You Are Here

Month: December 2025

Nathan

Best of Viva Survivors 2025: Surviving

Daily Post

It’s the last day of 2025 and my last day to share some of my favourite posts of 2025.

The blog is called Viva Survivors, so we have to have posts about surviving!

I also have to shout out These Interesting Times, a post from March that looked back at the last five years. How have you made it this far? What helped you manage to keep going in difficult circumstances throughout your PhD journey and particularly over the last five years?

 

Finally for 2025, if you’re looking for some more thoughts on surviving then take a look at The Survival Issue, the most recent curated collection of Viva Survivors Select!

Nathan

Best of Viva Survivors 2025: Confidence

Daily Post

For day three of my look back at 2025 I return to confidence. I really love exploring how to encourage confidence for the viva. Digging into this topic has had a huge impact on my life and I love sharing ideas with PhD candidates.

How confident are you feeling for your viva? What steps are you taking to help yourself?

One helpful step might be to take a look at The Confidence Issue, the seventh issue of curated help from my Viva Survivors Select series of zines!

Nathan

Best of Viva Survivors 2025: Short Posts

Daily Post

For day two of my best posts of 2025 I wanted to share a selection of the shorter posts I’ve published in the last year. These cover a lot of different topics as I like to explore many aspects of the viva. Sometimes it feels just right to write a little!

There are lots more short posts in the archive – and twenty-five more curated posts in The Sparks Issue of Viva Survivors Select too!

Nathan

Best of Viva Survivors 2025: Viva Prep

Daily Post

I’ve shared a lot of posts about viva prep in the last twelve months. Here are five of my favourites, dipping into several different tasks and approaches to getting ready for the viva:

There are many more posts about viva prep on Viva Survivors if you’re looking for ideas of what you can do to get ready for your viva. And you could also check out the third and fourth issues of Viva Survivors Select too if you’re looking for even more help from the archive!

Nathan

Merry Christmas

Daily Post

From me and my family to you and yours,

Whether you celebrate Christmas, another festival or none, I wish you nothing but peace, rest and a little calm in the next few days.

If you’ve been working hard on your thesis or preparing for your viva then you can take a little time to relax. Rest is as essential as getting the work done.

Take some time for you and those you love in the coming days.

Merry Christmas, everyone,

All good wishes,

Nathan

 

PS: this post from a few years ago still makes me smile whenever I think of it 🙂

Nathan

Almost

Daily Post

It’s almost time for this blog to take a few days of rest. I’ll send a short seasonal greeting tomorrow but after that there will be no posts until Sunday 28th December, when I’ll start my annual tradition of several days of list posts sharing some of my best of picks for this year.

Expect the following:

  • Sunday 28th December 2025: I’ll share five of my favourite posts on viva prep from 2025.
  • Monday 29th December 2025: I’ll offer a selection of the best short thoughts from this year.
  • Tuesday 30th December 2025: I’ll turn to posts about confidence, one of my big topics!
  • Wednesday 31st December 2025: I’ll round out the year with a few reflections on what it means to survive the viva.

Normal service will more or less resume on Thursday 1st January 2026!

Until then if you’re looking for help then search for topics or use the tags that you’ll see on the main page and beneath posts. If you’re just looking for something to read then hit this link to get a random post of viva help.

 

And one more little thought: with Christmas, with your viva prep, with anything, when it’s almost time to stop or almost time to rest you still have the chance to do something positive to help yourself. So if you’re preparing to take a break from things please do yourself a favour for the future and write a sticky note saying what your first action is when you get back to work!

Nathan

Your Research, Your Questions

Daily Post

Your examiners don’t ask random questions.

They might have some common questions. If examiners typically ask about the methods you used then there will be common formulations of questions that could explore that topic.

When it comes to the deep discussion in your viva the questions will become targeted. They’ll ask about the particular sentence on page 47. They’ll ask you to say more about the summary on page 78. They’ll ask you about the choices you made in Chapter 4.

 

All of which is to say that you and your work lead to the questions you’ll get in your viva. Common, generic questions exist – but they will still be asked about your work. And these questions are small by comparison to the specific and relevant questions that will be directly inspired by your work.

If you want to be ready for the discussion at your viva you could take a glance at questions you’ll find on the internet or be prompted by an AI – but then get to work with reviewing your thesis, take time to create summaries and invest a few hours in rehearsal with others.

Your research leads to your questions at the viva.

Nathan

Beyond The Viva

Daily Post

We need to do this by… We have to make time to… Oh don’t forget we have to…

I’m willing to bet that these kinds of sentences aren’t just being said in my house! As the last days of the year line up it can sometimes feel like time is running out.

 

There’s a similar feeling with the viva I think.

Time has to be made to get X, Y and Z done. There’s the time of the viva itself, a small number of hours on one day but which can feel much bigger and important.

Then the viva is done. Over. Finished. Passed. Success.

And then there’s what comes next.

 

The days and weeks immediately after your viva are the almost end of your PhD journey. They might be bittersweet. They might not be what you were expecting or what you imagined.

Whatever happens there’s more afterwards. A new challenge like a new year, the same as the last one but unique and special.

Take a little time to brace yourself as you get ready for your viva. You’ll be done before you know it and then you’ll have new challenges to embrace.

Nathan

Compounding Confidence

Daily Post

The sooner you start recognising your progress, growth, achievement and talent as you work through your PhD, the sooner you can start to feel confident for your viva.

Confidence compounds over time like interest. Regularly reflecting and reviewing on your PhD journey will help your confidence grow even more.

Nathan

Thinking Spaces

Daily Post

In the same way that editing your thesis has to be approached differently to writing your first draft, preparing for your viva needs a different process to how you might typically do work. A different space could support that very well.

If you had the choice, where would be a good space for you to get ready? Where could you think?

Will you work from home or go to the library? Would a few hours in a cafe be more helpful than your desk? And will you use different spaces for different tasks? You might prefer to curl up on a sofa to read your thesis but need a flat surface somewhere to annotate your thesis.

Viva prep requires some doing to support your thinking. Where will help you most as you do the work?

1 2 3