…you’re talented.
…your thesis is done.
…you only have a little way to go.
…is not like your first year.
…you’re at the end of the journey.
…you’re able to think clearly.
…you have experience.
Whatever first year, second year, third year was like, now is not then. Now you’re on the final approach to being done. Now you’re the expert.
Now you can be ready for your viva.
It’s easy to feel overwhelmed by research, by writing up, by getting ready for the viva and the day itself. There are lots of things you could do to advance any one of those goals. Sometimes the problem is that there are lots of things you could do alongside many things you already have to do just to be a part of the world.
Start small then.
If you’re feeling overwhelmed then find one small thing you can do (not could, can), and do it. Move yourself one step closer to the finish line of submitting your thesis, or getting ready for the viva. It might not feel like much, but lots of small steps will bring you to your goal.
So what’s your first step going to be?
Do the work you’re supposed to do…
…but don’t worry if you don’t get every answer to all the questions you had.
Do your thesis as well as you can…
…but don’t stress about the odd typo (you can fix that later).
Do explore who might be a good examiner for you…
…but don’t forget that you don’t get to pick them formally.
Do think about how you’ll manage to prepare before you submit…
…but don’t start preparing until you’ve got the thesis done.
Do take a break after you submit…
…but don’t leave preparation until the day before the viva.
Do read your thesis carefully…
…but don’t feel that you have to memorise it.
Do check out your examiners’ recent publications…
…but don’t stress about the literature in general (there’s only so much time to read papers).
Do find ways to practise answering unexpected questions about your work…
…but don’t have a mock viva if it doesn’t sound useful to you.
Do reflect on your work in as many ways as you can…
…but don’t forget to take breaks while you prepare.
Do go to the viva fixed on the thought that you’ve only got this far through talent and work…
…but don’t forget that there’s a little more work to do, a little more talent to show.
Exploring how your research could be better while you prepare for the viva can be interesting. You’re not looking for fatal flaws, just inspecting your work and asking some critical questions. You’re not trying to anticipate criticisms in the viva, just think clearly about what you’ve done and what you could have done.
For example, thinking back, how could my PhD research have been better?
Make sure you couple any critique with reasons why you didn’t do something different. So why didn’t I do any of these things that might have made my research better? Respectively:
It could feel awkward to ask yourself how to make your work better, or ask yourself what’s wrong with it. Really, you’re just giving another check. It can also help to spot little things that need support with more ideas. Looking at your thesis with a different mindset is valuable. You’ve done a lot of good work by the time you submit.
Playing Devil’s Advocate is just taking a step back. You’re not thinking “This is rubbish, what’s wrong?” but “This is great, could it be even better?”
I’m a fan of genre TV shows. I have been for years, so many, many long stories. I heard someone describe Lost as a ninety-hour movie and that seems pretty apt to me. Partly it’s the characters, the settings, the ideas but more than anything it’s the sheer scale of the stories being told. Heroes become villains, bad guys become unexpected allies, a late dramatic reveal upturns everything we know…
…and then there is the finale.
Things come to an end. A resolution is needed, but we need fan service too. Both characters and audiences need to be satisfied. All threads have to be tied up neatly.
With that much expectation is it any wonder that so many finales fall short?
The viva is the finale of the PhD (corrections are the credits rolling). So much has happened to get to that point, and so much is expected, wanted, needed from that event – is it any wonder that candidates sometimes feel it’s a bit of an anticlimax? That they were thinking it would be longer, or tougher, or that there would be something more about it?
If yours feels like that, don’t worry. You’ve not missed something. Your expectations were so grand that maybe they could never match the reality.
You’ve done it now. Reflect on the journey that got you here, look ahead and keep going.
After the dust of my examiners’ questions had settled and all the corrections were done I got to make some pretty nice hardbacks. My name and the title of my thesis was in gold on the cover! I was done! My thesis was great!
Except… I thought I would feel something. I was happy, sort of, I guess… And I knew that finishing my PhD was a milestone. I wasn’t expecting fireworks, or a band to strike up, but I thought I would feel something.
The end of my PhD was an anticlimax, I didn’t feel much of anything. At the time. As the months went on I realised that it was something big. It opened doors for me. It gave me a skill set that I use and develop nearly a decade later. It helped to give me a perspective on the world and shape my values. I co-authored a couple of papers and contributed to my field too.
My story might not mirror yours: it may be that you are totally over the moon after your viva. But you might not. Just a friendly word: it might take a while to sink in. Regardless, I think most PhDs, in time, come to realise that the PhD is so much more than a book with your name in gold letters on the cover, however cool that looks.
The PhD versus the Viva: if you can get it done* for 1000+ other days, why would this day be any different**?
*show up, learn, develop, grow, make, read, think, synthesise, propose, share, write, play, do and keep on doing…
**you’re at a challenging point, but you’ve shown yourself to be capable of meeting these challenges.
Throughout my PhD I thought that I was particularly attracted to what I did because I loved the challenge of maths. Maths can feel like there is a secret language at work. If you know it, or know enough, then you can feel powerful. It’s hard to get to know enough, and then to build up enough intuition about how to apply this magic to solve problems.
After my PhD I realised that I loved having interesting challenges to work on, and for a long time maths had been filling that space for me. So I started looking for interesting projects. This blog is an interesting challenge to work on. I have to write a lot (and edit a lot). I have to do a lot of planning and scheduling. Interesting challenges are worth it. They stretch you. They develop you. They’re worth finding or making.
At the end of your PhD, spend some time thinking about the interesting challenges you had. What did you learn from them? How did you encounter them? What happened as a result? Your examiners will not necessarily launch into asking you about the interesting challenges of your PhD, but if you spend time reviewing them you’ll find rich ideas to reflect on.