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Nathan

Balancing Acts

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How much work do you need to do to prepare for the viva? How do you get ready when you have so many other things going on? How do you deal with anxiety?

It’s all about finding a balance.

Balance the prep work against what you know and what will help. See what other people do and what resonates with you.

Balance your day job and family life against the time you need to get ready. Find strategies that allow you to work effectively and fit the work around your commitments.

Balance your nerves against the work you’ve done. Your thesis didn’t appear from nowhere.

Simple solutions can work when you focus on them rather than problems.

Nathan

Ceebs

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My youngest sister is nearly eight years my junior. It feels at times like we’re separated by generations. I’m sure she was the first person I heard use the words “ceebs” as a contraction of “can’t be bothered.”

It’s a good word. Said with the right tone it perfectly conveys the frustrated boredom of knowing what you need to do, but being unable to get going. You can make a plan, set short term goals, have a vision and still some days you’re just ceebs.

Maybe you’re like this with getting your thesis finished or preparing for the viva. Maybe it all seems too big. Maybe you can’t see the end yet. What then?

I’ve been reading and listening to a lot of work by Tony Robbins lately. I like one of the solutions that he promotes for ceebs: just do something. Don’t try to think your way out of whatever funk you’re in. Sitting there, thinking about not being all ceebs isn’t going to do it. Get up and walk around, change your physical state. Start something. Write something. Pick up a paper and read it. Open to a chapter in your thesis and start making notes.

Totally ceebs with your thesis or viva prep? Get going.

Nathan

Presents To The Future

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I used to be annoyed with past-Nathan all the time.

past-Nathan was the guy who covered papers with scrawl. past-Nathan was the guy who couldn’t organise his notes. past-Nathan filed things away in bizarre places so I couldn’t find things.

Then one day I remembered something from my undergraduate philosophy metaphysics course: somewhere, out there, there’s a future-Nathan for who I am past-Nathan. And I was annoyed with so many of my past-Nathans, but I want future-Nathan to think that I am cool!

Which leads me to ask: what do you want future-You to think of present-You? What can you do now to help viva-day-You?

Nathan

Scary

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Werewolves can be taken out with silver bullets. Vampires fear garlic and the sun. To kill a zombie you go for the brain. Scary things all have weak spots.

Scared of the viva? What scares you? What can you do about it?

Confidence can be built. Answers can be found. Read more, think more, learn more, talk more.

Applying the same talents you’ve built up during your PhD can make the viva seem less daunting.

Nathan

Either Way

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If you think you can or you think you can’t, you’re probably right.

(Henry Ford probably said something like this, but he probably heard something like it from someone else; see here)

A reflection for today: if your viva is coming up, honestly, truthfully, do you think you can pass it? If you do, what are you going to do to make it a certainty? If you think you can’t, what are you going to do to get help? Either way, what are you going to do?

Nathan

Keep Doing The Work

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The work is what gets you to submission. The work is important, even if you’re sick of it. The work matters. The work is a significant and original contribution to your field. The work didn’t just come from nowhere.

You did it.

When you submit, keep at it. Your focus changes but you’re not done. You have to check the work. You have to make sure you understand the work, and can explain the work. You have to defend the work. You can do all of this because it uses skills you already have.

Use what you know, use what you can do, and keep doing the work.

Nathan

Onions

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Peel an onion layer back carefully and there’s more underneath. Again and again, not infinitely but quite a way. It takes patience and effort to go down layer by layer.

The same’s true with your research. One can see the end result, but with patience and effort you can dig deep into what’s there. It’s built on a lot. You can ask why many times. So can your examiners. They can dig deep and explore motivations, assumptions, the fundamentals. It’s not for fun, it’s for their understanding and to show yours.

You can be ready for the viva by digging below the surface, prepare by examining the background. Test your assumptions. Remember why your work is valuable. You don’t need to go too deep though, going further and further, ad infinitum. That way lies a lot of tears.

Which brings us back to onions.

Nathan

Expect The Unexpected

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Hindsight is wonderful. Before my viva I worried about whether or not I would forget things in the moment; would I be able to explain this process or that proof, things I knew really well…

…what if, what if, what if…

It never occurred to me that my examiners might ask me questions that, well, had never occurred to me.

I didn’t expect that they would ask questions about the background of my field. I didn’t expect that they would ask questions to explore things which I thought were obviously true. I didn’t expect them to question why I had included a chapter exploring a topic that had produced negative results.

I didn’t expect that they would only ask a fraction of the questions that I had expected.

Your examiners will ask you questions you could plan for, but they will probably also ask questions that you can’t anticipate – because you’re not them, you think differently, have different experiences and knowledge and are approaching the viva with a different agenda.

That doesn’t mean that you can’t be prepared for them.

  • Use the valuable opportunities of a mock viva or conversations with friends to get comfortable answering questions you haven’t considered before.
  • Read through your thesis and try to imagine how someone other than you might read it. What would they be thinking? What could they ask?
  • Realise that your examiners are not asking unexpected questions for fun: they’re exploring your work to drive the process of the viva.

It’s impossible to anticipate every question in the viva. It is possible to engage with every question that your examiners ask.

Nathan

Record Your Mock Viva

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I came across this tip while listening back to episodes of the podcast: if you have a mock viva, record it so that you can review it later.

Listen to check whether or not you paused to think about answers. Listen to think about whether or not there were other things you could say. Listen to see if, with hindsight, there were questions which surprised you or which you might want to practise further.

Listen to hear someone who is just around the corner from passing their viva.

Nathan

Where Did I Hear That…?

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I listen to a couple of podcasts quite regularly – The Tim Ferriss Show and Revisionist History are both favourites of mine – and on one recently I heard someone say something that lodged in my head as being quite useful:

Regular review readily resolve random readings.

Ironically, I can’t remember where I heard this! But it is definitely good advice. I lost track of the number of times during my PhD where I thought, “Oh, I know this, now where…” and just couldn’t find the reference. You are hopefully doing better than me. You are hopefully managing your references well.

As you’re preparing for your viva, think about how you can summarise your key references. Think about how you can make a good overview of the key points of your argument and your results. You have a lot of this floating in your head, but if you systematically review what you’ve done and where it comes from the information and ideas will be easier to access. Make time to review things several times. It doesn’t have to be every day, but consider making it a habit.

Think about how you might do all this in a way that works for you – then do it.

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