Daily viva help for PhDs
Nearly all candidates say they’re nervous.
Nearly all vivas result in a pass.
Nearly all candidates could be prepared for their viva if they choose to be.
Nearly all examiners are good.
Nearly all candidates get minor corrections.
Nearly all expectations are met, but most vivas will have something out of the ordinary.
There’s a place for honest feedback and difficult questions in viva preparation. Criticism can help too, but all of this has to be in proportion with encouragement. Look for people who can help you see that it is all going to be fine.
Look back over the last few years. Reflect on your story. What events and achievements can you find that encourage you for your viva?
We don’t talk about it enough.
One day in every UK PhD’s life that is shoved aside, joked about, under-analysed, glossed over and swept under the rug. Don’t think about it too much because you’ll worry or stress. Don’t ask about it because you might hear a story you don’t like the sound of. Don’t explore what happens in case you feel you’re not up to the task. Don’t tell anyone afterwards because it’s over and done with now.
We need to talk about the viva – and I mean “we” because I can’t do it by myself!
We need graduates to talk about how they were feeling: what their expectations were, what happened and what they think that means.
We need academics to talk about their role in the process: what do supervisors do to help and what do examiners do to examine?
We need candidates to talk about how they’re feeling about their viva: what they know, what they don’t and what kind of support they need.
In general we need to talk about the viva more than we’re doing so that we can do a better job of helping candidates realise that it is a manageable challenge in their future. Difficult but do-able, especially given what they’ve already accomplished.
If you can mark off most of the following then you’re good to go for the viva:
Gut feeling helps. Perfection is impossible. If you can get to submission, you’re most of the way to viva success. It takes only a little more.
Keep going!
Noun. Expert skill or knowledge in a particular field.
You are the best in the world on the subject of your thesis.
You did the research. You wrote the thesis. Thousand and thousands of hours of work.
It will take people with expertise to read your thesis and get something from it.
No-one else will have the expertise that you do. That might not be enough to help you feel completely confident for your viva, but it’s a good starting point.
What do you do if you feel something like this – afraid, nervous, worried – about the viva?
Let’s ask another question: what would you do if you were unafraid, not nervous, not worried about your viva?
You would prepare – and if you don’t feel great, you need to prepare too.
However you feel about your viva, the courses of action you have to take are the same. You need to read your thesis, write and think about your work, find opportunities to practise unexpected questions and do what you can to be confident.
You might feel that you need to do more or less of things because of how you feel. Doing something won’t just help you get ready, it should also help you feel ready.
Go back through your calendars, diaries, lab books, log books and records for the last few years of your PhD. Your memory can trick you sometimes. Sometimes you can forget what you did when – or even what you did at all.
Map out the years of your research. When did you ask that question? When did you complete that project? When did you give that great presentation? When did you find yourself becoming talented at something?
Mark it all down. By doing it you’ll help yourself in two ways. First, you’ll have explored more detail that you can share with your examiners in the viva. This will help you answer questions and engage in discussion.
Second, and in my opinion, more importantly, you’ll see just how far you’ve come. You’ll see the story of your talent: this is you. This didn’t just happen. You did this. You made all of this happen. You’ve had success. And you can continue that success in your viva.
We need to change how we measure the viva and a candidate’s success.
Lots of questions are asked about the viva:
That last question is underlying all of the above, of course. The story about vivas says corrections are bad, major corrections especially; a long viva is bad, for some value of “long” that someone else gets to determine; going blank or saying “I don’t know” is bad, and so are any mistakes.
I’m not trying to claim the opposite. In reality all these things are just part of the process, not “bad”. Some vivas are longer than others, some lead to more corrections than others. Some people will make mistakes along the way; they don’t typically lead to great problems.
I don’t have a foolproof plan to change this part of the viva narrative. All I have are some questions that might be more helpful to ask:
If you ask these questions of graduates around you, their responses can help you prepare for your own viva. If we ask them more generally then people will start to notice the words and ideas that are associated with the viva. If enough questions like these are asked then maybe they will trickle down through future PhD cohorts and help them and how they think about their viva.
Eventually, change will come to the viva and the culture around it.
Change always comes.
We can do something to steer that change if we want to.
I’ve always loved science-fiction. I really love Star Trek: The Next Generation. I was a child when I first watched it, and over thirty years later the best of it still has a special place in my heart. I was hooked when I saw planets and stars in the opening credits and heard Patrick Stewart’s opening narration:
Space… The final frontier…These are the voyages of the Starship Enterprise. Its continuing mission: To explore strange new worlds…To seek out new life and new civilizations…To boldly go where no one has gone before!
The mission never ends. There are new things to learn and see and do, new ways to be tested – and all of the new experiences follow the one decision to explore.
The viva is part of your continuing mission. Your PhD is a journey of discovery. It’s right to think of the viva as one more step rather than a final chapter. It’s the next thing, not the last thing. Something new, something different, but not something beyond you. All of the talent from the rest of the journey is available to you; all you’ve learned and all you can do can help you to pass.
Make it so.
I don’t know there is much scope for candidates to lead in the viva. In the stories I have been told, I don’t hear tales of examiners sitting back and waiting for the candidate to direct questions, or steer them towards conclusions, or evade lines of discussion. It’s not for the candidate to dictate what happens (nor should it be up to examiners to dictate things either, of course). It’s for examiners to steer discussions, examiners to fairly ask questions, suggest ideas and examine the thesis and candidate.
As a candidate though, you can lead yourself. This isn’t a throwaway, simple, nice-sounding thing. You can lead. Set the tone for yourself. What do you expect? What standards are you aiming for? What direction do you want to go in as a researcher for the viva, and how are you going to get there? Ask yourself what “prepared” might feel like – then ask yourself what you are going to do to lead yourself towards feeling confident on the day?
You have to lead yourself. So what are you going to do?