You Are Here

Category: Daily Post

Nathan

Room To Rest

Daily Post

It’s another public holiday in the UK.

I have the day off and I hope you do as well – and if you don’t I hope you can take a day off soon!

 

Remember that when it’s time to get ready for your viva too.

There’s work to do when you’re preparing for your viva but you can control the flow. Don’t make it too intense. Don’t leave yourself no room to rest. You can’t be at your best for the viva if you put yourself under enormous pressure while you’re preparing.

Make a plan. Take your time. Give yourself room to rest after the achievement of submission. Give yourself space to breathe while you get ready for your viva.

Nathan

Not At The Viva

Daily Post

Expect the unexpected at your viva but don’t expect:

  • Tiebreaks, lightning rounds and top tens.
  • Sudden death, all-or-nothing questions!
  • Written responses, trial by combat and surprise guests.
  • Irrelevant questions, impossible tasks and cunning riddles.

Expect an unexpected question. Expect an unexpected opinion. Expect that your examiners might have less understanding or require helpful explanation. Don’t expect them to change the rules or broader structure of the viva.

Expect the unexpected but expect that the unexpected will still be reasonable and relevant for your work.

Nathan

The Last Questions

Daily Post

What’s the last feedback question you want to ask your supervisor?

What’s the last question you’ll have for your supervisor as you prepare for your viva?

What’s the last thing you need to check as you approach viva day?

What’s the last task on your viva prep list?

What’s the last question you might ask your examiners at the end of the viva?

What’s the last thing you want to be asked by your examiners?

What’s the last thing you’ll do as you finish your PhD and leave your university?

Nathan

Less Than 100%

Daily Post

Looking back over your PhD you have to accept that you can’t have given it your all.

You can’t have answered every question.

You can’t have achieved everything.

You can’t have written a perfect thesis.

You can’t be perfect.

And that’s OK.

Look at what you did. Step away from the trap of perfection and the distractions of what ifs. Then you can see that you have done something amazing.

You’ve done something that no-one else has ever done. You’ve become someone that no-one else has ever been.

Nathan

7 Weeks

Daily Post

That’s roughly how long I had to prepare for my viva. Here are seven thoughts from those seven weeks in the dim and distant past of 2008:

  1. I took a break when I submitted. Not a big one, just a week to rest from the final busy days leading to submission. Starting viva prep rested helps.
  2. I made a lot of notes. I annotated my thesis. I wrote summaries. I did a lot of things to help my memory because I didn’t really know what to expect from my viva.
  3. My examiners asked me to prepare a presentation to start my viva when the date was set. It was helpful to have something concrete to do. Preparing a presentation also helped with other parts of prep.
  4. I didn’t have a mock viva with my supervisor. We continued to meet once per week and talked over each chapter. I wish I’d thought to ask him more about what vivas were like.
  5. My supervisor also told me to look at my external examiner’s research area. It was very different to my own. He thought it would be good to get an understanding of it and he was right!
  6. I wasn’t nervous until ten minutes before my viva. That happened because I didn’t sleep well the night before. I felt very tired as I was unpacking my bag; nervousness hit me hard but at least I had my presentation to focus on.
  7. Looking back I can see that I was confident that I had a good thesis. I can also see that I wasn’t feeling confident in my own ability at the viva. With hindsight I wonder if I had been pushing away nerves and worry for weeks leading up to my viva.

Of course, hindsight is wonderful! I was on the right track for a lot of my prep. I could have done better if I had paid attention rather than ignored how I was feeling.

How are you getting ready for your viva? What are you feeling? And what are you doing as a result of those feelings?

Nathan

Start With You

Daily Post

The work starts with you. There are lots of possible motivations for your research but you did it.

All of the reading, research, results and outputs – all of the impact – comes from you.

Your PhD is personal. It makes sense for your viva and viva prep to be personal too.

Start with you. Look back over everything you’ve done and think about what it means. When you know what you’ve done and what you still need to do then you can move forward proactively.

Nathan

Prep Parallels

Daily Post

You’ll do very similar work to your examiners as you all get ready for your viva.

Both preparations involve reading your thesis. Your examiners will be considering it for the first time while you refresh your memory. All of you will be reading it carefully.

All of you will be making notes and writing summaries in some form. You’ll all probably mark up copies of your thesis and while you might summarise various aspects of your research your examiners will write reports ahead of the viva.

You’ll all be thinking about questions although you’ll do it in different ways. Your examiners will plan for questions or topics that they think need to come up. You could do similar but more likely you’ll find rehearsal opportunities.

You approach your viva with a different purpose to your examiners. You’re doing similar work for different reasons but you have a lot in common – including the fact that all of you could be feeling quite nervous!

Nathan

Second Thoughts

Daily Post

They’re probably better than your first thoughts at the viva.

First thoughts might come from nerves, worry, mishearing a word, wanting to get a point across or wanting to move past a question as quickly as possible.

Second thoughts are definitely considered. They might be the same as first thoughts but they might have more nuance or be better expressed. They’ll slow the pace a little and show your thinking.

Think, then think again. Take your time to give the best responses you can at your viva.

Nathan

Doctor Time

Daily Post

The moment will come when you’re really, really done with your PhD but there are lots of steps along the way that might feel like endings.

  • How will you celebrate when you pass your viva?
  • How will you celebrate when you graduate?
  • What will being Doctor Someone mean to you?

Finishing your PhD is a big deal. It’s much bigger than the viva.

Thinking about the end can help you plan ahead, figure out how you feel and potentially motivate you for the work you still have to do.

You celebrate, you change and then what?

Nathan

Easy Modes

Daily Post

My daughter and I laugh sometimes about how willing I am to lower the difficulty down to easy mode on video games. I’m happy to be challenged by what I play but also like having lots of different game experiences. I don’t want to be stuck on a boss for fifteen attempts!

Easy mode means I get to play a lot and I still have to play the games to complete them, easy mode doesn’t skip the play.

 

Anyway, defensiveness about my declining video game skills aside, there’s no difficulty slider for the viva. You can’t turn the questions down to easy or tweak your examiners’ stats. You can’t make the viva easy but you can:

  • Know what to expect;
  • Be prepared;
  • And build confidence.

And that’s it actually: you don’t need anything else.

You’ve done the work prior to submission and you can do a little more after your thesis is finished to be ready for the epic challenge of your viva.

You can’t make it easy and you don’t need to. You can be ready instead.

1 2 3 4 … 329