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Year: 2024

Nathan

Different To Expectations

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Regulations, general experiences of PhD candidates and the more particular stories from people in your department create your viva expectations.

Every viva is unique, but yours won’t be a total unknown because it will follow – to some extent – the patterns of other vivas. Whatever you learn and whatever you come to believe, yours will not be a photocopy of the idea you have or a twin to a story someone else told you.

Find a balance for yourself in all this by getting ready.

A little knowledge (expectations) has to result in action (viva prep).

Having a mock viva isn’t a direct rehearsal for your actual viva: it’s not the dress rehearsal where everyone knows their lines – you’re getting a feel for the room, a feel for what it sounds like to be talking about your work and to be in discussion.

Your viva will necessarily be different to expectations – and in a way that you can’t expect!

All you can do is find out what you can, prepare as best you can and then keep going and being the determined, capable researcher that you are. That’s how you succeed.

Nathan

By The End…

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…of your first thesis draft you’ll probably be wondering what to do, what to focus on and how long you’ll need to fix anything that needs fixing.

…of the day when you submit your thesis you can hopefully take a deep breath, relax and smile a little.

…of your viva prep period you’ll appreciate that you are ready.

…of the last minute before your viva I hope, despite any nerves, that you’ll feel like you are enough.

…of your viva I hope that you feel it was a good experience.

…of your PhD I hope you feel good for whatever challenges are in your future.

Nathan

VIVA, Viva, viva

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I regularly receive all three formulations of the above four-letter shorthand for “thesis examination” when people ask me questions:

  • VIVA is used when someone thinks there is an acronym involved or perhaps they are especially nervous, placing the event on a great pedestal.
  • A person might write Viva when they give some importance to the exam. It has a title. This is my Viva.
  • It’s most common for people to simply write viva – it’s also technically the correct way to write it as well!

When you’re asking a question, it doesn’t matter which spelling or arrangement you use, so long as you’re understood.

It helps to remember though that different words mean different things, and perhaps give a hint to how you feel about something.

If you’re preparing for your VIVA, is it possible that you’re anxious? And if so, what can you do to help yourself or get help?

If you think about your Viva are you sure you’re on track? Sometimes a person’s focus on the importance of a thing can lead to obscuring other details. Maybe take some time to check all is well.

And if you are simply working towards your viva then just take it nice and easy. How will you get ready? How will you get the help you need from others?

It takes a little work but not too much to get ready for a viva – but then if you’re writing viva instead of VIVA or Viva you’re probably fine in appreciating that!

Nathan

Decide In Advance

Daily Post

There’s a lot you won’t know about your viva before it happens.

You can have reasonable guesses and expectations around questions, opinions and discussion topics. You can learn generally what to expect and build up a picture. But you can’t know. There’s a lot you have to simply contend with as it happens. A question is asked and you have to pause, think and respond – in whatever way seems best in that moment.

This is why the viva, even if it’s a positive experience, can be a draining event: a lot of brain work is required on the day.

 

To help reserve as much thinking ability as you can, decide as much as you can in advance of your viva.

Decide in advance:

  • how you will get to your viva – and what time you’ll leave!
  • what you will wear – and how you want it to make you feel!
  • what to take – and don’t forget to check with friends and your supervisor to see if there is anything atypical that you might need!

You have to pause, think and respond as every question is asked. You can’t decide on a response before you hear the question – but you can decide in advance how you will respond to every question. Pause. Think. Take your time.

You can decide in advance to pursue confidence. You can’t decide that you won’t be nervous; feelings can’t be pushed away by a decision. But you can decide that you want to feel confident and take actions to find that.

Nathan

The Next Challenge

Daily Post

That’s one way to think of the viva if you’ve submitted your thesis. It’s just the next challenge.

You’ve faced, figured out and overcome many more on the way to submission. You can rise to this one too.

And then on to the next challenge – because for all of the importance you might give your viva, your thesis and your PhD, there’s another challenge coming along for you.

Nathan

The Final Hours

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A full-time PhD could take about a thousand days from when you start work on your research to when you submit your thesis.

Getting ready for your viva is a modest chunk of work that could take twenty or thirty hours spread out over two to four weeks.

The viva itself might go by so fast that you’ll blink and miss it! Two, three, four hours? Maybe less, certainly not much more even for a “long” viva.

 

Thousands and thousands of hours of work to get to submission.

Twenty or thirty more to get ready.

Two or three to finally get the job done.

Those final hours matter, but rather than stress about what will, won’t or might happen in those few hours, it’s probably better to focus on the work you will have done in the thousands of hours before then.

Nathan

Behind Worry

Daily Post

It’s not wrong to worry about the viva. Worry is a very typical, human response to a sensitive, pressured and important event. Years of work build to one meeting. You want it to go well!

It’s not wrong to worry. It’s not wrong to be nervous. Neither state is comfortable, but neither state will diminish your work or impact how likely you are to succeed.

To move past worry you have to explore why you feel that way. When you know what your worry is you can do something about it.

  • If you worry about your examiners you can find out more about them.
  • If you worry that you’re not ready you can do more prep.
  • If you worry that you don’t know enough about the process of vivas you can take time to learn more.

It may be that you can’t remove all sources of worry in your life, but you can probably take action to reduce the worries you feel about your viva.

And for all the worries you feel you will still succeed at your viva.

Nathan

The Power Of Prep

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Prep won’t make you perfect.

Prep won’t reveal every question you might be asked – or create answers for every line of discussion.

Prep won’t let you know how you’ll feel on the day and it won’t let you sidestep tricky situations.

And prep won’t allow you to know how your examiners feel about your thesis before you sit down with them in the viva.

 

Viva prep helps you to be ready for the particular difficulties of the viva after you have already built up years of experience, skill and knowledge at dealing with difficulties in your research.

Viva prep won’t give you an answer for every question, but can help you to respond to any question.

Viva prep won’t show you how you’ll feel on the day, but will help shape you how approach the experience.

Viva prep won’t make you perfect – but will make you prepared. That’s all you need.

Nathan

Healthy Expectations

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Listening to horror stories, half-truths or suggestions by people with no direct understanding of vivas can skew your expectations drastically and negatively.

Only hearing about the viva from happy people who say you have nothing to worry about can mean you don’t have a full picture of the variety of viva experiences.

Healthy viva expectations give you knowledge, understanding and general awareness of the processes involved.

Healthy viva expectations are like the components of a healthy diet: they probably involve variety, they definitely require some tailoring to circumstances – and it’s always helpful to consider the source!

Nathan

Stop & Go

Daily Post

When you submit your thesis you have to stop, at least for a little while.

Take a break from thinking about your research.

You might be able to have a proper break depending on your circumstances; you might have to do other work, but at least stop thinking about your research and your thesis and the many other things that have been on your mind for so long.

Relax. Wait. It’s OK.

When the time comes and you have a viva date then go: do the work, read your thesis, make notes, rehearse and do everything else you need to do to get ready.

Stop and go. Stop when you need to. Go when you need to.

And rest, relax and look after yourself as much as you can.

 

It’s been great to press pause on writing Viva Survivors for three months! I’ve focussed on some other creative projects outside of vivas and PhDs and doing so has brought me a lot of joy and satisfaction. I’ll be continuing with them in due course, but for now it is great to get started again with the blog.

Hence, stop and go.

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