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Tag: viva process

Nathan

Your Preferences & Needs

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Preferences are the things that we’d like, but which we could work around if needed. Preferences for your viva and viva prep might include:

  • Starting in a morning;
  • Reading your thesis with a fresh pot of coffee;
  • Knowing your external a little;
  • Having a mock viva to help you get ready.

You might have a strong preference but, for example, if your supervisor was unable to host a mock viva then you would still go on.

Needs are different. For your viva and viva prep you might need:

  • Advance notice or special arrangements for your viva;
  • Specific stationery or time to annotate your thesis;
  • Agreement that your viva will definitely be over video;
  • To not have a mock viva!

Preferences are very different from needs.

 

To begin with: what do you want for your viva? Which of these wants are preferences and which are needs?

For the preferences: what can you do to get your preferences met? Who might you need to ask for help? What could you do if a preference couldn’t be fulfilled?

For your needs: what can you do to ensure your needs are met? Who can you ask for support? How can you clearly communicate those needs to the people who need to know?

Nathan

The Hardest Part

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Viva preparation is a big part of getting ready. It takes time for a candidate to make sure their thesis is ready and that they feel prepared to sit down and talk with their examiners. Lots of practical tasks and a little planning can make a big difference.

Building up confidence is an important task too. In some ways it’s even more important than the practical tasks that go into prep. It’s not enough to sit down and read your thesis or have a mock viva: you have to feel that you are ready. You have to find your confidence by reflecting on your journey.

While viva prep and confidence building are essential, exploring them often means that we overlook the hardest part of getting ready for the viva – and the one that every candidate has completed.

The hardest part is doing the work of a PhD candidate for years. The hardest part is laying the foundations for study, exploration and development. The hardest part of getting ready for the viva is the thousands of hours of work, invested over hundreds and hundreds of days when you show up.

You need to spend a few weeks getting ready, preparing your thesis and yourself, and reflecting on why you are good enough to succeed in the viva. Don’t forget that the hardest part of your journey to the viva and to success is already behind you.

Nathan

Considering Outcomes

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A few loose thoughts…

 

Viva regulations are impersonal.

They give structure. Section 2, paragraph 3, check appendix 2A.

Regulations say yes and no. They specify and describe: this is a pass, this is a fail.

 

But viva outcomes are not a binary. Most people pass, but they pass in different ways. Most people pass with minor corrections, but all corrections are unique, in the same way that all candidates and their theses are unique.

Universities offer multiple outcomes that are passes – no corrections, minor corrections, major corrections and more. Typically there’s only one real category of failure, something that the vast majority of candidates don’t experience.

 

When considering viva outcomes, the point that stands out to me most is that every candidate has to find the meaning and the value in their success. Rules and regulations don’t care: you do.

What does your PhD mean to you?

What’s going to keep you going while you finish and have your viva?

And how will you celebrate your success when you find it?

Nathan

You Get To Have A Viva

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It’s worth remembering, when you’ve submitted and you’re working towards your viva day, that it might not have gone this way. Despite the associated nerves and negativity that people attach to the viva, having one is not guaranteed.

You might have decided to stop pursuing a PhD. Circumstances, particularly during the last three years or so, might have made continuing with research impossible. Things might not have worked out with your supervisor, financial pressures could have been too great or your research ideas might have not developed.

But instead you did the work. You solved problems and overcame challenges. Things worked out enough. You submitted your thesis and now it’s not the case that you have to have a viva – you get to have a viva.

It’s work. It’s a challenge. It matters so it might make you nervous. But it’s a really good thing.

You get to have a viva. Remember that.

Nathan

Miskates Happen

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I have to turn off the captions for myself when I deliver a webinar.

It might help some participants to see an AI-generated track of my words, but I can’t see them on my screen. For the most part they’re a reasonable transcript of what I’m saying; whenever I see the wrong thing transcribed in the moment it trips me up, it breaks my flow and I feel I have to do something to set it right.

But I can’t, not in that moment. Because I have something more important to do. If someone else doesn’t understand and needs to, they can ask, but I have to keep my focus on presenting.

