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Nathan

Three Favours

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Ask your family and friends to give you a little space, time and quiet in advance of your viva. You need a good environment to prepare in. They can help provide that for you. Let them know what you need and work with them to make it a reality.

Ask someone to drive you to university on the day of your viva, if you’re having your viva in-person. You need to arrive rested. Travelling by public transport or driving yourself could take away from your focus and energy; asking for a lift could help you to arrive at your viva in a great condition.

Ask yourself to believe something: to believe that you are good enough. To believe that you have come as far as you have through hard work, personal development and making something that matters.

The last favour might be the biggest you could ask, depending on how you’re feeling – but if you can grant the request you’ll find a confidence that will help a lot on viva day.

Nathan

Proving

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I’m a lapsed baker.

I like making bread, but it’s a practice I’ve fallen out with of late. I must get back to it. It’s a hobby I’ve let fall by the wayside for too long.

I’m not the world’s greatest at all, but I’ve mixed enough dough enough times that I feel competent. If I read a recipe for a style of loaf or roll I’ve not tried before, I feel capable enough to give it a go. If I look in the cupboard and see we only have half the flour I need, I feel confident to tweak the recipe or make a substitution. And if I decide I want the dough to prove for a long time, or even in the refrigerator, I will happily alter the ratios of different ingredients to compensate.

I haven’t baked once this year, but if you asked me to make a loaf tomorrow I’m sure I could do it.

 

When you get to your viva, you have more than proved yourself. You have done the work. You have experience. You have knowledge. You can rise to challenges. Your examiners might ask you about something new, something different or something hypothetical. Why should any of that disturb you? Given everything you have done, how could that be beyond you?

Like me and my breadmaking, go with what you know. Refer to how you did something before. Build on past experiences and understanding. Adapt and engage with the discussion your examiners present, rather than simply hope it will be everything you wanted.

Prove yourself in the viva, as you have proven yourself many, many times before.

Draw confidence from your past successes as you work towards your future achievement.

Nathan

Viva Prep Heuristics

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There is no one-size-fits-all approach to preparing for the viva. As every thesis and candidate are different, and every set of circumstances for viva prep are different too, so every person has to decide for themselves how best they are going to approach things – rather than listen to someone on the internet telling them what to do.

With all of that said, here are some general ideas from someone on the internet that might help you – or not!

  • Plan your prep in advance and allow two to four weeks to do the work.
  • Start your prep by reading your thesis.
  • Ask friends from your discipline about what helped them get ready.
  • Read the regulations to get a feel for viva outcomes.
  • Arrange a mock viva.

And very importantly: test any advice against how you feel about something. There is a lot of good advice, a lot of well-meant advice and support for the viva, but it doesn’t apply to every situation.

A mock viva is regularly seen as the gold standard, “best way to rehearse,” but it might not be what you need (for lots of possible reasons).

Read the rules of thumb, explore ideas that have worked for others and then square all of that with your experience, your preferences and your needs. It’s helpful when others share advice, but ultimately you have to find a way to do the work.

Nathan

Silence In The Viva

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Like nervousness, silence might not feel comfortable sometimes but it doesn’t necessarily mean something negative.

In your viva a moment of quiet could be while you or an examiner checks a detail or finds the right place in your thesis. You might need a quiet pause to think or read, or to make a note. Silence could be a side-effect of a video viva delay or a simple pause to settle after a noise from outside.

Silence in the viva is a brief quiet between questions, responses and discussion about really important things. Silence in the viva is not for long before the words flow again. Silence in the viva is just one of those things that will happen.

Prepare for talking at your viva by rehearsing and talking before your viva. Use that opportunity to prepare for the silence too.

Nathan

In The Break

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You can ask for a break at any point in the viva. Bathroom breaks, medical-related breaks or for any other reason if you need one.

As well as attending to the need at the time, take sixty seconds in the break:

  • Breathe. Release a little tension if you feel any and can.
  • Check in. How are you doing? Is there anything you need?
  • Note? Will writing something help you before you start back up?

