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Tag: getting ready

Nathan

Before and After Submission

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Before submission focus on getting your research completed and your thesis finished.

After submission focus on getting your confidence raised for the viva through a little preparation.

 

Before submission you don’t need to prepare for your viva.

After submission you don’t need to second-guess and nitpick details in your work.

 

Before submission you’re on track to pass your viva.

After submission you’re on track to pass your viva.

 

The definition of survive is manage to keep going in difficult circumstances. It applies to the whole PhD as much as it does to the viva.

 

Before submission? Keep going.

After submission? Keep going.

Nathan

A More Considered Goal

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Tim Ferriss, one of my favourite writers and podcasters, has introduced me to a number of vision and goal-setting tools over the last decade or so. A really helpful one springs from the observation that you very rarely need to be a millionaire to be content. Sometimes people set wildly unachievable goals, thinking that will help them to be happy – “If I was a millionaire I could do whatever I want!” – and then fail and are miserable because it’s hard to be a millionaire.

But if you wanted a nice car, a big TV or a holiday you could work out how much you would need – and it would be a lot less than a million pounds. Then perhaps you could start to work towards really getting what you want.

I remember in my PhD that I was banging my head against my desk for a week trying to solve a problem that I needed for a piece of a maths proof – before realising that I didn’t need to answer that problem at all! I was aiming for the greatest version of that result, when what I needed was much simpler. Realising this, I found what I needed in minutes.

(and ten minutes later, realised that applying the simpler result could help show the larger one!)

Sometimes PhD candidates set themselves up for heartache and misery in their viva preparations because they think they have to be exceptional in everything at all times. They must know their bibliography back to front, have memorised their thesis and be almost-precognitive in their ability to anticipate their examiners’ questions.

None of these things are needed. Have you got a thesis? Have you made a contribution? Have you worked hard and been dedicated for the years you’ve worked towards your PhD? Can you take a little time to get ready? Then you’re good.

You don’t need to be a millionaire to be content. You don’t need perfection to pass your viva.

Nathan

Expect A Challenge

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Questions of whether or not the viva will be “easy” or “hard” are unanswerable. There are too many personal and subjective factors. Objectively, we can say that the viva is a challenge. The level of the conversation, the nature of the discussion, the purpose and hoped-for outcome – all give rise to an environment of challenge.

It could be a challenge to respond to critical comments, but in the moment you find it easy to reconcile your examiners’ words.

It could be a challenge to recall specific details of something that would ordinarily be trivial to remember. You might need to pause, check your thesis and see if you can find something to spark your memory.

Don’t expect easy or hard. Expect a challenge.

And expect that by now you have a talent for rising to meet challenges.

Nathan

Mice & Gazelles

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A lion is capable of catching mice for food, but if it spends all of the time doing so it won’t survive.

A gazelle could be harder to hunt for but will, if caught, provide everything the lion needs.

That’s a little paraphrasing of a famous business metaphor about focus, but the broader point is on the focus that we give to things. Focussing on the small, little, easy things to do might make you busy, might give you lots to do, but it might not reward your effort or move you closer to your goals. The harder tasks are more challenging, but if you succeed with them then they’ll give you what you need.

You could spend your time in preparation for the viva catching mice. Checking your thesis again and again for typos. You could obsess over sections trying to memorise things. You could look over lists of questions and try to think about what you would say.

But these mice won’t satisfy your sense of readiness for the viva.

You need to focus on the bigger, more challenging tasks: reflecting on your progress, building your confidence, rehearsing for being in the viva, reading your thesis carefully once. These gazelle-tasks take effort, they’re thoughtful, but they’ll reward your preparation.

We tend to get more of what we focus on. What will you focus on as you prepare for your viva?

Nathan

Good Fortune & Hard Work

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In my PhD I can remember times I was lucky. Lucky to be at a particular seminar and see an unsolved problem that I knew I could solve. Lucky to suddenly make a breakthrough and get the result I needed.

Except I wasn’t. I was in the right place at the right time perhaps, but I couldn’t have spotted the first solution without all the results I’d already achieved. I couldn’t make my breakthrough, everything slipping into place, without three weeks of background reading and calculations first.

