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Year: 2020

Nathan

Morning or Afternoon?

Daily Post

“What’s the best time of day to have your viva?” Some candidates want to know!

My answer always comes in two parts.

Part One: Anecdotal pros and cons. Vivas usually have to finish by 5pm at the latest, so a morning viva could be longer in principle than an afternoon viva. But you can start earlier and don’t have to be nervous all day. An afternoon viva could be shorter, but you have longer with butterflies in your stomach. There’s a trade-off maybe, but it’s purely anecdotal.

Part Two: The timing of your viva may not be within your control. A morning or afternoon viva has no special impact on the outcome of the viva. There are far more important things you can focus on. How will you prepare? What do you need to do? What is your contribution? How can you help yourself feel confident? Much more important questions for you to consider.

Look for answers to your questions about the viva – ask me, ask your supervisor, ask colleagues about their experiences – but don’t forget that some questions, answers and responses may be more useful than others.

Nathan

Press Enough Buttons

Daily Post

Our washing machine broke a few months ago and blew a fuse. The power was off all around our house.

In the moment, I knew the sort of thing I needed to do in our fusebox, but couldn’t tell which fuse had gone. It took a little experimentation (and a call to my father-in-law) before I figured out what needed to be done. Ten minutes later the lights were back on.

You might know the sorts of things you need to do to get ready for the viva, but not which specific things will help you feel ready. You might know you need to do something, but not know the thing that will help you feel confident.

So pull some levers. Flick some switches. Press some buttons.

Try things: reading, annotating, presenting, rehearsing, priming, deciding on what you will wear… The list of things you could do to get ready for the viva is long. You don’t need to do everything, but if you press enough buttons you’ll figure out what helps you feel and be ready. Press enough buttons and you’ll feel confident for the viva.

Press enough buttons and the lights will come on.

Nathan

Celebrating Milestones

Daily Post

This is the 1000th daily Viva Survivors blog post!

A friend said to me, “That’s crazy! What are you doing to celebrate?”

And I said, “….Erm…..”

Hmm. Nothing really.

That got me thinking about celebrating milestones in general. I remember when I submitted my thesis (both for the viva and for my final submisson) I was feeling great, but lots of friends were too busy to go out. They had their own theses to think about! The staff at my university’s admin building basically shrugged when I handed my thesis over to them.

Milestones, like submitting your thesis, passing your viva, doing your literature review, completing a project – making it to the end of a tough week! – should be acknowledged. They should be marked. They should be celebrated!

I’ve seen some good practice on Twitter of departments and graduate schools sending out virtual cheers when someone passes their viva. I’ve heard of stickers being given out from time to time. My favourite little celebration I heard of recently came from an Edinburgh PGR who told me she was given a lollipop for submitting.

Kindly sent by Lesley Fraser, used with permission 🙂

That’s a very fancy lollipop!

Maybe your friends are busy, maybe admin staff will shrug, maybe you won’t get a fancy lollipop or shiny sticker…

So what are you going to do? Good work needs recognition. It helps reinforce you did it. You persevered. You got your PhD done. How will you celebrate? If celebrating doesn’t feel quite right, at least how will you mark it? Think about it and do something.

I decided to mark the 1000th Viva Survivors post with… this post! (And maybe some ice cream later!)

Nathan

Creation or Discovery

Daily Post

When I was a mathematician, some of my colleagues said maths research was like sculpture. A big block of stone was chipped away at until you had the art you were trying to make. You have to start with everything and keep working until you have the proof you wanted.

I was always fond of that analogy, and of the two philosophies that followed. One mathematician might say they were really creating the maths and results. Maths is an act of creation. Another mathematician would say the maths was already there, hidden, waiting to be revealed. In this way, maths is an act of discovery. I loved hearing different takes on this, and personally, when it comes to maths I’m on the side of discovery – the ideas are out there waiting to be found!

I’ve heard similar thoughts and feelings from people in other lines of research too. Often though, I notice people enthusiastically discussing this topic but missing something fundamental. Creation or discovery don’t happen by accident, only through work. Whether you create an equation or discover it, you do the work.

Whatever you have in your thesis, whatever kind of research you discuss in your viva, it only happens because you did it.

Nathan

Looking For Support

Daily Post

Who are your supporters for your PhD?

Your supervisors, I hope! Your friends and colleagues from your department, probably. Academics you’ve met at conferences who keep in touch. Internet-people on Twitter and other networks who are part of your community. Friends and family who help you stay grounded. Maybe they don’t get what you do, but they help in other ways.

There are lots of ways people provide support. It all helps. Remember to say thank you!

I’m very grateful for how people have supported Viva Survivors since it began, but in particular since I started the daily blog in 2017. In April the daily blog will have been going for three years, and in a few days I’ll hit the 1000 post milestone!

I’m very grateful for the many ways that people have supported this blog:

  • By telling others it exists!
  • By sharing and retweeting posts that resonate.
  • By using the resources I’ve made and buying ebooks.
  • By subscribing so posts go straight to their inbox.

And in some cases, generously, by telling staff at their institutions about me, and helping me get hired to do viva prep sessions with PhD candidates. I meet nearly a thousand candidates a year that way.

