Daily viva help for PhDs
…but that doesn’t mean you can’t learn something by asking questions about your friend’s viva.
Every viva is different, but there are expectations.
Yours will be unique, but you can have a picture of what it will be like.
Find out. Ask. Learn. Get ready.
A couple of thoughts…
The question might not have an “Answer”.
Your response might be, “I don’t know.”
The only answer anyone could give might be, “I don’t know.”
Your response could be a hunch, a theory, an idea, a hypothesis, a gut feeling or another question.
Your answer might only be Part 1 of your response.
You don’t have to rush.
Two words that people use a lot around the end of the PhD.
Finished makes me think that something is over. But there’s always more! More experiments, more words, more questions. So I don’t like finished for a thesis, a viva or a PhD. There’s always something more that could be added.
(could, not should)
Done doesn’t feel quite right either. It’s a bit too short, a bit final, a bit simple for the complex and messy nature of research.
The thesis, the viva, your PhD, they all mean something. Done and finished feel lacking.
The word I’m leaning towards is completed. Completed feels right. The thesis, the viva, your PhD can be completed. They have everything they need and it sounds like more of an achievement than simply being done.
If you’re on the path, I wish you all the best as you head to completion.
Listen to any comments, especially in the viva.
There might be a question underneath.
The question might be in the comment. It could be a challenge, but that challenge might be a small thing that only needs a small response.
It could be the question comes from you. It could be you listen to your examiner’s comment, and you ask a question to bring that thought into the discussion more. You can find out more, get a sense of why this comment is important to your examiner. Then you’ll see what you need to do to say more.
Or you might listen and realise it’s just a comment.
An idea, nothing big, serious or scary. Just a thought, an “I wonder…”
Something to acknowledge, but nothing to do.
You probably can’t commit your thesis to memory, getting every fine detail stored away somewhere.
But you could make lists of key places in your thesis where you can find useful information. You could make a couple of summary card prompts. You can highlight important sections with Post-it Notes. You could create a little index card with page numbers and helpful hints. You can do a lot to make your thesis clearer.
You don’t need to remember everything for the sake of the viva. Doing what you can to help your memory of the details will help your confidence.
I ask people at the start of Viva Survivor sessions what they need to know about the viva. I ask if they have gaps of knowledge, worries about what might happen or vague hypotheticals.
I’m happy to answer anything and everything that candidates want to talk about. Recently, a participant in a session turned the question around on me: what did I think people needed to know?
It’s a good question. Here’s my answer:
And that’s what I think candidates need to know about the viva.
There isn’t a perfect time to start preparing for the viva. You don’t really need to start until after you’ve submitted; apart from that you have to think sensibly about your priorities. How you can add this work to your other commitments?
If you think you can manage all the things you need to do in two weeks, that’s fine. Need a month to space things out? No problem.
But… If you’re not sure, if you’re just leaving things for a while… If you’re waiting for the right time… What are you waiting for?
What’s going to be different? What will make next week better than now?
There’s no danger you might be overprepared if you do something now rather than save it for later.
Far better not to wait, start well, than to leave it and rush.
I wish for your viva to be long enough to be interesting, but short enough to be not too draining.
I wish for great questions and helpful corrections.
I wish you confidence: you’ve earned your place and you have the talent to meet any challenges in the viva.
The first two wishes are realistic expectations, given the whole process. The last one I can wish for you, I can hope for it, but you have to work at it too. Your confidence is not just a hope, and it’s not so magical that you need to only wish for it. If you’re doubting yourself, you have to take the first steps to realising a more confident you.
What will you do?
There’s a lot of everything.
But you have to do something.
You have to take some time. You have to think about what’s missing. You have to explore for yourself what you need to do. You have to take the time, because no-one else can. You might need to be a little brave in some cases, because once you know you need to do something then you need to do it or you’ll only feel worried.
But you can do it. If you got this far through your PhD, you can do this.
Finally, there are over 750 posts on this blog. You don’t need to have read them all to be ready for your viva – but there’s a lot that will help!
Sir Ken Robinson’s work on education and creativity has changed the world. His TED talks have been seen by hundreds of millions of people, and his words, ideas and humour have impacted so many more. His first TED Talk, “Do schools kill creativity?” was a revelation to me when I saw it for the first time, shortly after I finished my PhD. I’ve listened to it so many times since then that I think there are parts I could perform if I were of a mind to.
I was listening to it again the other day, when a passage jumped out at me. From the transcript:
If you were to visit education as an alien and say “What’s it for, public education?” I think you’d have to conclude, if you look at the output, who really succeeds by this, who does everything they should, who gets all the brownie points, who are the winners — I think you’d have to conclude the whole purpose of public education throughout the world is to produce university professors. Isn’t it? They’re the people who come out the top. And I used to be one, so there.
And I like university professors, but, you know, we shouldn’t hold them up as the high-water mark of all human achievement. They’re just a form of life. Another form of life.
And of course he’s right, the point of education isn’t to make university professors. There are important elements in any system or idea. They might be crucial, but they’re not the point. In many situations we often mistake something important for the point.
Yes, the viva is important, but it’s not the point of the PhD process.