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Tag: the viva

Nathan

The Finale

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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.

Nathan

The Magic Feather

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(Do I need to give a spoiler warning for a movie that is over 75 years old?!)

In Dumbo, the little elephant with big ears is given a magic feather to help him fly, and off he goes. When he loses it he suddenly believes he will crash! Thankfully his good friend tells him he could fly all along: the feather was just something that gave him the confidence to do it.

And with that he flies again.

If you’ve done the research, written a thesis and submitted it, you don’t need a magic feather for the viva. You’re supposed to be there, you have the talent. If you have a ritual, be it three coffees or good day socks, and that helps, then do it – use whatever confidence you can find.

You don’t need one, but if a magic feather will help then get looking.

Nathan

First Questions

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There are lots of ways your examiners could begin your viva, lots of questions to start the discussion.

It could be “how did you get interested in this topic?” or “how would you summarise your findings?”

Maybe they’ll ask “what’s your most important result?” or “why did you decide to follow this line of enquiry?”

Or maybe they’ll simple ask “how are you feeling today?”

There are no trick questions in the viva, especially with whatever your examiners ask first. The first question is likely to be something you’ve thought about before; you can’t guarantee what it will be exactly, but you can be sure it’s something you can answer.

Nathan

Amazed

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Doing a PhD and writing a thesis is like finding your way to the centre of a maze. You might have some ideas about how to get there when you start, but it will still take work to make it through. You can go down wrong paths, get lost, but with time and effort you’ll get there.

Preparing for the viva is finding your way back out of the maze. It takes less time, but you have to check your way as you go. Just because you made it in, it doesn’t mean you know the shortest way back. You can still get lost. But you have a lot of experience to draw on now.

Describing the maze is the viva. How it looks. How you got there. Why you decided to walk it in the first place.

Walking back out of the maze will help you make sense of how you got in. Checking back over the twists and turns will make explaining the route to someone else a much easier task.

Nathan

The Worst

Daily Post

“Can you explain how to make a genus 2 handlebody?”

Gulp.

I was really confident on the results of Chapter 5, but the background was shaky at best in my mind. I had a great result, proved an open conjecture, but couldn’t explain the background with confidence.

And I knew it. I knew it as I was reading my thesis and making notes in prep for my viva. I knew what the worst question was just from reading my thesis. I could have spent more time trying to unpick it and prepare. Instead I hoped it wouldn’t come up.

In workshops I’m regularly asked, “What’s the worst question that your examiners could ask?” It varies for every person. I think each candidate knows what the worst question is, because they’ve already encountered it. In preparation for the viva it’s an area to definitely spend time on. Don’t just hope it won’t come up.

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