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Tag: the good stuff

Nathan

Love Letter For Your Thesis

Daily Post

Viva coming up? For one day, pause your usual preparation. Don’t analyse the contribution in each chapter. Don’t frantically search for typos. Don’t read through and worry what your examiners will say about this chapter or that choice.

Just take a page and write down what you love about your thesis.

What do you really love about it? What ideas do you adore? How does it make you happy? (it’s OK if “it’s done!” is the answer!)

What are you grateful for in your thesis? What inspires you? What can’t you wait to show others?

Find all the good stuff, and use that to motivate you for the rest of your prep and the viva.

Nathan

The Good Stuff

Daily Post

I ask people how they feel about the viva at the start of viva prep workshops. It’s rare for candidates to say excited. Sometimes people will frame excitement as “excited that my PhD is almost over” but that’s quite different from “excited that I get to talk to my examiners about my research.”

You can’t cherry pick the discussion in the viva, and it’s not wise to only focus on the good stuff in your prep, but you can take control of where some of your motivation is coming from for the viva. If you ask the right questions you can inspire yourself. Maybe if you have any anxiety about it all, you can change the way that you think about it.

So, to start, what are you excited to talk about with your examiners?