Daily viva help for PhDs
Include some rest time in your viva prep plan.
Your circumstances might not allow for proper time off. Holidays and breaks might be out but certainly give yourself time away from your research.
Your day-to-day life might be filled with work, family obligations or caring responsibilities. If this is so, don’t then go straight from submitting your thesis to viva prep.
Rest from your research. Rest from your thesis. A little breathing room will help when you return to your work.
It’s possible to make well-educated guesses about the questions you’ll get at your viva. You know a lot of the material your examiners will want to talk about. Even if you can’t speculate on specific questions you can have a good understanding of themes that might come up.
Any question at the viva is being asked for a purpose: your examiners might want to know more, understand something more clearly, explore around a topic, check your thinking or generally move the discussion forward.
Any question at the viva is being asked with the expectation that you will respond. You listen, pause, breathe, maybe check your thesis, maybe make a note, think a bit and then talk. You need to add to the discussion. Give more evidence that you are a capable researcher.
And don’t forget that you can ask questions at the viva too. Any question you have for your examiners is fine. Seek their opinion, ask for clarity and explore what you need to – but keep in mind that your priority has to be making sure that you engage with what they are asking.
No, this isn’t an existential post following yesterday’s birthday post!
What title do you give yourself as a researcher? How do you describe what you do?
When I was doing my PhD, to people outside my immediate circle I would say I was a PhD student. To other people at my university I might say I was a mathematician; perhaps a pure mathematician if I felt they would understand the distinction.
In my department I would say I was a knot theorist. If it was someone fancy I would say I was a low-dimensional topologist. If it was someone knowledgeable I would say I was interested in finding effective algorithms for calculating certain polynomials of particular classes of knotted objects.
Who you are and how you describe yourself might change from person to person.
How do you describe yourself to you? What labels do you use? Are they accurate? Are they kind?
And, whatever your work, whatever your stage of your PhD or however close your viva is, do you remember that you are more than your research? You are a researcher but that’s just one part of who you are and what you do.
Who are you?
Today is my birthday and I’m old.
How did I get here? My beard is turning grey, various joints ache and I still have a moment of confusion now and then that I don’t look as I expect in the mirror.
Seriously, how did this happen?!
As the title of this post suggests, through a lot of little steps. Birthdays come around and burst the bubble that we’re not changing, but the path from last year to this was many little steps along the way.
The same is true for the PhD journey. How did you get to where you are now?
Through a lot of little steps.
You worked, you thought, you reflected, you worked some more, you wrote some things, you talked, you grew and developed and became someone very similar to who you were at the start and also a little bit different. That’s how you got this far.
It’s how you’ll get to your viva too. You don’t have to take one big leap to be ready: you take a lot of little steps to read, review, reflect, rehearse and re-orient your thinking before you meet your examiners.
I should add, by the way, that despite my gripes at the top of this post, all of my little steps have lead me to a place where I am happy, with a wonderful family, a happy home and work that fulfils me and helps others. What more could I ask for on my birthday? 🙂
It’s also my annual custom to offer an age-related discount to some of my paid resources on my birthday. However a 44% discount sounded odd, appropriate as it may be – so let’s round it up to 50%!
Until Friday 31st January 2025 you can find the Viva Help Bundle for half price. The sale runs automatically, there’s no code to enter or anything like that. If you like the look of it, please take advantage of this sale now. Thanks for reading 🙂
Rowing harder doesn’t help if the boat is headed in the wrong direction.
This phrase, attributed to Kenichi Ohmae, is something I try to keep in mind whenever I find myself stuck or working on something for a long time. It’s a reminder that working hard doesn’t matter if I’m not doing the right thing.
It’s a sentiment I wish I had known during my PhD!
Be sure that you’re working on the right things as you prepare for your viva. It’s good to work hard but you might not need to do as much work as you think.
Obsessing over every detail, finding every typo in your thesis, checking every reference – you could work really hard at these sorts of things, but will that help you to be ready?
Read, review, rehearse. Keep it simple. Work hard but find the right direction.
A mindset sounds fixed by definition. Your mind is set on something, in behaving a certain way or doing a certain thing.
I’ve talked to a lot of PhD candidates who get worried about their examiners. They think that they’re out to get them. They think examiners will solely focus on “the bad stuff” – even if they can’t quite define what parts of their thesis they think that will be. And sometimes they’re intimidated by examiners; their level of general knowledge and experience could make a candidate feel small by comparison.
