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Year: 2024

Nathan

Gasp!

Daily Post

If a question or comment in your viva makes you freeze then just stop.

Breathe again.

Think again.

Try to understand the question.

Think some more.

Breathe again.

And if the question or comment still makes you freeze then reflect, “Why?”

Why is this question or comment giving you trouble?

Once you start thinking about that, even if you still don’t have an answer or an opinion you’ll have the beginning of a response that you can share with your examiners.

If a question or comment gives you pause, makes you freeze or even makes you gasp, just sit with it a moment. Take a little time to think and explore how you can still respond.

Nathan

Viva Kit

Daily Post

You need to take your thesis to your viva. Your examiners don’t expect a perfect memory. You can use your thesis throughout to help you respond to questions.

You need to take a pen and paper. The viva is a discussion but it’s an important one. Give yourself the option of taking notes that could help you afterwards.

You need to take something to drink. Don’t forget! Many examiners and universities don’t arrange for refreshments and you’re likely to be in your viva for a few hours at least.

You need to decide on what you’ll wear. You don’t need to be smart for your examiners, but you can dress in a way that helps you feel as good as you possibly can.

 

You need to have the right kit for your viva. It won’t take a lot to bring this together. This post has the basics that everyone needs to think about – but what do you need for your research and your viva?

Nathan

Minor & Major & None

Daily Post

There are three general viva outcomes.

Minor corrections are minor: correcting typos, editing for clarity and amending diagrams. Most candidates are asked to complete minor corrections as a result of the viva.

Major corrections are unlikely: they account for very few viva outcomes proportionally. Requests from examiners are clear and if completed they still result in success and passing the PhD.

Getting no corrections is nice: of course! But it’s also only something that you can hope for. It’s worth acknowledging that writing is hard, writing a book is very hard and examiners spotting no typos or other corrections is unlikely.

Three outcomes. All, subject to completing any requests, result in success.

Rather than hope you’ll get through with none expect that you’ll have work to do and plan for when and how you will do that work after your viva.

Nathan

Before You Prepare

Daily Post

Viva prep is a set of tasks and activities you complete between submission and the viva which help you to feel ready for the viva. Before submission, to create a good space for your prep, do the following:

  • Read the viva regulations for your university.
  • Gather some nice stationery to help with note-making.
  • Sketch out a rough plan for how you will do your prep.
  • Ask your supervisor about their availability.
  • Ask friends and family to support your prep time.
  • Finish your research and your thesis.

Of course, the last one is pretty important!

The other points are also importatant but they’ll take up far less time to help you make a good space for getting ready for your viva.

Nathan

Not To Plan

Daily Post

Vivas have institutional regulations, general expectations and local norms from recurring practice within departments all over the UK. Together these describe a picture of what any candidate can reasonably expect. The picture is a bit blurry in places but there’s a reasonable sense of what a viva is supposed to be like.

Individual candidates can have logistical expectations too. Examiner A and Examiner B are nominated and approved. Date and location are set. Preparations are completed, confidence builds and all is right with the world.

 

Then something happens.

In spring 2020 that something might have been a sudden shift to a video viva.

Or an examiner having to postpone or cancel the week before viva day.

Or through miscommunication it could be that the start time is not what was expected.

When things don’t go to plan, as viva expectations of all kinds collide with viva reality, what do you do? What can you do?

 

You ask for help. Whatever is driving the change of plans you ask for help, because it won’t solely be your problem to resolve. Talk to your supervisor, your director of postgraduate studies or someone in your graduate school. There will be a friendly face. They will listen. They will help.

The change will then become part of your expectations. A new examiner. A new date. A short delay or a moment or two while you adjust to a different video software.

Remember: things don’t have to go completely according to plan for you to succeed at your viva.

Nathan

All Vivas Are Short…

Daily Post

…compared with the amount of time you’ve invested in your PhD.

That doesn’t make them easy. That doesn’t mean they’ll fly by if they are many hours long. That doesn’t mean there’s no need to prepare.

Those thousands of hours in your PhD journey help make sure that the short time in your viva will result in success.

Nathan

Umbrellas

Daily Post

Viva prep is a bit like carrying an umbrella on an uncertain day.

You look out the window. There are clouds. They’re grey but not dark grey. It might rain but it might not. You could leave the umbrella and take a chance or pick it up, carry it with you, make the effort and be sure that you’re covered.

After years of work, learning, results, development and growth, it’s reasonable to assume that a PhD candidate is good. Viva prep then helps ensure that a candidate is good for the particular challenge they’ll find at the viva. They might be fine, but prep will make sure that they are.

Carrying an umbrella is not a great effort to be sure of keeping dry. Neither is viva prep so great an undertaking to be sure of doing well.

You might be fine without it, but why take the risk?

Nathan

Questions By Moonlight

Daily Post

How about a little music to prepare by?

Whenever I need a quick thinking break or need to gather my ideas I listen to Clair de lune by Debussy. I think it’s my favourite piece of music. Listening to it never fails to give me five minutes of happy thought-arranging.

Get a piece of paper and a pen, pick a question from below and press play to have five minutes of reflective viva prep.

  • What are you most proud of in your PhD journey?
  • Which chapter was the most rewarding to write?
  • What are you looking forward to talking about in the viva?
  • What steps can you take to build your confidence now?
  • What do you hope you’ll be asked in your viva?

Small pieces of prep help. Little reflections help to build up the picture of how you think and feel about your thesis. And a little music can’t hurt either.

Nathan

In The Distance

Daily Post

If you’re reading this and you’re in your first or second year of your PhD, you don’t have to worry about your viva! You don’t have to give it any great thought: for now, keep on with the main work of your research and your own development. You don’t need to be focussing on your viva.

And with that said, if you want to help yourself now and when you get to the viva, consider doing some of the following:

  • Regularly reflect on how you’re doing. Highlight your successes. See how your confidence changes.
  • Find opportunities to talk about your work. This will help you figure out how to explain what you do and what it means. This is helpful for your PhD, your thesis and your viva.
  • Pay attention when your friends and colleagues have vivas. What do they do to get ready? How do they seem before and after?

Little things you do over a long period of time will help you both on the journey and at your destination. Your viva is a way off in the distance. Don’t worry about it, but help yourself as you make your way there.

 

And of course, if you’re in your third year or fast-approaching your viva, you can follow the ideas above, they’ll still help!

Nathan

Again, For The Final Time

Daily Post

That’s the viva. You’re doing something you have done many, many times throughout the last few years – thinking about and talking about your research and your ability as a researcher – and this is the last time you’ll need to do that.

(you might want to do it again, you might want to be a researcher or have a career that involves this – but you won’t need to do it after your viva)

At your viva you need to discuss your research contribution, your PhD journey and what you can do as a researcher. These are all things you must necessarily have done a lot during your PhD. The viva is a particular challenge which requires particular prep, but it’s not so different from the rest of your PhD experience.

The viva means doing it one more time. Maybe the last time.

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