Small Beginnings
Do you remember the first day of your PhD? Do you remember what that was like? I do! I can vividly remember showing up at my office, being told which of two desks I could commandeer for the next few...
Daily viva help for PhDs
Do you remember the first day of your PhD? Do you remember what that was like? I do! I can vividly remember showing up at my office, being told which of two desks I could commandeer for the next few...
At submission, a PhD candidate won’t typically know when their viva is going to be. There’s a period when they’ll wait to find out the date and time for their viva. In the UK it’s common for the viva to...
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....
It occurred to me recently that a key expectation for the viva, very rarely expressed, is that the candidate will not know what questions they will be asked until they get there. There are helpful lists of potential questions on...
Three or more years of research and writing. Two to four weeks of preparation time. One day with a challenge. Put the viva in the right perspective.
That’s the time after your viva, after corrections, after your final thesis submission but before you actually graduate with your PhD. Are you a Doctor at that point? Technically no, but you might not let that stop you from changing...
There are lots of questions you could be asked at your viva, including questions you’ve never been asked before! But by the time you get there you will have had lots of practise responding to questions, certainly enough to do...
If you’re post-submission and trying to prepare for your viva but finding it hard then remember: you could not have got this far unless you were good. Could you keep going for this long and this far if you were...
Candidates are always concerned about viva length, worried that theirs will be long – or too long, however that might be defined. Remember: the longest viva will be shorter than the longest work day of your PhD. It has to...
Ugh. The most common response to thinking about thesis corrections. Of course, any kind of corrections – minor or major – are unwanted, but they’re not bad in themselves. Examiners require corrections for lots of reasons: typos, clarity or because...