And remember: you’re getting closer to being done. You’re almost there. Not long now.

Nathan

Patchwork

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Every viva is different because every thesis and candidate are unique. Your thesis and experiences will to some extent ensure that your viva is different from every other viva before or after yours.

Every viva follows patterns because of university regulations, general expectations and departmental norms. There’s a patchwork of rules and ideas for what a viva is supposed to be like that gives every viva some structure. Taken together, each of these elements tells a candidate roughly what to expect: how long it might be, what kind of questions could come up and what the experience might feel like.

The more you stick pieces together, the better informed you can be and the more ready you can make yourself – while understanding that you won’t really know what will happen until you get there. The patchwork of regulations, expectations and norms helps you be ready for whatever happens.

Nathan

Six Thoughts On Six Years

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Six years of the Viva Survivors daily blog.

Wow. Time flies when you’re planning, writing and publishing an original and helpful blog post every day!

What stands out to me from the last six years?

  1. As time goes by I see this resource I’ve made as valuable for PGRs, but it’s also incredibly valuable to me as a way to practice, refine and explore ideas. I’d recommend a regular writing practice to anyone.
  2. For all the changes of the last few years, the viva – preparation, expectations, worries and problems – doesn’t seem to have changed. Not really.
  3. The mini-vivas resource I made remains one of my favourite viva prep ideas!
  4. For all the prep someone can do before the viva, perhaps the most valuable thing they can do is build their confidence – centred on the work they have done and the success they’ve found along the way.
  5. Publishing a daily blog isn’t “hard” but it is work. It doesn’t get easier, it evolves and stays challenging.
  6. I want to encourage more people to subscribe than currently do. I’ve been told many times that receiving an email every day with a little viva help or encouragement has been great. I want to find helpful ways to encourage PGRs to sign-up!

Onwards and upwards. No plan to stop, no need to pause. Thank you for reading, if this is your first post or your five-hundredth. There’s a lot of help here, if you need it.

Thank you!

 

And as a little bonus for today, links to the first and anniversary posts from the last six years!

  1. No Accident – April 18th 2017
  2. One Year Later – April 18th 2018
  3. The Culture Around Vivas – April 18th 2019
  4. Three Years On – April 18th 2020
  5. Four Years – April 18th 2021
  6. A Happy Accident – April 18th 2022

I wonder what I’ll share next year?

Nathan

Have Fun

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Smile! Enjoy yourself. This is a once-in-a-lifetime experience!

Things we don’t often say to someone when they have a viva soon…

But isn’t that a shame?

Yes, there’s work to do and an exam to pass, questions to respond to and a thesis to defend. Of course you have to share your research, discuss your thesis and demonstrate your excellence.

But who says that can’t be fun, enjoyable, a positive experience? Why don’t we encourage that more?

I’ll start: I hope you have a great time at your viva.

Nathan

Sit Down and Talk

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Very simple viva directions!

There’s a process and prep, a thesis and a candidate, two examiners with questions and comments and expectations and –

– really you just need to sit down and talk.

Have a conversation. A discussion. A chat.

Three prepared people, one thesis, one PhD journey and a few hours for everyone to do what they need to do.

Be ready to sit down and talk. Prepare, rehearse, be ready.

Nathan

Be Kind To Yourself

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Plan your prep. You’re busy, you’re tired and you have 101 things to do. Plan your prep so that the work doesn’t add to any stress and pressure you already feel.

Accept your mistakes. Typos and clunky sentences don’t mean much in the grand scheme of things. Spot them? Make a note and move on.

Ask for help. You have people around you who care and can support you. Ask for what you need and pay it forward when you’re asked in the future.

Gather your resources. Bring together what you need as early as you can so you don’t waste time or focus later. Make a space and a place for doing the work needed to get ready.

Tell good stories. TO YOURSELF. Remind the nervous person inside you what you have achieved, what you have learned and what you can do. Tell good stories about the last few years to help your confidence.

Be kind to yourself.

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