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Nathan

Best of Viva Survivors 2024: Confidence

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Day three of my best of posts for 2024. I love to think about how to encourage confidence, both in general and for the viva in particular. It’s a topic I keep thinking about because of how powerful it can be in changing someone’s way of doing things.

How confident do you feel for your viva? What steps do you take to pursue confidence?

Nathan

Bumbling Along

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There was a time when I would have described my PhD journey as incredibly lucky. Somehow, I made it through.

I had months where it seemed like nothing worked. Weeks where I couldn’t figure out how to get something simple done.

I don’t think it’s a coincidence that I arrived at viva time and felt a lack of confidence in myself. How could I feel good about my chances of success when I had somehow bumbled my way to submission?

I had a little confidence that my thesis had some good results – but what about me? Was I any good?

 

Sixteen years later, a little hindsight and a lot of self-reflection and I feel differently.

I wasn’t perfect but I worked hard. It wasn’t luck that got me through but I had my share of good fortune. I had funding, I had a good supervisor and I found topics to explore that lead to interesting results. I developed myself and my research.

But I didn’t see it that way at the time. I just kept thinking, because of all the challenges in my projects, that somehow I was “luckily” making it through.

If you’re looking for confidence for your viva start by reflecting on the journey. Recognise the work you’ve done. Appreciate the good fortune you’ve encountered. Highlight the success that you have made.

There’s no way you can get to submission by simply bumbling along.

Nathan

Needs & Preferences

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There’s a difference between needs and preferences.

Both can have a great impact on how you feel about and approach your viva.

 

If you need something for your viva – from regular breaks, examiners to wear microphones or anything else – then you need it. That shouldn’t be up for debate with anyone else; the best thing to do is make sure the appropriate people in your department, doctoral college or graduate school know and know what to do for your viva.

A need is something you absolutely have to have. A preference is something that would be helpful. You might prefer if your examiner was someone you’d cited. You might prefer to have your viva in-person or over Zoom. You might prefer to have your viva sooner rather than later. But if that preference isn’t met an alternative way can be found.

 

Whenever something feels like a need or a preference for your viva, unless it’s unambiguous, reflect again and just be clear for yourself.

Is it a need? Is it a preference?

And whichever it is you have two questions to respond to: Do you need help from someone? What do you need to do next?

Nathan

Run The Numbers

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Success at your viva is not directly determined by:

  • The number of papers in your bibliography.
  • The number of pages in your thesis.
  • The number of words on all those pages.
  • How many days you showed up to do the work.
  • How many meetings you had with your supervisor.
  • How many times you failed.
  • How often you were challenged.
  • The number of times you overcame significant obstacles to get your thesis done.

Success isn’t directly determined by any of these numbers but your capability and confidence can be helped by simply considering just how much you’ve done to complete your PhD.

Run the numbers. Reflect on how much you’ve done, how far you’ve come and what that all means for you and your viva.

Nathan

Control The Controllables

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This is how an attendee at a recent webinar summarised what I’d said about getting ready for the viva.

Control the controllables.

He was absolutely right. That’s how I think about a lot of things connected with the viva.

There are things you can’t control or won’t know until you get there. These range from questions to feelings to the approach that your examiners will take.

There are things you’ll know but won’t control too: the purpose of the viva, the date or location of your viva venue.

But there’s also a lot you could take control of.

  • You can choose what you wear.
  • You can select the words you use.
  • You can plan out your preparation.
  • You can decide on how you’ll get to your viva.
  • You can choose what you do on the morning.

All of these things and more can help how you feel about your viva.

There are a lot of things you can take control of for yourself in advance of the big day.

If you do that then the things that are beyond your control won’t seem so bad.

 

Many thanks to Luke C for offering this observation!

Nathan

The Bad Vivas

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The opening line to Anna Karenina is often translated in English as:

Happy families are all alike; every unhappy family is unhappy in its own way.

I think about this a lot when I think about bad vivas.

