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Tag: getting ready

Nathan

Tinsel, Wreathes & Viva Prep

Daily Post

I’m not a Scrooge. I love Christmastime and all things festive. But some decorations just make me roll my eyes.

I’m not a tinsel fan. I hate the feel. I don’t like wrapping it round the tree. I frown whenever I see a detached strand on the carpet.

I’m not fussed on wreathes either. I like having one on our door. But I don’t really see the point in having five or six strategically placed around a house as well. It doesn’t do anything for me.

Of course, these decorations aren’t for me. They’re for my wife, my daughter, my relatives at their houses, and they’re just one way that someone might make their house festive and ready for Christmas. It’s nice to celebrate, and for some people certain decorations or traditions help make the celebration.

Which is how it works with viva prep as well!

For example, thesis annotation is an essential part of prep: it helps someone to think about their work, highlight what matters and make a more useful version of their thesis for the viva.

Some candidates might prefer to use red pen to underline typos, while others might prefer to note them with coloured tabs. One person might mark out a key section with a bookmark; another might decide that the best way for them is to use sticky notes.

And when it comes to practice a mock viva might be the best rehearsal for you. Your friend might prefer to give a seminar. You’re both right.

Personal preference plays a huge part in effective viva prep and Christmas celebrations!

Nathan

Survival Aides

Daily Post

Who can you count on to help you get ready for your viva?

To survive you need to manage to keep going in difficult circumstances. You don’t have to do it alone.

To keep going you might need someone to talk to. Your supervisor, your colleagues or university staff could help.

To understand the difficult circumstances you’ll face it could help to listen to people who have already faced the viva.

To manage you might need very practical help: resources that others can highlight or simply quiet time to prepare.

Most candidates manage to keep going in the difficult circumstances of the viva and viva prep. Few candidates do it without support.

Ask for help as early as seems sensible. Do the work but get support.

Nathan

A Good Time

Daily Post

What would make your viva a good experience?

  • Do you need your examiners to praise you?
  • Do you want the viva to be short?
  • Do you need to be able to talk about certain parts of your research?
  • Do you want to be asked about only certain topics?

None of the above are irrational. Many of them might be beyond your control though.

Your viva can be a good experience. Focus on being prepared, not on the aspects that you can’t know or can’t control.

Nathan

Learn About Examiners

Daily Post

An effective strategy for feeling better about the viva is to take steps to know more about the academics examining you.

  • Ask your supervisor about them. Find out why they are good choices for your viva.
  • Research their recent publications. Find out more about their specific research interests.
  • Search on YouTube to see if there are recordings of their conference talks. This can help remind you that they are real people!

It will also help to read the regulations and remind yourself what your examiners are there to do. They have training to be examiners and they want to do the job well. They’re there to examine, not tear your work apart or break you down. They’re focussed on finding the good, not amplifying the bad.

Find out a little more about them and you can encourage yourself towards a good viva.

 

Many thanks to Sarah F from Bristol who shared the idea of searching YouTube for conference videos at a recent webinar!

Nathan

What’s My Line?

Daily Post

I hate the thought of forgetting something important.

I prepare before any webinar that I deliver – even if, like Viva Survivor, I have delivered the session many, many times before.

  • I have a 1-page session sheet on my desk. I write it out again before every session.
  • I also have a prompt sheet on-screen with key points and timings. Again, this gets reviewed before every session.
  • And I take at least an hour to look over my slides in parallel to reading my notes.

I have shared Viva Survivor with postgraduate researchers over 350 times. And yet, every time before I start, I think, “Wait, what do I say?”

 

You can’t take notes like mine to your viva. Your examiners are looking for a presentation not a conversation. But still you can do things to help yourself if you think you’re going to forget something.

  • You can annotate your thesis with helpful notes.
  • Invest time in reviewing your thesis’ key sections.
  • And it’s essential to rehearse responding to questions to help how you feel.

The last point is especially helpful.

Like me, you might feel bad at the thought of forgetting something that matters. Like my situation though, there are an abundance of things you can try to help you remember.

Nathan

The Feeling

Daily Post

How do you feel about your viva?

How do you want to feel about your viva?

If your responses to these questions are different then you have a third question to consider: what will you do to feel how you want to feel about your viva?

Nathan

At The Last Minute

Daily Post

Don’t wait and start your viva prep in the week of your viva.

Don’t wait to ask your supervisor about something important until a few days beforehand.

And don’t wait until the last minute before your viva to think about how you feel about it all!

Sooner, rather than later, think about how you’ll get ready.

Sketch plans. Ask questions. Reflect on your PhD and how you’ve developed both yourself and your research.

Nathan

Manageable Tasks

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Viva prep is manageable. Compared to the massive scale of a PhD it’s a speck of effort.

A candidate might take weeks to get ready, but only in bits and pieces of time.

Half an hour of reading. Ten minutes of looking something up. An hour to bring some notes together.

You can run these sorts of tasks together into longer prep sessions but that’s not an essential part of the process.

Even a mock viva, if you have one, is manageable.

Viva prep is a series of manageable tasks that make the viva itself manageable.

Nathan

Control The Controllables

Daily Post

This is how an attendee at a recent webinar summarised what I’d said about getting ready for the viva.

Control the controllables.

He was absolutely right. That’s how I think about a lot of things connected with the viva.

There are things you can’t control or won’t know until you get there. These range from questions to feelings to the approach that your examiners will take.

There are things you’ll know but won’t control too: the purpose of the viva, the date or location of your viva venue.

But there’s also a lot you could take control of.

  • You can choose what you wear.
  • You can select the words you use.
  • You can plan out your preparation.
  • You can decide on how you’ll get to your viva.
  • You can choose what you do on the morning.

All of these things and more can help how you feel about your viva.

There are a lot of things you can take control of for yourself in advance of the big day.

If you do that then the things that are beyond your control won’t seem so bad.

 

Many thanks to Luke C for offering this observation!

Nathan

Proofreading & Understanding

Daily Post

A lot of viva prep work is something only you can directly do: annotating your thesis, checking papers and so on.

There are lots of support roles though.

Supervisors can provide mock vivas and perspective; PhD colleagues can listen and ask questions; university staff can signpost resources.

Friends and family can help with two incredibly important jobs: proofreading and understanding.

Before submission, if it’s helpful, see if a member of your friend and family circle can offer a little time to read over your thesis. They’re not looking to grasp your arguments or check your references. They’re trying to spot typos, long sentences, clunky paragraphs and other basic writing things you might not be capable of seeing after so long spent writing.

After submission it will be helpful for your friends and family to listen and understand what you need. They can’t give you a mock viva. They probably can’t ask helpful questions about your research. They may have no way of sharing useful resources with you.

But they can make space, time, peace and quiet for you to prepare.

Proofreading and understanding. Two valuable resources for anyone finishing their PhD.

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