Happy
Happy to be there? Happy to be discussing your research with your examiners? Happy that your viva day has arrived? Happy that it will all be done soon? Happy to have made a contribution? Happy to be starting something else...
Daily viva help for PhDs
Happy to be there? Happy to be discussing your research with your examiners? Happy that your viva day has arrived? Happy that it will all be done soon? Happy to have made a contribution? Happy to be starting something else...
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...
You might have to take a step back when writing up to really ask yourself, “What else does this need?” You might have to take a step back from your thesis at submission, to give yourself space to reflect before...
In my writing and webinar work I try to help and to give perspective on the viva. I try not to share things like a great to do list, but also know that some people I engage will treat things...
Picture the hours after your viva. You’ve passed. You did it, you really did. Who are you telling first? How are you getting in touch? What are you saying? Picture the hours of your viva. You’re talking with your examiners,...
A lot of space is given to the origins of a research project in how we think about the viva and what you might need to talk about. How did you get started? What ideas influenced your first steps? What...
What would you do differently if you were to start your PhD over? Candidates have asked me about what they should say to this sort of question in the viva. It feels like it could be a trap: similar to...
Repeating. You’ll probably be doing this in the viva. Saying similar things to what you’ve said or thought before. Rehashing old arguments and reasons. That’s OK – the viva is about exploring what you did and what you can do,...
I’m a little wistful lately, remembering the final days of my PhD. Not my viva, not corrections, but those last few days when I was packing things up. It is late-summer 2008. My office-mates are either on holiday or have...
One day in late-August I found myself bursting into tears while casually browsing through a friend’s Facebook posts. They’d shared a short memorial post, and that was how I learned that Sir Ken Robinson had passed away. I cried reading...