 

The vast majority of vivas are “fine” – which means some complex combination of fair, challenging, rewarding, enjoyable, tiring, rigorous and a host of other descriptions. Most candidates will be fine at their viva, however challenging the questions or tiring the process.

We can’t pretend bad vivas don’t happen though.

Good vivas are good for similar reasons. They’re attended by candidates who have done the work. They’re facilitated by examiners who have training and have taken the time to get ready. The vivas are conducted according to regulations and expectations.

Bad vivas are bad for wildly different and unique circumstances. A hard PhD journey. A thesis that doesn’t meet expectations. A candidate who hasn’t been appropriately supported. An examiner who doesn’t care. A candidate unwilling or unable to engage with the viva.

Good vivas are good because they follow the overall patterns of the PhD journey done well. Bad vivas (and possible viva failure) result from unique negative circumstances.

Bad vivas happen and we can’t pretend that they don’t. But you also can’t believe – at least not with compelling reason – that you might have a bad viva.

Nathan

Acutely Nervous

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In the weeks before my viva I didn’t feel nervous.

I was too busy.

I kept myself occupied with reading my thesis a lot, making notes, reading papers, talking to my supervisor and wondering what to do after my PhD was finished. I didn’t have time to be nervous.

Until ten minutes before the start of my viva. I hadn’t slept well the night before and at 9:50am I was tired.

And suddenly I was acutely nervous. One thought occupied my mind: “What if I am just too tired for this? What then?”

Then my examiners arrived, slightly awkward pleasantries ensued and I didn’t have time to think about whether I was tired or not; I was nervous and I had to simply get on with my viva.

 

Viva prep helps someone get ready. It can also be a helpful distraction from feelings one might not want to face.

“I don’t want to think about that.”

Nervousness is commonly a symptom of anticipating something important; it doesn’t mean that the something is negative and it doesn’t mean that nervousness itself is negative. It’s not usually a comfortable feeling, but it doesn’t have to be bad.

Distraction will only help so much though. Viva prep helps, but in parallel you have to build up your confidence for the viva. You have to build up certainty in yourself, your capability and the work you’ve done. Nervousness won’t disappear, but confidence can take the sting out of it.

Don’t distract from nervousness. Pursue confidence.

 

PS: to find out a lot more about viva confidence and getting ready, do come to Viva Survivor, this Thursday 5th December 2024. It’s my live webinar about everything to do with the viva, viva prep, expectations, examiners and more. I’ve shared this session over 375 times and I can’t wait to do it this Thursday as well. If you’re thinking about coming registration closes tomorrow at 5pm. Check out the details now – and maybe I’ll see you there 🙂

Nathan

Problems And Solutions

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In the last four years I’ve tried various lighting options when I present webinars.

Natural light can work well but only when the sun is shining and typically only in the morning. I’ve tried ringlights and they make me look like a ghost. Mostly I have hoped that it will work out and people will be able to see me.

And none of this matters any more: after my summer break I noticed the new “portrait” option in Zoom. A clever filter darkens my background and lightens me. This tiny bit of contrast makes a great difference!

It’s an unexpected solution to the problem I had.

 

All of which is a roundabout way to my point: it can be very easy to focus on one type of solution to a problem. I tried many lighting options but needed something different. Perhaps the problems you face for your viva have different solutions than you expect – or perhaps they are different problems altogether.

  • How will I remember everything for my viva?! Maybe you don’t need to remember everything, perhaps you need to annotate your thesis effectively.
  • How can I get ready when I don’t have time?! Sketching a plan to break the work down will help, as will remembering all the work you’ve already done.
  • How do I get rid of my nerves?! Why not focus instead on building confidence? Build confidence to offset nervousness, rather than try to eliminate nerves.

I spent a long time wondering about how to light myself for the camera – and realised when I landed on a solution that this was only one way to look at the problem.

If you have any viva-related problems and they seem intractable, perhaps a helpful next step is to consider whether or not there are any other ways to look at the situation.

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