Now there’s one more way you can support Viva Survivors. I’ve started a Ko-Fi page to give people – who want to – the opportunity to financially support the daily blog. Ko-Fi is a little like Patreon and other services; it’s a platform to connect people with supporters. Unlike other services though, Ko-Fi allows for one-off or regular support.

It takes a lot of time to write and publish a daily blog, but it also requires some money too. This blog and any resources will always be freely available: supporting with a £2 donation (one-off or regular) will help cover the running costs of the blog. As more and more people support the blog it could allow me time and resources to provide even more for free here. It could help me to reach more PhD candidates who need support themselves as they finish their PhD and prepare for their viva.

I’m exploring ways to say an extra thank you to supporters; to begin with, anyone who donates can access a free copy of my second ebook, The Viva: Who? What? How? after they’ve donated (details at the Ko-Fi page).

Thank you for reading this post. Thank you for reading my other posts, if you have. Thank you for subscribing – and if you’ve not subscribed to get my daily free posts in your inbox, you can do so here! Thank you for sharing my posts on Twitter and with friends. Thank you to those of you who say nice things about my writing or Viva Survivor sessions!

And if you are in a position to support the blog with a small donation, one-off or recurring, thank you. Thank you. You’re helping me to write more and do more and reach more PhD candidates looking for help with their vivas.

Thank you!

Nathan

You Have More Than Hope

Daily Post

You have all the days you spent working for your PhD.

You have all the nights you spent as well.

You have all the questions you asked.

You have all the answers you found.

You have all the lightbulb moments when something came into focus.

You have the nervous times before a talk, and the moments spent sharing what you’ve done.

You have the questions you were asked and what you said in response.

You have your thoughts and feelings about your research.

You have all your motivations that push you on.

You have your friends, family, colleagues, supervisor and community.

You have expectations for what will happen.

You have a thesis! And everything else you wrote and crossed out to get it into one book.

You can hope your viva goes well, but you have more than hope.

You’ve got this far for a reason. Keep going.

Nathan

Click Your Fingers

Daily Post

If you could click your fingers and make your viva better, what would you do?

  • CLICK! You don’t feel nervous!
  • CLICK! You have a perfect memory!
  • CLICK! Your examiners only have praise for you!
  • CLICK! You have a picture in your mind of the viva and it plays out that way!

Of course, none of these are realistic, but that doesn’t mean that the complete opposite is likely either!

Perfection is unattainable, but your efforts can help. You can’t click your fingers and feel no anxiety, but you can build your confidence. You can’t have perfect recall, but you can prepare with your thesis. You may not have ultra-nice examiners, but you can think about who they are and what they do – and explore how they might feel about your thesis. You can’t click your fingers and have your viva follow a script, but you can ask others about their experiences to guide your own expectations.

You can’t click your fingers and have your viva arrange itself according to your desires. But you can do a little work and steer it toward your preferences, whatever they may be.

Nathan

Ask Me Anything

Daily Post

Seriously. If you need to know something about the viva and you think I might have an answer or opinion or advice, please ask me. You can send me an email, or just tweet at me, I don’t bite!

I keep office hours, so I might not reply within five minutes or one day, but if you have a question about the viva then you can write to me and I will write back to you as soon as I can to try and help.

And I’m not the only one: there are people all around you who can help.

  • Ask your supervisor for help (that’s kind of their job).
  • Ask your graduate school for help (ditto).
  • Ask your friends and colleagues (not a job, but sort of a responsibility).

PhDs and vivas can be struggles – in a way, they’re supposed to be – but you don’t have to struggle through everything alone.

Nathan

The Packet Mix Viva

Daily Post

There are clear contents: a candidate, a thesis, a research journey, some examiners, some preparation, some expectations.

Shake them all up, just add questions.

Unlike other packet mixes, you won’t know exactly how this confection will turn out in advance. You won’t know how long it will take to bake!

You can be pretty sure of the outcome. The ingredients are all there for a good viva.

Nathan

Better Words

Daily Post

Being clear matters. Words help shape how we see and feel about things. Better words can help someone else understand what we mean, and can help us see things differently.

For example, in the last year I changed how I described one of the points in my viva prep session. I would talk about some of the help candidates could get from their supervisors after submission.

Previously I had said something about “…getting feedback after submission, not to resolve problems, but more feedback so that you can see what your supervisors think about the whole thesis and PhD journey, what their take is…” and so on.

I would see candidates understand eventually, but also see it took a while for people to get it. The notion of “feedback” was complicated; when someone hears feedback they expect that they would then have to make changes, but that’s not possible after submission.

The message was getting through, but it wasn’t as good as it could be – it wasn’t as clear as it needed to be.

After a few months’ reflection I changed my message. I now tell candidates they can help themselves by getting their supervisor to “…share their perspective on your work; what strengths do they see? How might someone do things differently?” And I use these words deliberately to emphasise that it is just seeking opinions rather than judgements, perspectives rather than feedback.

Over to you! What words could you use to better explain your research? How could you better describe how you feel about your viva? How could you help others understand your thesis contribution?

Reflect and think about the words you choose to use. How could you make them better?

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