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Year: 2018

Nathan

The Next Iteration

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The end of the PhD looms. If you were to do it all again, what would you do differently?

Where would you send and spend your focus?

What would you drop from your task lists?

What would you keep exactly the same?

How would you develop yourself?

What would you read?

When would you do it?

How would you work?

And why – why would you make the changes you’d make and keep the same the things you wouldn’t?

You’re not going to do another PhD (probably!). You won’t get to go around again. Experience and hindsight really are great teachers though. It’s not pointless to think about how you would approach the PhD again even though you (probably!) never will.

It’s just one way of asking yourself, “What have I learned from all of this?”

Nathan

Just Right

Daily Post

I’ve heard it said that the Earth is in the Goldilocks zone for planets. Just the right distance from the Sun, just the right composition of elements and so on. If things were a little different: no life, no humans, no Viva Survivors!

The Goldilocks viva would vary I guess. Just the right kind of comments, not too critical. Not so long as to be over-tiring, but not so short as to make the examination meaningless. Impartial but friendly examiners. No unanswerable questions, but nothing that’s trivial.

Your definition might be different. Maybe you really want the circumstances of your viva to be just right, but what can you do about it? Very little.

On the other hand, you can be a Goldilocks candidate. In fact, if you’ve done the work to produce a thesis then you must be just right to meet the challenge of your viva.

Nathan

Review Review Review

Daily Post

I started this blog almost a year ago. I’ve written over 300 posts in that time. Over 50,000 words. I have to check my records constantly. I have a spreadsheet with every post listed by date, and often when I’m thinking of a title I have to doublecheck I’ve not used it already.

Last week I wrote a post and was super-proud of it…

…until I realised that it was very similar to a post I had written the week before, only slightly better! (which is something at least)

I review the blog all of the time. I’ve recently started a project to make themed posts easier to find. I’ve started at the beginning and am adding tags to posts to make ideas easier to search for. Hopefully I’ll be able to put them into useful categories.

Doing a PhD you have to review your ideas and progress all of the time. Are you on track? What’s left to do?

Writing up you have to review what you’ve done and how you can communicate it. What works? What do you need?

Preparing for the viva you have to review… everything! Start at page 1. Made notes? Review them. Used key papers? Review them. You don’t need to remember everything, but you do need to feel sure about what you think.

If you’re doing something important – like a PhD, like the viva – then the review never stops.

Nathan

First Questions

Daily Post

There are lots of ways your examiners could begin your viva, lots of questions to start the discussion.

It could be “how did you get interested in this topic?” or “how would you summarise your findings?”

Maybe they’ll ask “what’s your most important result?” or “why did you decide to follow this line of enquiry?”

Or maybe they’ll simple ask “how are you feeling today?”

There are no trick questions in the viva, especially with whatever your examiners ask first. The first question is likely to be something you’ve thought about before; you can’t guarantee what it will be exactly, but you can be sure it’s something you can answer.

Nathan

No Bad Cops

Daily Post

The strangest viva myth I’ve been asked about is whether examiners take a “Good Cop/Bad Cop” approach. It really puzzles me.

I can’t wrap my head around the idea. Which one is supposed to be the bad cop?

Your internal? Someone who has to make sure that the viva is fair according to the rules of your university? Someone that you likely know?

Your external? Someone who has been singled out for certain reasons by your supervisor (often in conversation with you)? Someone who often has particular interest in what you’ve done?

They’re not trying to trick you. They’re not trying to trap you. It’s not a routine. It’s not how they do things.

They’re professionals. Like cops, yes, but with a much different agenda. They’re there to examine, not interrogate.

I don’t know that you would call either examiner a good cop – but neither of them is a bad cop.

Nathan

Talents and Skills

Daily Post

There are two main outputs from a PhD programme: a thesis and a person.

It’s easy to see what’s new in a thesis perhaps; less easy to see how a person has changed. Take time to explore your qualities as you get closer to the viva. A useful resource might be Vitae‘s Researcher Development Framework. It is partly a breakdown of all of the skills and attributes that an effective researcher might have, but there are lots of supporting tools for making sense of them too.

What can you do now that you couldn’t before your PhD? How are you now more skilled? And what are you going to do with your talents and skills when your PhD is over?

Nathan

Everest

Daily Post

The viva is often framed as the top of the mountain after an epic climb. It’s taken a long time, a lot of work, but finally you reach the summit of your PhD. Some people take the story even further, “it’s all downhill from here, hahaha…”

I think it’s more accurate to see your thesis submission as the summit. The viva comes a little later. The viva is talking about the climb, how you did it, what worked, what didn’t and maybe how it compares to other climbs.

While you’re up at the summit though, pause, look around. What’s on the other side of your PhD-mountain? Where are you going to go next?

Nathan

Flip It

Daily Post

Instead of wondering if your thesis is good, first ask yourself what you look for in a good thesis. What do people generally want?

Instead of worrying about what questions your examiners might ask, start by thinking about what questions would be in your mind when you first pick up a thesis. How would you start to unpick a large book of new research?

Instead of hoping you’ll be ready for your viva, ask what you would need to feel ready. What would you need to have or be to feel confident on viva day?

Whenever you encounter a doubt, flip it around. What can you do about it? Got an idea? Go do it.

Nathan

Amazed

Daily Post

Doing a PhD and writing a thesis is like finding your way to the centre of a maze. You might have some ideas about how to get there when you start, but it will still take work to make it through. You can go down wrong paths, get lost, but with time and effort you’ll get there.

Preparing for the viva is finding your way back out of the maze. It takes less time, but you have to check your way as you go. Just because you made it in, it doesn’t mean you know the shortest way back. You can still get lost. But you have a lot of experience to draw on now.

Describing the maze is the viva. How it looks. How you got there. Why you decided to walk it in the first place.

Walking back out of the maze will help you make sense of how you got in. Checking back over the twists and turns will make explaining the route to someone else a much easier task.

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