Plan For The Unexpected
Plan your viva prep. Take a sheet of paper when you submit and spend ten minutes thinking about how you would space out the work that you need to do. When will you start? Will a month investing an hour most...
viva experiences
Time And The Viva
“How long is the viva?” It’s the number one question I have been asked in over twelve years of doing work related to the viva. The most appropriate response I feel that I can give is to say that two...
The Wild West Viva
Stereotypes of 1800s western towns are often invoked when it seems like “anything could happen” but that’s really not the case for your viva. Regulations have to be kept to, and can be known well in advance by everyone involved....
The Chair
It’s not good or bad to have an independent chair at your viva. Independent chairs are not examiners. They’re often a senior member of staff from your institution who is mostly acting as an observer. In your experience of the...
Differences, Difficulties & Opportunities
In-person and video vivas have differences but at the core is the same viva experience. The viva is the same whether or not you are in the same room as your examiners: same purpose, same drivers for questions, same outcomes...
The Right Words
There are wrong words you could use in the viva. You could exaggerate or bluff. You could lie! You could mis-speak. You could be too modest or you could be careless in your thought or speech. There are no perfect...
A Cracking Viva
A viva is a little like a Christmas cracker. There’s a moment of tension between two sides. There’s an expectation that something will happen. But what? Christmas crackers and vivas have a lot of variety. Some are small, some are big....
Evaluating Success
Why do candidates succeed at the viva? How do they do it? What does that success look like? The why is pretty simple: they have done enough in and through their research to produce a suitably good thesis and...
Exceptional
There are lots of expectations for what vivas are supposed to be like. Vivas tend to last a certain length, it’s typical for candidates to have two examiners, it’s common for them to take place within three months of submission,...
The Breaks
It’s always worth saying: yes, you can have a break in your viva. A bathroom break. A medically necessary break. A break to breathe and relax or compose yourself. An hour in, two hours in, three hours in, it doesn’t...