Finding The Lines
As you prepare for your viva and then engage at it you might brush up against all kinds of lines.
- The line might be the boundary between what you know and what you don’t know.
- It could be what separates your work from someone else’s.
- The line could even be what defines a disagreement between you and your examiner.
Finding a line might be a cause for concern. Not knowing something can be uncomfortable. Not being sure, at least at first, of what you need to say to an examiner can be worrying.
Whatever the situation, when you come up against a line you need to figure out what’s next. Maybe you need to ask a question. Maybe you need to check something out. Maybe you need to sit with the discomfort and think for a moment.
When you find a line you need to do something. Take a moment, figure out your next step and then do it.
PS: Rehearsal can be a good way to practise encountering difficult situations. You can get experience figuring out what you would do in an uncomfortable moment at your viva. For more reasons to take rehearsal seriously, take a look at Viva Survivors Select 14, The Rehearsal Issue which is out now. If you like the blog, want more help and want to support what I do then please check it out. It’s the latest issue in my series of curated collections of viva help: twenty posts from the blog’s archive and new help to help you get ready!