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Year: 2021

Nathan

A Little Pride

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Not arrogance, but just a glow from knowing you’ve done something well. Something to talk about, something to celebrate. Where do you find that in your PhD?

Explore how you could share that with others. Ask friends to listen to you talk about the best of your research. Your examiners won’t be expecting you to have monologues ready to reel off in your viva, but the more comfortable you can become talking about your work, the more confident you’ll be when you need to engage with them in the viva.

What are you a little proud of?

Nathan

Remembering Sir Ken Robinson

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One day in late-August I found myself bursting into tears while casually browsing through a friend’s Facebook posts. They’d shared a short memorial post, and that was how I learned that Sir Ken Robinson had passed away. I cried reading the news, and felt upset for weeks afterwards.

Today would have been his 71st birthday. I never met him, but after finishing my PhD it was his voice that started me on the path I’ve been on ever since. His 2006 TED Talk connected with me in a profound way. Over the following years I read his books, pre-ordered them when he published more, scoured YouTube for more talks and reflected on his message, his presentation style, his wit and his passion.

“Human communities depend upon a diversity of talent” was a framing that helped me as I explored how I could help researchers in the space I’d found myself in. His encouragement to try things, even uncertain things – “you won’t find anything original unless you’re willing to be wrong” – helped me to develop my work, my business and myself.

If you’ve never heard of Sir Ken Robinson before, I’d encourage you to learn more about him, his incredible life story and the great work that he did. We’ll feel his impact for a long time to come.

And for you, for today, I’d encourage reflection on your talents. By this stage in your PhD journey, you must be talented in many ways. How do you define your talents? What makes you certain of them? How will they help you find success in your viva?

And what might you do with your talents after your PhD is completed?

Nathan

You Can’t Do Everything

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You couldn’t do everything during your PhD and you can’t now when it’s time to get ready for your viva.

Before you start your viva prep take half an hour to make a list:

  • Take ten minutes to write down everything you could possibly do to get ready. It will be too much.
  • Take five minutes to quickly rank ideas: how important are they? Which feels more necessary?
  • Take fifteen minutes to tidy up the list: writing bookmarks is not useful; writing add bookmarks to starts of chapters is better. Adding a detail about how this will help you is even better: add bookmarks to starts of chapters to help navigate thesis.

Use this list to help you as you make a plan for your prep; focus on what helps you the most.

You can’t do everything, but everything you do will help you.

Everything you do to get ready for your viva will be enough.

Nathan

Refresh Your Memory

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Read your thesis, at least once, before your viva. Once might be enough to help you recall the general flow of what you’ve set out and remember the most important details.

Write out a paragraph for each key project you’ve done, to refresh your memory of how you got started.

Read the most recent paper by each of your examiners and look at their staff pages to ensure you know a little about them.

Make a bullet-point list of your results and conclusions. Make another list of all your achievements from the course of your PhD.

You don’t need to have a photographic memory to succeed in the viva. Being able to recall key information easily can help though – and reminding yourself of your achievements can help ground you in the hard work you’ve done and the talent that has helped you to do it.

Nathan

Average & Amazing

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PhD candidates often want to know about the “average” viva:

  • How long do they usually take?
  • What do examiners most often ask?
  • How do they usually start?
  • What’s the most common outcome?

This is to be expected and a good set of expectations is really helpful for a candidate. There are plenty of questions about the average viva, but perhaps it’s even more useful to focus on questions for the amazing viva?

  • What do you most want to share with your examiners?
  • What are you looking forward to talking about?
  • What will you do to be well-prepared?

And, most importantly, what will you do to show up with as much confidence as you can find for this amazing event?

Expectations help, but so does preparation that raises you way above the average.

Nathan

What’s Going To Stop You?

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Nothing. Nothing is going to stop you now your viva is in sight.

You were good when you started your PhD, and have invested work and time into getting better. You’re good enough now.

You started with ideas and questions, and even if you don’t have full answers now, you know more and know enough now for your thesis and the PhD.

You’re reading this post, so whatever happened to you throughout 2020 and up to today – whenever you’re reading this – you endured. You worked around hardship, overcame challenges and more, whether it was fair or not.

You can make it through your viva now too.

You have got this far.

You did this.

Keep going.

Nathan

Have Fun!

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“Have fun!” is a better encouragement for the viva than “good luck” or “don’t worry”.

What if instead of wondering if your viva would go well, you just assumed that it was going to be enjoyable? Maybe then instead of asking yourself endless worried what if questions, you could ask:

  • How will I have fun with my viva?
  • What am I looking forward to discussing?
  • How can I make myself feel amazing?

Plenty of candidates enjoy their viva. Why not you?

Nathan

I Didn’t Do That One Thing

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Not finishing a project or experiment doesn’t disqualify you from succeeding in your PhD. If you didn’t read a certain paper, or follow a line of thought to some kind of conclusion you don’t forfeit your viva. You might need to explain if something seems missing. That explanation might be best in your thesis, but it could also be required in your viva if your examiners ask about it.

The root question is always “Why?”

  • Why didn’t you do it?
  • Why didn’t you read that paper?
  • Why weren’t you able to finish?

Unless the answer is “I was lazy” then an honest response is what your examiners want:

  • “I didn’t know about that…”
  • “I focussed on something else…”
  • “I learned about it too late to include it…”

Develop your response further by talking about what you would have done or could have done, or what you might do differently. Talk about what you learned in the process.

In most cases, unless you were being lazy, “that one thing” will just be one more little thing in a big list of things that you might have done during your PhD.

As you get ready for your viva it’s probably better – for your preparation and your confidence – to focus on what you have done, rather than on what you could have done.

Nathan

Enough Time

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The years of your PhD programme are enough time to do your research and develop yourself.

Several weeks of small tasks is enough preparation time to get yourself ready for your viva.

A matter of hours will be enough time to convince your examiners that you’ve done something significant and that you’re a capable researcher.

And while your PhD journey and thesis are impressive, after you’re done, you have enough time to go do something even more impressive!

So what will you do?

Nathan

Familiar Faces

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There are many qualities you might look for in examiners – their expertise, their reputation, their experience – but simply knowing that they are a real person (not just a name on a journal article) can be comforting when it comes to your viva.

If you can, try to make sure that your examiners are familiar to you. Aim for your internal to be someone you know from your department. Suggest that your external be someone you know from conferences.

The absence of strangers could help your viva feel less strange.

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