Daily viva help for PhDs
Getting ready for the viva could take twenty hours of work spaced out over several weeks.
What’s the first task on your list?
You might have worries about the viva or preparing, but once you take your first step you’re on your way to success.
What will your first step be?
I ask “How do you feel?” a lot.
By my records I’ve asked this question in seminars and webinars at least 300 times, to over 5000 PhD candidates. It’s good to reflect on in a seminar but that’s one moment, weeks or possibly months before the viva.
I can’t ask the title of this post because it would be impossible to answer well! Who knows how you will feel on the days leading up to your viva, or in the moments before it. It’s helpful to reflect on how you might feel though, because however you feel, now or later, there is always something positive you can do to help for the viva.
However you feel now, there’s something you can do to help yourself. However you might feel in the time leading to the viva, there will be something you can do to help yourself. Reflect, then decide on what you’ll do to help.
I try not to be clickbait-y in the titles that I choose for posts. Numbers are sometimes really useful to help me round up ideas, and they also help to draw attention too. It dawned on me that in and amongst the many posts I’d published that I had probably done posts “counting down” from ten to one.
I checked – I have!
Another thing about “number” posts: they’re usually pretty clear. While it won’t be enough for you to try to memorise “eight cool things” about your thesis or “ten top references” in your bibliography, giving yourself a nudge with a number could help you to look at your research differently. It might help you to summarise or capture things neatly too.
Used appropriately, numbers can stick in the mind quite well!
Write down all of the things that you’ve achieved over the course of your PhD.
Write down as many things as you can think of where you’ve succeeded despite a setback.
List all the times you overcame your own doubts and worries.
Consider how much work you had to do to write your thesis.
Consider the background state of the world against which you’ve done all of this.
With all of your victories, you are in a great position to now succeed in your viva. Any nerves that you feel are not a sign that you are missing something; you’re just recognising that the viva is important.
With all your past victories you can work towards one more now.
The viva is you and your examiners; the viva isn’t you versus them.
You don’t have to challenge all their questions. They don’t have to bring you and your work down.
It’s not combat. It’s not a trial. It’s not an ordeal. You don’t have to prove that you’re better than them somehow.
It’s you AND them creating your viva.
Instead of worrying about what you have to do “to win” – make sure you’re ready to share your best self and best stuff. Make sure you know what you need to about the process and your examiners to help the viva be as good as it can be.
…you’re ready to face one more challenge: your viva!
Wait, I skipped ahead! Go back to the beginning…
You got onto a PhD programme because you were good enough. Your story before then, your successes, your challenges, your grades and skills, they convinced your institution you could do a PhD.
You worked through to submission because you were good enough. It won’t have been easy. You’ll have had success but also lots of challenges. Some days and weeks will have been joyous, but perhaps some months will have felt awful. In the end though, you did it. You did your research, you wrote your thesis and submitted it. One more milestone reached.
You prepared for your viva by building on what you did. You highlighted the important stuff, reflected on how you did it and got ready to talk to your examiners. You’re good enough. You really are!
You’re good enough, and now you’re ready to face one more challenge: your viva!
Now, right at the end, it’s worth reflecting on the journey that’s got you this far.
I’m running my 7 Reasons You’ll Pass Your Viva session next Monday, 8th February 2021. It’s a 1-hour webinar all about why you can feel confident for your viva, exploring some of the things you can do to be ready, as well as giving space for you to ask any questions you have about the process.
I’ve run it many times since I developed it last spring, during the first UK lockdown, and it’s a real thrill to be able to offer it again. I’ve heard from people how valuable it’s been for them as they come to the conclusion of their PhD journey and am so happy I have the space to continue to offer this support. In a strange, weird and sometimes-awful time, 7 Reasons You’ll Pass Your Viva is one of the things I’m happiest I’ve been able to do in the last year.
Today I’ve used Teams, Skype and Zoom for #webinars or #virtual meetings. But the best was definitely from @VivaSurvivors who offered some great #WednesdayWisdom I would recommend signing up for one of Nathan’s webinars if you’re lacking confidence or motivation with your #PhD
— Annie Williams (@nutrition_annie) April 22, 2020
Thank you @DrRyder and @VivaSurvivors for an inspiring and informative session today. And for anyone taking their Vivas at this time, good luck! You have this! @HelloPhD #phdchat #PhD #phdlife
— Silvia, PhD (@silmasi) April 22, 2020
Registration is open now, and there’s an earlybird discount for anyone who books before midnight tomorrow. If your viva is sometime this year then I think this session will really help you. Take a look at the session details here – if you have any questions, simply get in touch via email or Twitter.
I hope to see you at 7 Reasons You’ll Pass Your Viva next week! 🙂
PS: I have more sessions coming up in the next few months! Check out what’s coming soon at this hub page.
You can do a lot with one blank sheet of paper to help your viva prep.
You could write “What’s important?” as a provocation to get you thinking about what really matters in your thesis. Respond to the prompt using the rest of the page.
You could divide a blank page into three and capture responses to each of the following questions:
Taken together, these create a good summary of your research.
With a single sheet of A4 paper, you could make a list of ten references that have really helped your research.
Or cut the paper up into ten bookmarks to help you navigate your thesis.
Or just put it in your printer and print a copy of The tiny book of viva prep from the Resources page!
A blank page can be intimidating before you do something – but you don’t have to do a lot to get something valuable.
“I want some of Daddy’s bread!”
The bread I bake is a real winner in our house.
It’s been refined over a hundred loaves and several years working at it. It’s a combination of ingredients and technique: from the ratios of flour to oil and water, how I prepare the baking sheet I use, the setting on my oven and the time I set on the timer (now 42 minutes rather than 40 to help get the crust just right).
I could give you the recipe and you would scratch your head a lot.
There are elements of what I could share that would make sense. There are others that with a little thought you would be able to work around. And there are some which are only applicable to my kitchen, my house, my equipment.
I read books, watched YouTube videos, looked at what I had, looked at what I could get and with time, patience, practice, repetition, iteration and a smile on my face I found something that worked really well for me and my family. I could tell you all about it, but if you wanted to do something similar, you could only use what I shared as a starting point. You would have to take what I offered and build on it, although hopefully, I would save you some time in your quest to get your own recipe for success.
This train of thought is really about you, your research, your thesis, your viva prep, and about people giving advice.
Let’s assume it’s good advice! Even then, you have to make it work for you. You have to take ideas on writing, on reading, on working well, on finishing a thesis, on preparing for the viva and on being in it – all of that has to get mixed with you, your talents, your skills, your passions, your preferences. The work you’ve done, the worries you have and your situation. It takes time and work to make it truly useful for you. It might not be easy, but hopefully it won’t be as hard as starting with a blank page.
With a little time, a little practice, a little refinement – whatever stage you’re at – you can find your recipe for success. It might require tinkering, but so long as you persist, you can get it just right.
And once you have found your recipe for success – research success, thesis success, viva success – consider sharing it to help others in their work. Find a good way to tell your colleagues what’s helped you.
Feedback and praise can help build confidence. Your supervisors could be the best people to boost you before your viva. You have to pick your questions to be as helpful to you as possible.
Don’t ask them how you could be better. Don’t ask them about how your work could be improved. Don’t ask them to critique your thesis.
Ask them to describe your qualities and talents. Ask them to describe your successes. Ask them why these things matter.
Ask them questions that are more likely to build you up, rather than give you more to obsess over. There’s a time and a place for constructive criticism. I don’t think that time or place is the weeks leading up to your viva.