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Tag: getting ready

Nathan

Expectations & Responsibilities

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Viva expectations invite responsibilities.

  • If vivas are generally expected to take hours then you and your examiners have a responsibility to be ready for that situation.
  • If vivas typically begin with certain types of starter question then you have a responsibility to prepare for that line of discussion.
  • If vivas are discussion-based then you have a responsibility to be ready to respond to questions – and willing to share your research, your thesis and yourself.
  • If you’re expected to succeed then you have a responsibility to prepare as well as you can – while examiners work towards making the viva the right environment for that outcome.

And most generally, if vivas have expectations then you have a responsibility first to learn about them. Knowing what to expect, even if that covers a range of possible experiences, gives you an opportunity to be as well-prepared as you can.

Nathan

Trusted Perspectives

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When you’re getting ready for your viva ask people who know about vivas. Get specific help rather than general impressions.

When you’re getting ready ask people who know you for help. Ask friends about their experiences and for a little of their time. Ask your supervisors to give you their considered thoughts about your work and about the viva itself.

When getting ready ask your institution for support. Ask them for the regulations, check what things mean and learn who to talk to in case anything goes wrong.

Above all, ask the right questions of the right people. Look around widely for support, but ask people you can trust first: you can trust them either because they know you or they know what you need to know.

Nathan

A Manifesto On Good Viva Prep

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This isn’t finished, but here are some thoughts that I’ve been knitting together for a long time…

Good viva prep is personal. It responds to the needs of a candidate.

Good viva prep is effective. It takes only the time needed and meets the needs of a candidate.

Good viva prep is planned in advance. A candidate’s time is valuable and stress and rush can only hinder readiness.

Good viva prep creates greater certainty. It improves understanding of the general experience of the viva and gives greater confidence in being ready for the viva.

Good viva prep is supported by others. This happens in big and small ways, because while getting ready is the candidate’s responsibility it will be better with help.

And good viva prep is only as good as a candidate makes it – so make yours good!

Nathan

Make A Choice

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You can’t press a button and feel ready for your viva, but you can decide that that’s your destination.

You can’t just arrive there, like a science-fiction teleporter, but you can know where you want to be and act to move in that direction.

If you want to be ready for your viva, what could you do?

Without diving into a blog with over 2000 entries or asking your friends or listening to a podcast or picking up an ebook or two, what could you do? What small (or big) steps could you take to being ready?

What will you do?

Make the choice to be ready for your viva. Then start getting ready. There’s work to do, but it doesn’t have to be more complicated than saying, “I’m going to do this.”

Nathan

Black Cats, Ladders and Spilled Salt

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The date and other omens of “bad luck” don’t need to weigh too heavily on you ahead of your viva. Success is not due to luck. You don’t need to ward off bad luck by crossing the road to avoid a dark feline or throw salt over your left shoulder if you’re clumsy in the kitchen.

You don’t need a talisman or something lucky in the viva either. You need to have worked hard for years. You need to have learned about what to expect. You need to have prepared.

Typically, those are not too much to expect in advance of a viva.

You don’t need good luck for your viva, but you might need a good story. You might need to think again about how you got this far. You might need to remember what you did and recognise it for the confidence it can inspire.

Nathan

Actions & Improvements

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There are many actions, big and small, that you can take to improve your readiness for the viva.

  • Placing a sticky note at the start of each chapter can help you navigate your thesis more easily.
  • Taking half an hour to reflect and list key references can help you make connections about your research.
  • Preparing for and having a mock viva can help your confidence grow for meeting your examiners.
  • Simply writing one short sentence – you can do this – at the start of your thesis can give you a little boost.
  • Describing your research to a friend over coffee can help you practise sharing ideas.
  • A two-hour meeting with your supervisor can help you review ideas, key questions and difficult problems.

There are many actions, big and small, that you can take to improve your readiness for the viva. Some may only help a little, but lots of small actions can add up to a huge difference.

Don’t neglect the little things – and don’t put off the big tasks!

Nathan

The Minimum

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What’s the minimum amount of viva prep I can get away with?

There are no bad questions in webinars, no stupid questions, but there are questions that surprise me!

 

What’s the minimum? A core set of tasks perhaps – reading, checking, practising – or a time period to do the work in.

What’s the minimum? Well, all you “need” is to submit a thesis and attend on the day of the viva. That would be the absolute minimum, right?

What’s the minimum? Maybe we need a better question. Charitably, I can imagine that the person asking the question is stressed, tired, overwhelmed and wondering what they can do to fit in what could feel like a lot of work.

Maybe instead of what’s the minimum? we can focus on how do I get ready if I’m busy?

You plan, you break the tasks down, you give yourself a generous period of time to do the work, you ask for help and so on.

 

And at a minimum, you’ve invested three years of work when you meet your examiners. There’s still more work needed to get ready for the viva, but don’t forget the foundations you’re building on to be ready for that conversation.

Nathan

Preparing For Examiners

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When you know who your examiners will be, start your preparations for meeting them by reflecting on three questions:

  • Why have these people been chosen?
  • How does your work connect with what they do?
  • What do you need to do to prepare now?

Reflect and make notes on who your examiners are and what they do, then think about what you need to do to get ready for them.

Nathan

Summaries Aren’t Scripts

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There are lots of good reasons to write summaries of your thesis, your research or aspects of both as part of your viva preparation.

  • Writing a summary helps you to focus on what matters.
  • A summary can help you to collect and organise your thinking.
  • Creating a summary can help you to identify what matters too.

A summary can be a list of points or a page of paragraphs, written in ten minutes or drafted carefully over an hour.

A summary is not a script though. You might use a helpful question to prompt writing: there are many viva question resources on the internet that provide these. Still, your examiners are not expecting memorised responses and hyper-polished notes that you read from.

The summary helps you prepare for the viva. It’s not a script to read from during the viva.

Nathan

One More

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One more hour of reading could help you to remember that key piece of information that’s slipped your mind.

One more conversation with your supervisor might boost your confidence for meeting your examiners in the viva.

One more look through your thesis with a highlighter in hand might show you that detail you’ve been missing – or the typo you’ve missed so far!

 

One more of any of these might be one too many things though: there is a practical limit of how much prep you can do and how much prep you need to do.

The viva is only one more day when you have to show up and do things you have done many, many times before.

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