You Are Here

Tag: summer sabbatical

Nathan

Summary & Memory

Daily Post, Sabbatical

Writing a summary of some aspect of your thesis or research before the viva can do a lot of things to help you. It forces you to focus on something, to highlight the best parts or the most difficult sections and can really support you as you fine-tune your thinking.

It’s important to also recognise that creating a summary can help your memory too. It helps embed ideas. You don’t need to memorise your thesis, or a list or a page of notes, or anything like that. Your examiners want to talk to a person and hear their research, their story and what that means. They don’t need you to recite your work to them.

The focus of writing a summary can help boost what you remember for the viva. You know enough and have done enough or you wouldn’t be working towards finishing your PhD. A little more work can help you remember what you need for meeting your examiners.

 

Viva Survivors Summer Sabbatical: Iā€™m taking July, August and September off from new writing to concentrate on other creative projects, so will be sharing a post from the archives every day throughout those months. Today’s post was originally published on July 8th 2023.

Nathan

Let Go

Daily Post, Sabbatical

All the things you didn’t do. All the things you couldn’t do. All the ideas you didn’t follow. All the questions you couldn’t answer. All the opportunities you had to turn down.

You have to let them go when you prepare for the viva.

Whatever they mean, and whatever you might do with them in the future. They might be of interest in some way, or add context to something you could need to talk about. Exploring them might be a small part of your preparations but they can’t be your focus for getting ready.

Focus on what you did. Focus on the ideas you explored. Focus on the questions you answered, the results and conclusions you found. Focus on the opportunities that lead you somewhere.

Focus on who you are, not who you might have been.

 

Viva Survivors Summer Sabbatical: Iā€™m taking July, August and September off from new writing to concentrate on other creative projects, so will be sharing a post from the archives every day throughout those months. Today’s post was originally published on March 12th 2021.

Nathan

Summer Sabbatical

Daily Post

I didn’t mark the seventh anniversary of the Viva Survivors daily blog back in April. It completely slipped my mind. I wrote about something else instead and the date only registered weeks later.

Seven years.

Over 2500 daily posts.

More than 400,000 words about the viva, viva prep, expectations, examiners, confidence, nervousness, worry, getting ready and more. Serious and silly posts, lists, essays, highlights, resources and lots of things that are neither one thing nor another.

I’ve no intention of stopping Viva Survivors, but I think I need a break šŸ™‚

 

From next Monday, July 1st 2024, I’ll be taking my first ever Viva Survivors Summer Sabbatical: instead of a new daily post there will be an old daily post from the archives, every day through to September 30th.

I’ve already arranged so the site will run without my intervention over the coming months. I’ll be contactable but otherwise investing the time I would have spent on Viva Survivors every week on other creative projects.

If you don’t already, subscribe to Viva Survivors for a daily piece of viva help! šŸ™‚

1 … 8 9 10