The End Result
Remember what you’re working towards. You need to submit your thesis, but you’re not working towards that. You need to prepare for your viva, but the work isn’t for the sake of preparation. And you want to pass your viva,...
the end of the phd
Before You Know It
It’s almost twenty years since I started my PhD. I remember the first week very clearly, sitting at my desk, skim-reading through papers I couldn’t grasp, making notes and chatting with my office-mates. I very distinctly remember thinking, “I don’t...
Measuring PhD Success
What does PhD success mean? I’ve heard lots of possible ideas over the years: No corrections? Is that the goal? Two or more publications? Is that what you want? Or need? Just getting through?! Is that enough? Feeling proud at...
The Edge
Are you nervous about your viva or nervous about the upcoming change? Your viva, and your success at it, aren’t a leap of faith. You did the work, you did the prep, you can learn about the process. You don’t...
Before The End
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....
Time To Finish
The viva is framed in lots of different ways. It’s an exam. It’s a test. It’s a discussion. It’s the end of the PhD journey or the final challenge. You could be excited to be there or telling yourself, “Let’s...
The Ends
The end of your viva is not the end of your PhD. The end of your bibliography doesn’t mean that there is nothing else to know. The end of your thesis is not the end of the research that could...
The End of the Beginning
The viva is the beginning of the end. Passing it is, I like to think, also the end of the beginning. However you feel about your PhD journey, particularly if it has been challenging or coincided with the pandemic, it is...
And Then You’re Done
Finishing my PhD was a strange time. I remember a weird few weeks of tidying my desk, taking folders home on the train, clearing stuff into recycling, and then a gap of months of trying to figure out, “What now?”...
A Good End
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...