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Month: October 2025

Nathan

Be Helpful

Daily Post

What can you offer your friends and colleagues when they are getting ready for their vivas?

When you’ve had your viva, who will you share your experience with and how will you try to help them?

If you’ve not already had your viva then keep a little record as you get ready of what you do and how it helps. This will help you to figure out positive actions that you might recommend.

A good starting point for helping others could be to think of the help that you got. An even better starting point might be to consider the help that you feel you really needed.

 

PS: and another good starting point might be to tell someone to subscribe to the Viva Survivors daily blog if they don’t already do that!

Nathan

The Same

Daily Post

It’s interesting to consider what you would do differently if you had your PhD time again.

Perhaps with the benefit of hindsight you would take a different approach, explore another topic or organise your work differently. In some cases it might not even be a case of thinking that things would be better: perhaps you can simply see that there are other options or opportunities.

What would you keep the same?

This is perhaps an even more interesting provocation: with experience, understanding and hindsight, what would you keep the same about your PhD?

Ahead of your viva consider what you wouldn’t change. Maybe your topic, approach and effort. Maybe your working process.

Surely your determination. One reason that you got as far as you have is that you managed to keep going, whatever challenges came to you along the way.

 

PS: if you’re looking for help getting ready for your viva then check out details of my Viva Survivor webinar on Wednesday 3rd December 2025. This is my standout, comprehensive session on getting ready and there’s full details at the link about what to expect. Also, if you use code VIVASURVIVORS before midnight on Sunday 5th October 2025 you can save £10 on registration!

Nathan

Viva Survivor Webinar, December 3rd 2025

Update

Let’s keep this announcement short and simple:

  • I’m running my Viva Survivor webinar on Wednesday 3rd December 2025.
  • Registration is open now for this three-hour live webinar and participants will have access to a four-week catch-up recording and other follow-up materials.
  • Viva Survivor has been delivered for the last 15 years to more than 8000 PhD candidates at universities and programmes all over the UK.
  • In that time and in over 400 sessions I’ve been continuously developing Viva Survivor to be as helpful as possible to PGRs.
  • You can register now and use code VIVASURVIVORS until midnight on Sunday 5th October 2025 to save £10 on registration.

There’s a lot more information at the link about the webinar on Wednesday 3rd December 2025 and if you have any questions please get in touch. Viva Survivor is one of my favourite things to do and I’m really looking forward to this session, my only remaining independent Viva Survivor of 2025.

Please take a look if you’re interested and don’t forget that the code VIVASURVIVORS will save £10 on your ticket if you register before midnight on Sunday 5th October 2025.

Thanks for reading!

Nathan

Nathan

What’s Your Problem?

Daily Post

Whenever something viva-related is tricky, confusing or makes you feel negative, your first step is to figure out what the problem is.

What makes this hard? What don’t you understand? Why are you feeling this way?

Once you know what the problem is you can start to do something about it. You could work to make the tricky more simple, the confusing more clear or act to change how you’re feeling. You can ask others to help and even if the problem is big you can take a small step in the right direction.

The work ahead might not be easy, but it’s easier than just trying to cope with stress at your viva. Once you can explain the nature of the problem clearly then you can start to do something about it.

 

(of course, this kind of thinking applies outside of the viva too!)

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