viva expectations

Expect Corrections

Most people have to do some. They’re not a punishment. They’re your examiners saying, “Here, you missed this,” or “This is good, but if you try this it will be better.”

Or occasionally, “That’s not how you spell that!”

You can’t predict exactly what you’ll be asked to do. Most PhD candidates will get minor corrections. Some don’t get any. Some are asked to do major corrections or resubmit. Check with your institution’s regulations about what different outcomes could mean for you. Be sure so you can plan ahead.

Expect that you’ll have some corrections to do, but expect that your thesis – and you – will be pretty good by the time your viva comes around.

What If You Have No Community?

At workshops I often advise people to talk to their colleagues when preparing for the viva:

  • Ask about their viva experiences to get a sense of what vivas are like;
  • Offer to take someone for coffee and use the time to chat about your research;
  • Find out about other research in your field.

Simply: you have to pass the viva by yourself, but you can get a lot of help from others.

At a recent workshop, someone chatted to me afterwards, “That sounds great, but I’m a part-time researcher. I’m not based on campus. I only come in to see my supervisor. I don’t really know anyone in my department. What can I do?”

I had to think for a few minutes. Over the years I’ve tried to clear out my own biases of what a PhD is. I was full-time, funded, had a shared office in a busy department, compulsory development programme – and I learned soon after my PhD that wasn’t always the case.

Still, I felt safe to assume that everyone has colleagues they can talk to. But what if you don’t?

I don’t have definite ideas, but here are some initial suggestions:

  • Email recent graduates, introduce yourself and ask about their viva experiences.
  • Decide to give a seminar about your work, a PhD in sixty minutes with time for questions. Invite people to come.
  • Ask academics in your department about their process when they take on the role of examiner.

I hope these thoughts help. I doubt that the person who chatted to me is unique. I’ll be thinking about this topic more in the coming months. Please get in touch if you have any suggestions too!

Pros & Cons

It can be useful to think through the pros and cons of different things related to your viva:

  • Whether you start preparing for the viva a month or two weeks before the viva…
  • Whether or not you try for an examiner who you’ve cited in your bibliography…
  • Whether or not your supervisor will be present on the day…
  • Whether or not you have a mock viva…

Some you can weigh up and get a clear idea of what to do. Some aren’t so clear. Is it better or worse to have an expert in your field examine your thesis? Should you create summaries of every chapter?

There are pros and cons for everything. Sometimes they lead you to a clear answer, sometimes they don’t. Sometimes you just have to listen to your gut feeling.

At some point you have to take action. Whatever the pros and cons, however clear the issue, you still get to choose the course you take.

Clockwatching

Years ago I worked in a discount store every Saturday. I showed up at 9am, went home at 6pm, and got paid £20 for my troubles. At 16 it seemed like a good deal! Those Saturdays dragged though, because between 11 and 5 we had to “watch the shop”. The owner wanted all of us to be a physical presence, a deterrent against thieves. We stood on our aisles, waited and watched for six hours.

I watched the clock. I made games of it. Another minute gone. Another ten. I broke hours down into quarters. I worked out my pay per hour. Then per minute. Watching the time didn’t make the standing around easier, quicker, better or less boring! If anything, it just frustrated me. The clock just ticked on as always. Clockwatching never helped.

A decade passed and I was in my viva, and I found myself watching the clock again. I stole a glance when we finished talking about my first chapter and felt worried: 45 minutes on one chapter… I had seven! We took a break as we finished chapter four and we were two and a half hours in! At least in the discount store there was a time the clock was moving to when work would be done. Two and a half hours… Was this good? Was this bad? How much longer would it be?

I stopped watching after that point, kept my eyes on my examiners and the room. Watching the clock didn’t help. Clockwatching in the viva never helps. Knowing the time doesn’t help you to answer a question, to think or to be engaged with your examiners.

Take off your watch. Take down or cover the clock. Don’t worry about how long the viva might be. Put your attention on being your best self.

Enthusiasm

You can be enthusiastic for the viva and also feel nervous about it too. They’re not mutually exclusive states. Rather than think of ways to combat nervousness, could you think of ways to boost your enthusiasm?

To my mind, there’s lots of reasons to be enthusiastic about the viva.

It’s the final test! You’ve written a thesis! You are talented to be there!

Of course, I have a different perspective on the viva. The reasons I can think of to be enthusiastic might or might not help you.

So what would?

Tearing Off The Paper

About six weeks ago I watched as a dozen children almost went to war in my living room. The reason?

Pass The Parcel.

It was my daughter’s fifth birthday party, and she’d insisted on playing a lot of games, including Pass The Parcel. We decided it would be like Pass The Parcel from our childhoods, with a single prize in the centre, and no little prize with every layer.

Well.

The kids were in uproar. We told them there was just one in the centre, but they were confused. Wh- Why?! Where were the little prizes? Then I want to win the one in the centre! They were desperate to hold on to the parcel in case this layer was the layer. They stopped having fun. We thought it would be alright, they would see the fun in taking part, taking a layer off getting closer to the prize, but they didn’t. Wanting the prize was too much for them. In the end, we fudged the final round so a particularly desperate child won.

(I feared tears and physical violence if they didn’t)

I was thinking about this game of Pass The Parcel the other day and was reminded of my PhD, and research more generally.

Sometimes, you only get to tear the paper off; sometimes, you don’t get to the big answer, the thing you were looking for. You get closer, but not all the way to the prize.

And that’s fine, you learn, you grow and you move everyone in your field forward.

It can be hard though, doing a PhD, writing a thesis, preparing for the viva, to see it that way. It might be true, but will your examiners see it that way? Or will they focus solely on why you didn’t get to the end goal? Examiners appreciate that not every research journey ends at the point one might want. They’ll have the experience to recognise what you’ve done if you don’t reach the point you wanted.

Your job, if this is your situation, is to be able to talk about how far you went. How close you came. What the different layers you tore off were. How you might have done it differently. And what other steps someone might need to take to reach the prize.

Glitches

Every computer I’ve ever owned, every phone, every console has glitched at some point. From the blue screen of death to Netflix stalling, Firefox not responding and Open Office encountering an error, sometimes things go wrong. It just happens; reboot, restart and then things work. They work correctly 99% of the time…

…just like you. It’s understandable to worry about freezing, going blank or saying “I don’t know” in the viva. It’s important, you want it to go well. If you glitch then the solution is the same as your favourite expensive electronic device.

Reboot, restart and things will be fine:

  • if you go blank, pause, take a sip of water.
  • if you freeze, smile, think and move on.
  • if your only thought is “I don’t know” then ask yourself why, and you’ll see a way forward.

Glitches don’t happen all the time. When they do, you can take steps to overcome them.

If you glitch in the viva, you can do something about it.

Failure Is (Not) An Option

If every outcome was a pass with various conditions then the viva wouldn’t be an exam. Failing is possible but not likely. A rare outcome, not one you should expect.

Failure is an option for the PhD viva, but one that comes at the end of a generally long list of possible outcomes: no corrections, minor corrections, major corrections, resubmission without a viva, resubmission with a viva, awarded an MPhil, no award. Failure is the exceptionally rare last option that makes the viva an exam and not some kind of confirmation process.

Don’t expect it for your viva. Given everything you’ve done and how far you’ve come, it’s not an option for you and your thesis.