Daily viva help for PhDs
You don’t need to find excuses for when you talk to your examiners.
You do need to be ready to explain when they ask you something.
The reasons for your research, your knowledge and your thesis help explain how you have got to this point. You don’t need to excuse anything. Your explanations, offered honestly, will be enough.
Impostor syndrome is a commonly discussed topic in academia. It’s not unusual for a postgraduate researcher to feel they’re somehow not good enough as they get closer to their viva.
I don’t know that anyone has a 100% solution to getting rid of these sorts of feelings, but I have some ideas of what you could do if they feel particularly difficult around your viva.
I think most thoughtful PhD candidates and academics would admit that they are not perfect. They’re always learning and always will be. Sometimes knowing you don’t know everything or can’t do everything can make you compare yourself falsely to others. Sometimes being around other talented people means that you feel smaller by comparison.
Start by being honest with yourself. Not only about how you feel – because then you can act to change that feeling – but also with the reality of the situation. You don’t feel good, but you couldn’t have got as far as you have if you hadn’t done the work and found success.
You need to read your thesis, write some notes, rehearse for the viva and so on. You need to prepare for your viva, but preparation is only a part of getting ready.
You need to build your confidence for the viva; that can be based partly on your practical preparations, but is also done by reflecting on your progress, your success and your talent.
You also need to rest. You need to recharge. You need to relax. Making time to read and reflect can already feel tricky, but you still need a break too. You need time to just be yourself.
Plan your prep. Build your confidence. Rest and recharge.
Recently I was preparing for a talk and reflecting about the idea of “having a vision” for what someone does. My vision for this blog is:
To help all PhD candidates see the viva is a great big manageable challenge!
That’s the purpose, the goal, the reason I keep doing this. After nearly five years I’ve shared a lot – but there’s more to say. I sit down regularly and write because there’s more people to help. That’s why I do what I do. My vision statement helps remind and reinforce the why that I work towards.
Having a vision can help in so many ways. It can help keep you going, help you make decisions, help remind you of why you’re doing what you’re doing.
What’s your vision for your PhD? What’s your vision of your viva like? Reflect on how clear your vision is and think about how it aligns with what you’re doing. Then explore how you can steer yourself more towards your vision. What can you do to make that your reality?
That’s the viva. At and after submission there’s still lots to do, but at and after the viva there’s hopefully only a little way to go. Still work, but not too much.
The viva is the beginning of the end of your time as a postgraduate researcher. If you’re tired at this stage remember that there’s not far to go, not much longer you need to keep going.
Prepare for it, enjoy it if you can and finish the work you started.
Viva prep can sometimes seem like a huge project. Existing pressure, personal responsibilities and fatigue can all add to overwhelm. There are no shortcuts to getting ready, but you can start the process by completing tasks that take very little time.
Small tasks can provide real benefit to viva prep or help to set up greater success. If you’re daunted by the scale of what you need to do then get some easy wins. Get small tasks done and then start to break down the bigger project of viva prep into smaller pieces.
I was helpfully challenged in a recent webinar to define what I meant when I talk about effective viva prep. It was a great provocation to help me unpick what I think.
Let’s define effective viva prep as a set of useful tasks and activities that help a candidate become ready for the viva in as organised and stress-free way as possible.
It’s a bit of a mouthful! Maybe there’s more we could say or a more concise framing but it’s not a bad start.
A definition doesn’t tell you what to do exactly for your situation though. For your circumstances consider:
We can usefully define what effective viva prep means generally, but you have to realise what that means for you specifically.
Viva prep is better if it is planned a little. There’s no universal “best way” to get the work done, but the following questions could help:
Exploring these questions can help set boundaries and ideas of what to do, when to do it and so on.
Rest is a key element to getting ready for the viva too, but is often overlooked. So use the following questions, adapted from above, to help:
Prep helps before the viva. Rest helps before the viva. Ask yourself some questions if you’re struggling with either.
It’s two years since my world changed, just before the first pandemic lockdown in the UK. Two years ago today I shared Interesting Times, thoughts on where I was and where I might be going in the weeks that would follow. A year ago, things had changed and were continuing to change, in ways that a year earlier I couldn’t have predicted. I wrote and shared Still Interesting Times.
And now it is 2022.
In the last year I’ve continued to work from home. I’ve been jabbed three times. I’ve seen my work and life continue to be impacted. I’ve avoided COVID but cared for my wife and daughter while they were poorly with it a few months ago. I’ve been fortunate to keep serving PhD candidates via their universities and sometimes through webinars I’ve set up myself. I’ve been fortunate to keep writing, keep helping and keep responding whenever anyone gets in touch.
What stands out to me when I think about the last two years?
Everyone needs help. Helping others helps us to grow too. So when you can: help. When I think about the viva it reminds me that there are lots of people who need help and lots of people who could help.
I’m here too! This blog is updated every day, but you can email me or tweet me if you have questions. There’s almost five years of posts on the blog. There are over sixty viva stories in the podcast archive.
We live in “interesting” times. We always did, of course, but they’ve become even more interesting. More challenging. More surprising. Sometimes, more upsetting.
If you’re reading this though then, like me, you’re still here. Still learning. Still growing. Still making mistakes and persevering. So far, you have managed to keep going in difficult circumstances – and difficult might be an understatement in the last two years.
Get help if you need it, offer it to others if you can, but keep going.
The viva is a discussion driven by questions from your examiners. Every question is an opportunity for you to share your work and show your capability.
Every question is an opportunity for you to demonstrate what you did, what you know or what you can do. Every question is a step closer to finishing and passing.
If any question causes you to stumble, to freeze, to forget, then you’ll be alright. Another opportunity will present itself.
Every question is an opportunity in the viva, but there will be far fewer questions and opportunities than those you’ve already answered, responded to or made the most of on your PhD journey. The viva itself is one more opportunity to learn, grow, develop and show your ability as a researcher.
So make the most of it.