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Tag: viva length

Nathan

Under An Hour?

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Some vivas are less than an hour in length. The shortest I’ve ever heard of was 42 minutes. This lead one participant at a Viva Survivor session to ask, “What can we do to make our vivas under an hour?”

The short answer: nothing.

The slightly longer answer: there are lots of factors in play that determine the eventual length of a viva. They range from the size of the thesis to the questions the examiners need to ask, and the way a candidate answers to the kinds of corrections that need to be considered. These all interact. It’s difficult to say what one could do for the best in order to reduce the length of the viva and still pass.

(of course, you could refuse to answer questions and your viva will be over very quickly…)

The better answer I should have given, by asking another question: why would you want your viva to be finished within an hour?

Nathan

Time And The Viva

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How long will the viva be? How long should it be? If it’s long – or short – is that bad?

There are norms – two to three hours is quite common – but you can’t know in advance. It could be less, it could be more. Many candidates, I think the majority, feel like their viva passes in the blink of an eye.

The length doesn’t indicate something good or bad. There’s no correlation between the length of the viva and the outcome.

A successful viva is not a function of how long it takes. The time isn’t as important as you are.

Nathan

Hours & Hours & Hours

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There’s lots of hours spent on a PhD, but different ranges depending on the stage you’re at:

  • Five to six thousand to do a PhD.
  • Twenty to thirty in prep for the viva.
  • Two to three for a viva is quite common.

Each of these matters.

Your research and your talent develops over a long period; after that it doesn’t take much to get ready to defend your thesis.

And not too long at all to discuss the important things with your examiners.

Nathan

14,400 Seconds

Daily Post

That was my viva. It sounds a lot, but it’s only four hours. Tick-tick-tick times 4800 and I was done!

I’ve met a handful of people with similar or longer vivas. Sometimes the viva is long, or can feel long, but often they just fly by no matter what the clock says.

And really: they don’t compare to the 20-something million seconds you’ve invested in your PhD.

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