but I do wish I had used my time differently. After my corrections I wish I had spent a little more time on sorting things out. On deciding what I would and wouldn’t be taking home with me. I kept boxes of notes and papers for years before realising I was never going to do anything with them.

And I particularly wish I had taken more time to thank people who had helped me.

My encouragement for you: do what I didn’t. Take a little time after your viva to make sure you finish in a good way. You will be busy. You will have 101 things to do. Still, take a little time to decide carefully on what you do and don’t need for the future. Take a little time to thank people before you move on to the next thing you’ll do.

OK. I’m done.

Nathan

Every Day The Same

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With hindsight my PhD journey feels a lot like the movie Groundhog Day.

Every day was get up, go to the office, do some maths, go home, go to bed, get up, go to the office… And so on. There was a definite rhythm to things; my days and weeks punctuated with breaks, seminars and meetings at the same times.

Until submission! Until the viva! Two very different days, days when everything changes. No more repetition, and like the end of Groundhog Day, uncertainty – but positivity – about the future.

What will happen next? Who knows – but it won’t be the same as every other day.

I don’t mean to sound negative about my PhD. It was a formative time in my life; I didn’t find all the answers but at least I realised what I was missing. I had a good foundation to build on for life afterwards. However it was hard: every day the same, more or less. Work work work work work, and occasionally some results, then back to work.

I’m not negative, but it can be hard if your experience is similar to see the change in yourself. The development in your abilities, talents, knowledge and the contribution you make. If you don’t see that, by the time you reach submission day or viva day you might feel unprepared for the new challenges ahead.

Before your viva take a little time to reflect on your PhD journey. The thousand or more days of the PhD have made a difference to you.

What is that difference? How far have you come? And how does that set you up well for the viva and for life after the PhD?

Nathan

Your Greatest Challenge

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Think back over the course of your PhD journey to date. What stands out to you as the greatest challenge you overcame? Reflect and explore what you remember.

  • Why was the situation a challenge for you?
  • How did you work to overcome it?
  • What was the result of your success?

Your examiners need to know about your research and your journey – as told by you in your thesis and your viva – so that they can confirm you have done enough.

You need to really know how you have got this far – by reflecting on the challenges you have overcome – so that you can convince yourself you are good enough.

Nathan

Comfort or Stretch

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Comfort, Stretch and Panic are a helpful trio to consider when challenging yourself. The first two words are helpful to consider as springboards for reflection in your viva prep.

For Comfort, think about what skills or knowledge you’ve developed on your PhD journey. What do you know now? What is a comfortable challenge for you? What can you do that you couldn’t do before? How might you apply some of that thinking or skill in the viva?

For Stretch, think about how you have grown. When did you need to apply yourself more? What was it like in those times? Did you boost your confidence or determination? What parts of your research stretched you?

Comfort and Stretch can help you get ready for your viva. You can reflect on these areas by yourself – but if anything leads you to Panic – or to stress or to worry – then ask for help. Ask your supervisor, talk to friends and explore what the viva is really like.

Comfort and Stretch can help you get ready, but there’s really no need to Panic about your viva.

Nathan

Reflect

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Take time to stop and think.

Reflect on your PhD. Reflect on the journey. The peaks and troughs of hard work and difficult circumstances that have brought you this far.

Not far to go now. Reflect on what you need to do to get to the end.

And reflect on how it will feel and what you might do when your PhD journey is over – when you start a new one as a PhD, not working to be one.

Take time to reflect before your viva.