Examiners are often cast as the bad guys (by the candidate) but really they’re just doing a job.
Have I changed your mindset with these little thoughts? Maybe not. But perhaps it’s chipped away a little worry. You now have to think about what else you can explore to change your mindset about your examiners.
Perhaps there are other mindsets about the viva (the tone, the expectations, the questions) that you can challenge. Perhaps by changing your mind about a few things you can find a better way to think about and prepare for your viva.
It’s reasonable to expect your viva to be difficult.
Consider the work that you’ve done and how long you’ve been doing the work. Consider the level that you work at. Consider the years of work that yours is built on, the expectations of your discipline, the amount you’ve written and the general demands of a viva.
Consider that you might be nervous, anxious, worried or stressed.
It’s reasonable to expect your viva to be difficult – but that doesn’t mean it will be bad.
You might not like aspects of your viva or viva prep. You might not want to respond to certain questions or topics at the viva. And there might be general expectations of the whole event that worry you.
Still: does that mean your viva has to necessarily be a negative experience?
If you’re anxious, ask why. If you’re worried, ask why. If you’re stressed, ask for help.
It’s natural to be nervous. It’s right to expect your viva to be difficult.
Accept the situation, work in and around the parts that you need to. Don’t expect a box-ticking exercise but do expect that you can do well in a situation you can know so much about and prepare for.
And do remember that you’ve not got this far without facing a certain amount of difficulty – and making it through.
Formally the viva is an exam.
Practically it could be described as a discussion.
It’s accurate to call it a challenge.
It’s not wrong to be nervous about exams, worried about talking or concerned about a challenge. It’s human to feel any of those things.
Remember that the viva is an exam conducted as a discussion – and only a challenge because that’s what you’ve made for yourself. The viva is one particular challenge after many that you have overcome. You’ve worked hard to do the work, do the research and write your thesis. Along the way you built yourself up as well, in your knowledge, understanding and general capability.
Remember that the work that has got you this far is what will get through the challenge yet to come.
“The session last week was so, so helpful. I really appreciated the practical guidance, which made so much sense and feels do-able and will help my confidence going into the viva. It helped that your manner in the training was calm, clear, concise, and full of empathy and understanding.”
I received these kind words in my inbox in mid-December, from a participant of my first independent Viva Survivor session. It was a really nice early Christmas present!
Viva Survivor is a 3-hour session I’ve now delivered to more than 7500 postgraduate researchers. Through it I help PhD candidates see that being ready for the viva is within their reach. They’ve done the work, they can learn what to expect and what to do and generally find confidence for the viva day.
I’m typically invited by universities and doctoral training programmes to share Viva Survivor with their researchers, but I decided to offer it up for open registration in December. One day, one time, any PhD candidate welcome to register. A 3-hour live session with follow-up supporting materials and a catch-up recording.
Would anyone be interested?
Thankfully yes! In fact, seven PhD candidates attended. There was a lovely atmosphere created by my cohort. It also felt good to write to people individually before and after the session. It might be impractical for university sessions, but I’d love to do more to recreate this in the future.
“Just a quick note to say I passed my viva with minor corrections! Your webinar was very useful and definitely helped to allay some anxiety regarding the whole process.”
My second early Christmas present was the above message: one of my attendees at the independent session had their viva within weeks of Viva Survivor and had succeeded! As you might imagine, it felt fantastic to have played a part in helping them get ready.
I want to help many more people in 2025. I’m happy to say that I have a lot of dates in my diary with universities over the coming months, including my 400th Viva Survivor – and I’m very happy to announce that registration is open now for independent Viva Survivor sessions on March 27th 2025 and June 25th 2025!
These are months away, but if your viva is this year do take a look at what I’ll be covering and what you get by registering and attending. If you have questions about the session or format then please email me. I’ll be happy to respond.
And if you know someone who might be interested in Viva Survivor please pass the details on!
Thank you for reading 🙂
Nathan
If you keep track of your PhD journey you can see where you grow and how your work develops.
If you keep track of your viva prep you can see that you are moving closer to being done.
If you keep track of your own capability you can find a sense of confidence for your viva.
Doing things matters. Do the work, do the prep and do what you can to become a good researcher.
Keeping track matters too. Recognise what you have done and what that means for you.