And all of this is not all that different from the situations faced by PhD candidates in the viva and during their preparation.

If you find typos, just make a note of them. Where are they? What’s the correction?

If you find something unclear, make a note. What’s the problem? How could you make it clear?

Once you’ve made your notes, move on. Read some more, make some more notes. On to the next prep.

In the viva, acknowledge the mistake, correct it simply if you need to and then move on to the next question or next part of the discussion. There’s more important things to do than dwell on mistakes in the viva.

Nathan

Be Early

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Be early for your viva.

Be early so you can take a breath or two and appreciate these last moments on this side of the milestone. In one moment you’re working towards your PhD, getting ready for your viva – and in another you’ve passed through the discussion, responded to all of your examiners’ questions and you’re on your way to completion.

Viva discussion can be deep and engaging, and you may not even notice the event unfolding. Afterwards you could be on a high or tired.

So be early: notice what you feel like, remember what you’ve done to get this far and take a few final breaths before you are Dr Someone.

Nathan

Motivations & Questions

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There are three things your examiners have to do in your viva:

  • Explore your significant original contribution;
  • Unpick the hows and whys of your research;
  • Examine your capability as a researcher.

They have to do this. There’s a lot to talk about and a lot that could be brought up through the discussion, but as a starting point, consider how you would respond to these three questions:

  • Why would someone value your research?
  • How did you solve a difficult problem in your PhD journey?
  • What can you recognise as an area of growth in your ability?

Each question corresponds to a point from above; there’s more to ask, more to say and these are just starting points. But what would you say?

Nathan

Boss Music

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Video game music has come a long way from my childhood in the 1980s. Beeps and boops have been replaced by orchestral compositions that rival classical composers and the biggest movies. The scale, variety and sheer power of some video game scores is astonishing.

I really like it when music for boss battles is different to the general music and soundscape for the rest of the game. Some games use different music for different bosses, usually with great significance – and some even distinguish different phases of the same fight!

(this piece of music from the sublime Hades springs to mind)

Examiners are not the final bosses of your PhD journey and you’re certainly not there to fight them! But one connecting element between them and video game boss music is that there is a change of pace. A different challenge. More focus. More urgency. A greater need to do well and a limited circumstance to do it.

You already know everything you need to know. You’ve completed many challenges to get to the viva. As you prepare, breathe and think, “What else? What am I bringing to this? What else do I need?”

And as music is a fantastic catalyst for action and emotion, consider what music could help you as you prepare. What could you listen to in order to feel calm? To feel happy? To give you focus? What could you listen to and feel more confident?

(this piece of music from the sublime Hades springs to mind!)

Nathan

A Small Word

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Viva.

We can say doctoral defence and thesis examination, but those four letters are enough. Two syllables capture a lot of meaning: it’s the end, an exam, requires prep, carries a lot of emotional significance and a certain degree of mystery.

There are questions in a viva and questions about the viva. There are experiences that lead to expectations and regulations that require reading-up. It’s the final big thing of a PhD but not the end.

Viva is a small word that looms large for a PhD candidate. Figure out what it means to you, what you need to know and what you need to do to be ready for yours.

It’s a small word but not a small thing.

Nathan

“No Corrections”

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“No corrections” is a possible outcome for candidates at their viva. Not for many: it seems to be the case for around 10% of UK PhDs. You can hope you get this outcome, but that’s about it.

“No corrections” is like finding a coin on the path as you walk down the street. You had to go that way anyway and this is a nice extra thing you weren’t expecting.

“No corrections” doesn’t mean that a thesis is perfect.

“No corrections” doesn’t mean that someone’s PhD is better than someone else. It’s just one of the outcomes.

“No corrections” does mean that a candidate will have less work to do after the viva than someone asked to complete minor corrections.

And as it’s much more likely to be asked to complete corrections after the viva it’s worth planning ahead: check your diary, think about your other commitments in that period and explore how you would get the hypothetical-but-likely work done.

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