Write down all of the things that you’ve achieved over the course of your PhD.
Write down as many things as you can think of where you’ve succeeded despite a setback.
List all the times you overcame your own doubts and worries.
Consider how much work you had to do to write your thesis.
Consider the background state of the world against which you’ve done all of this.
With all of your victories, you are in a great position to now succeed in your viva. Any nerves that you feel are not a sign that you are missing something; you’re just recognising that the viva is important.
With all your past victories you can work towards one more now.
The viva is you and your examiners; the viva isn’t you versus them.
You don’t have to challenge all their questions. They don’t have to bring you and your work down.
It’s not combat. It’s not a trial. It’s not an ordeal. You don’t have to prove that you’re better than them somehow.
It’s you AND them creating your viva.
Instead of worrying about what you have to do “to win” – make sure you’re ready to share your best self and best stuff. Make sure you know what you need to about the process and your examiners to help the viva be as good as it can be.
…you’re ready to face one more challenge: your viva!
Wait, I skipped ahead! Go back to the beginning…
You got onto a PhD programme because you were good enough. Your story before then, your successes, your challenges, your grades and skills, they convinced your institution you could do a PhD.
You worked through to submission because you were good enough. It won’t have been easy. You’ll have had success but also lots of challenges. Some days and weeks will have been joyous, but perhaps some months will have felt awful. In the end though, you did it. You did your research, you wrote your thesis and submitted it. One more milestone reached.
You prepared for your viva by building on what you did. You highlighted the important stuff, reflected on how you did it and got ready to talk to your examiners. You’re good enough. You really are!
You’re good enough, and now you’re ready to face one more challenge: your viva!
Now, right at the end, it’s worth reflecting on the journey that’s got you this far.
I’m running my 7 Reasons You’ll Pass Your Viva session next Monday, 8th February 2021. It’s a 1-hour webinar all about why you can feel confident for your viva, exploring some of the things you can do to be ready, as well as giving space for you to ask any questions you have about the process.
I’ve run it many times since I developed it last spring, during the first UK lockdown, and it’s a real thrill to be able to offer it again. I’ve heard from people how valuable it’s been for them as they come to the conclusion of their PhD journey and am so happy I have the space to continue to offer this support. In a strange, weird and sometimes-awful time, 7 Reasons You’ll Pass Your Viva is one of the things I’m happiest I’ve been able to do in the last year.
Today I’ve used Teams, Skype and Zoom for #webinars or #virtual meetings. But the best was definitely from @VivaSurvivors who offered some great #WednesdayWisdom I would recommend signing up for one of Nathan’s webinars if you’re lacking confidence or motivation with your #PhD
Registration is open now, and there’s an earlybird discount for anyone who books before midnight tomorrow. If your viva is sometime this year then I think this session will really help you. Take a look at the session details here – if you have any questions, simply get in touch via email or Twitter.
You can do a lot with one blank sheet of paper to help your viva prep.
You could write “What’s important?” as a provocation to get you thinking about what really matters in your thesis. Respond to the prompt using the rest of the page.
You could divide a blank page into three and capture responses to each of the following questions:
Why does your work matter?
How did you do your research?
What are your best results or conclusions?
Taken together, these create a good summary of your research.
With a single sheet of A4 paper, you could make a list of ten references that have really helped your research.
Or cut the paper up into ten bookmarks to help you navigate your thesis.
Or just put it in your printer and print a copy of The tiny book of viva prep from the Resources page!
A blank page can be intimidating before you do something – but you don’t have to do a lot to get something valuable.
It’s been refined over a hundred loaves and several years working at it. It’s a combination of ingredients and technique: from the ratios of flour to oil and water, how I prepare the baking sheet I use, the setting on my oven and the time I set on the timer (now 42 minutes rather than 40 to help get the crust just right).
I could give you the recipe and you would scratch your head a lot.
You set your oven to Gas Mark 5-and-a-half?!
What do you mean, leave it for “about” two hours to prove?!
Wait wait, a mix of 400g of “whatever bread flours” you happen to have???
There are elements of what I could share that would make sense. There are others that with a little thought you would be able to work around. And there are some which are only applicable to my kitchen, my house, my equipment.
I read books, watched YouTube videos, looked at what I had, looked at what I could get and with time, patience, practice, repetition, iteration and a smile on my face I found something that worked really well for me and my family. I could tell you all about it, but if you wanted to do something similar, you could only use what I shared as a starting point. You would have to take what I offered and build on it, although hopefully, I would save you some time in your quest to get your own recipe for success.
This train of thought is really about you, your research, your thesis, your viva prep, and about people giving advice.
Let’s assume it’s good advice! Even then, you have to make it work for you. You have to take ideas on writing, on reading, on working well, on finishing a thesis, on preparing for the viva and on being in it – all of that has to get mixed with you, your talents, your skills, your passions, your preferences. The work you’ve done, the worries you have and your situation. It takes time and work to make it truly useful for you. It might not be easy, but hopefully it won’t be as hard as starting with a blank page.
With a little time, a little practice, a little refinement – whatever stage you’re at – you can find your recipe for success. It might require tinkering, but so long as you persist, you can get it just right.
And once you have found your recipe for success – research success, thesis success, viva success – consider sharing it to help others in their work. Find a good way to tell your colleagues what’s helped you.
I’m keeping my bread a family recipe for now though! 🙂
Feedback and praise can help build confidence. Your supervisors could be the best people to boost you before your viva. You have to pick your questions to be as helpful to you as possible.
Don’t ask them how you could be better. Don’t ask them about how your work could be improved. Don’t ask them to critique your thesis.
Ask them to describe your qualities and talents. Ask them to describe your successes. Ask them why these things matter.
Ask them questions that are more likely to build you up, rather than give you more to obsess over. There’s a time and a place for constructive criticism. I don’t think that time or place is the weeks leading up to your viva.
Perhaps you wouldn’t categorise typos as small-fry, but it’s worth reflecting on what “minor” means to keep the scope and scale of minor corrections in perspective. Individually, each correction is a relatively small change. Combined, they could take time to work through, so be sure that you know how much time your institution gives for completing them.
Compared with the work for your PhD, the effort for your preparation and your viva, minor corrections are a dinky piece of work. For the most part, they’re trivial compared to the energy required for everything else you’ve done.
More reading to help you remember and recall what you need.
More writing to help you bring everything together.
More thinking to help you figure out that you’re ready.
But, for all of these and everything else you do to prepare, only a little more – only a little more work, a little more effort, a little more time. You don’t need much. Not by the time you’ve submitted. Not with so much done already.
A little contrast to this post from November 2020.
Checking the time while you’re in the viva won’t help.
Most vivas, based on all the conversations I’ve had over the last decade, seem to be in the two- to three-hour range. That knowledge can help you to prepare a little, think about how rested you need to be and what you might need to be ready to talk for that long. But it won’t help you in the viva to look at a clock and know that an hour has passed.
There’s no correlation between viva length and outcome. Looking at the time will only make you wonder. “How am I doing?” or “Two hours already?!” or “This is going fast… Is that good?!”
Have an idea about how long the viva could be to help you prepare. Turn your mind away from time when you’re in there. Pause, take time to think and respond. Don’t rush, don’t worry.
It will probably be over sooner than you think, and only take as long as it needs to. You are going to be fine however long it is.
