Once & Many
There are valuable viva prep tasks that only need to be done once… Sticking tabs in place to find the starts of chapters in your thesis; Underlining typos; Taking part in a mock viva; Reading your thesis – although it’s...
Daily viva help for PhDs
There are valuable viva prep tasks that only need to be done once… Sticking tabs in place to find the starts of chapters in your thesis; Underlining typos; Taking part in a mock viva; Reading your thesis – although it’s...
It won’t make you perfect. It won’t mean you’ll get no corrections. It won’t mean you’ll be blank-free in the viva, or that it’s impossible you’ll be stumped. It doesn’t come with anything like a guarantee. But it means that,...
I know what makes me feel uncomfortable. Sometimes it’s possible to avoid things outside of my comfort zone; I’m self-employed so I have a certain degree of control about the kind of work I do, or the conditions I work...
Not just prepared for your viva. Not just OK. And not “not too nervous…” Ready! How would that really feel? What would you have done to be ready, do you think? How long would it take? When would you start...
You don’t need a mock viva. You need practice for the viva, a rehearsal space to think and respond like you might do in the viva. You don’t need a mock viva, it’s just one of the ways that you...
Viva prep is less. Less reading than when you were researching. Less writing than when you were writing up. Less thinking than when you were figuring things out. The viva is a fraction of the time you’ll spend on getting...
Typos catch the eye. Muddled words bring distraction. Mistakes do matter, but for the most part only because they’ll be one more thing on the list of corrections. When you see them during your prep – because it is when rather...
A half-hour or hour of viva prep doesn’t have to be spent with your eyes glued to the pages of your thesis. Yes, you need to read, and yes you need to spend time on slightly longer, considered tasks –...
Viva preparation helps you to change focus from the kind of work needed to get you to submission to the work needed to get you through the viva. Is it ready, how much more, did I tweak that change that get...
I don’t remember a lot of the day-to-day life of my pure maths PhD now. I remember little sparks, breakthroughs, and the feeling of being “in the zone” while trying to figure something out. I also remember, as my PhD...