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Tag: the PhD journey

Nathan

Effort

Daily Post

What did you learn in order to get through the first year of your PhD?

What did you figure out about your research area before you were halfway through your PhD journey?

What challenges did you overcome along the way?

How many pages does your thesis have?

How many chapters?

How many references in your bibliography?

How many days did you show up to do the work of your PhD?

 

Perfection isn’t possible in a PhD. Luck is only a very small factor in success. When you really reflect on the last few years, you only got this far through sheer effort.

And when you reflect on what all that effort means you can see why you’ll succeed at your viva too.

 

PS: I’ll be exploring success and how you achieve it at the viva at Viva Survivor, my upcoming live webinar on Thursday 5th December 2024. Lots more as well: expectations, examiners, viva prep – they all feed into confidence and success. Find out more about the session here.

Nathan

Reset

Daily Post

Viva prep can be an opportunity to reset after the stress needed to get your thesis submitted.

Rather than focus on the work you’ve done you can focus on the work you will do. Rather than focus on how you feel about getting your thesis done you can focus on how you want to feel for your viva. And instead of focussing on worries or stresses about whether you’ve done enough you can focus on the contribution you have necessarily made to get this far.

Viva prep can be a reset. It doesn’t change what you’ve done or what you need to do.

It simply allows you to keep going.

Nathan

When To Get Ready

Daily Post

Get ready for the specific challenge of your viva after taking a short break from your research and thesis submission.

Get ready by making sure you sketch out a plan for your viva prep. Give yourself enough time to read and review your thesis. Take time to reflect on what it all means and rehearse for meeting your examiners.

Get ready during this period by building up your confidence. Recognise that you are a capable researcher. You must be: that’s the only way you could have developed as much as you have.

And recognise that while you are preparing for the specific challenge of your viva, in reality you’ve been getting ready for your viva for a very long time.

 

PS: you don’t need to get ready for the viva until after submission. For help with all of the work and days leading up to submitting your thesis, check out Final Year Focus – my 1-hour live webinar running TOMORROW! Figuring out priorities, getting clear on plans, writing up, thinking about life after the PhD and more. Full registration details are on Eventbrite and there will be a catch-up recording if you can’t attend live. Thanks for reading!

Nathan

Signs Of PhD Success

Daily Post

You don’t pass your viva until you actually pass your viva – but there are lots of signs that can indicate PhD success before then.

  • You have a thesis.
  • You have submitted (or had accepted) one or more papers.
  • You have presented a talk or paper at a conference.
  • You have been working towards a PhD for at least several years.
  • You have submitted your thesis.
  • You have a viva date.
  • You have positive feedback from your supervisor and/or others about your research.
  • You can see future applications for your research, even if you’re not going to be the one to do that work.
  • You have future plans.
  • You have prepared for your viva and feel fairly confident.

You don’t pass your viva until you pass your viva. Before then, pay attention to the many signs showing PhD success in your future.

It’s not simply luck that you’ve got this far.

 

PS: if you’re working towards submission now and any of the above seem out of reach, take a look at Final Year Focus, my 1-hour live webinar running this Thursday, 24th October, at 11am. If it seems good but you can’t make it then you can still sign up to watch the catch-up recording! Full details and registration on Eventbrite. Thanks for reading!

Nathan

More Than Hope

Daily Post

You can hope that your viva will go well, but if you learn what to expect you can do something to make a difference.

You can hope that your examiners will be fair with you, but you can find out what they do to feel certain they will treat you well.

You can hope that you’ve done enough, but you can review your work and know you’ve made a contribution.

You can hope you’re prepared, but you can know you’re ready by planning, taking your time and doing the work.

You can hope you’re not too nervous, but also pursue confidence: reflect on your journey, take steps to get ready and remind yourself of what you’ve done to get this far.

You can do more than hope you’ll succeed at your viva.

Nathan

Zero Corrections?

Daily Post

It would be really nice to have no corrections to complete after your viva!

I bet that would feel great.

Hope for it, but that’s all it is: a hope that your writing, proofreading and efforts didn’t miss any mistakes that need fixing. A hope that your thinking has been clear and consistent across tens of thousands of words.

 

Corrections are a part of the process for most PhD candidates. It’s not because most candidates are sloppy: it’s a reflection that writing is hard, editing is hard and proofreading is hard.

It would be really, really nice to have no corrections to complete after your viva!

You’ll probably have more than zero to resolve. Accept that situation when you submit, do the work that’s asked and then move on.

Nathan

Doing, Done and Nerves

Daily Post

The key difference between transfer or upgrade vivas and the final viva:

At a transfer viva you need to talk about what you’re potentially going to be doing – and at your final viva you’re talking about you’ve done.

Postgraduate researchers can feel very nervous at both though!

For some PhD candidates, I think that final viva nerves might be the still reverberating echoes of the transfer viva. If that was a nerve-wracking event you might think this final viva will be a stressful event too.

Remember you’re not the same person you were then. Your final viva is not the same situation. At the end of your first year there was still so much you were doing and so much to do. At the final viva you are done.

Nathan

By The End…

Daily Post

…of your first thesis draft you’ll probably be wondering what to do, what to focus on and how long you’ll need to fix anything that needs fixing.

…of the day when you submit your thesis you can hopefully take a deep breath, relax and smile a little.

…of your viva prep period you’ll appreciate that you are ready.

…of the last minute before your viva I hope, despite any nerves, that you’ll feel like you are enough.

…of your viva I hope that you feel it was a good experience.

…of your PhD I hope you feel good for whatever challenges are in your future.

Nathan

The Final Hours

Daily Post

A full-time PhD could take about a thousand days from when you start work on your research to when you submit your thesis.

Getting ready for your viva is a modest chunk of work that could take twenty or thirty hours spread out over two to four weeks.

The viva itself might go by so fast that you’ll blink and miss it! Two, three, four hours? Maybe less, certainly not much more even for a “long” viva.

 

Thousands and thousands of hours of work to get to submission.

Twenty or thirty more to get ready.

Two or three to finally get the job done.

Those final hours matter, but rather than stress about what will, won’t or might happen in those few hours, it’s probably better to focus on the work you will have done in the thousands of hours before then.

Nathan

It’s Never Just Luck

Daily Post, Sabbatical

“Luck” during a PhD can only come from your working to be in a good space to begin with.

“Luck” with a result or an idea or the final state of your thesis is the result of work, not simple good fortune.

“Luck” in the viva’s outcome denies all you’ve done.

Don’t be so modest. Don’t downplay what you did, and what you can do. Yes, you may have been fortunate, but you still had to work for that opportunity or outcome!

 

Viva Survivors Summer Sabbatical: I’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 7th 2020.

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