Words matter.

In all my seminars I remind PhD candidates they’re not lucky to have finished their thesis or to have got results – they’re fortunate. Fortunate is when hard work pays off. There might not have been a certain outcome, but it could only have happened thanks to someone taking the actions that they did.

None of your PhD success is luck. It’s good fortune, when your hard work has paid off.

Remember your good fortune. Remember too the hard work that has got you there.

Nathan

Saturday Morning Transformations

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In our house we’re all fans of Saturday morning cartoons and adventure shows. If someone or a group have magical items, secret abilities, arch-enemies or a world to save, then we are there to watch and enjoy the story!

Often, characters have to transform somehow to show their abilities off. She-Ra has a magical sword. The Power Rangers, whatever incarnation of the programme – Power Rangers Dino Charge forever! – have items that help them morph from teenagers into giant-robot-summoning-superheroes.

Also often, characters will be faced with situations where they can’t access their abilities. In one episode there’s a magic dampening field and they can’t transform. They lose their power item. Their powers are taken away.

In those stories they discover that, actually, their greatest power was inside them all along. Determination. Intelligence. Experience.

I have a quarter of a million words of reflection, advice, tips and thoughts on this blog to encourage PhD candidates. Practical steps to take, questions to reflect on, resources to use. And you have a window of opportunity to get ready for the viva after you submit.

If you take all of that away, you would still have what you really need for your viva: everything you’ve done so far for your PhD, everything you know, everything you can do and the drive to keep going.

Viva prep helps. Advice helps. Learning about expectations helps. But you already have what you need to succeed in the viva.

So why not take a little time off and rest before you dive into prep and finding out more about the viva?

If you need to relax, might I suggest you watch some Saturday morning cartoons?

Nathan

The Waiting Room

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It could be that, like me, having to wait for something means your thoughts turn to asking “What if…?” These questions aren’t always helpful for keeping calm or confident. Sometimes they even prompt nervousness. They could be natural to ask, but seriously unhelpful in those moments.

Before or after the viva, wherever you are, there’s a good chance that you’ll need to wait.

Waiting to start, waiting while your examiners talk afterwards. Wait to get going or wait for it to be done and the result known. Waiting might simply feel uncomfortable or it could spark anxious questions, depending on your temperament and how you feel in those situations.

If you know you feel uncomfortable in those situations, what could you do?

By now, I’m pretty confident when I deliver a presentation or seminar, but I still get nervous waiting. So I have a routine that starts things off. I have a small series of tasks to calm me and engage me while the time ticks down. I have music that I listen to which connects me with the work I’m about to do.

What could you do? Is there something you could listen to before your viva that might help? Is there a series of steps you could take to keep you calm? A process for setting up your space that would help you?

And afterwards, if you’re at home or your university, what could you do while waiting for your examiners to finish their discussions? Could you go for a short walk? Make a drink? Talk to someone?

You’ll most likely have to wait on the day of your viva. What can you do to feel comfortable in those moments?

Nathan

Zap!

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If you could wave a magic wand and improve some aspect of being ready for your viva, what would you do?

  • Perhaps you could memorise your thesis.
  • Would you want to know all of the questions in advance?
  • Maybe it would be good to feel really certain that you’re ready.
  • Or would it help to see your thesis beautifully annotated to help you?

All great, idealised outcomes. But there’s no magic wand. We can’t get perfection.

Instead, you could take small steps towards all of these. You can’t be perfect, but you can make things better.

  • You could read your thesis and break it down into a list of sections.
  • You could practise in a mock or with friends to get comfortable responding to questions.
  • You could do things to reflect on all you’ve achieved on the PhD journey so far.
  • And you could add a careful set of notes to your thesis to help you on the day.

No Zap! No magic. Just lots of small, positive steps to helping you get ready. What will you do?

Nathan

What They Wrote, What They Do

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It can be useful as part of viva prep to read your examiners’ recent publications. A little time invested exploring their recent work can help give a little perspective on their research interests, the questions, methods and topics they are focussed on or just tell you a little more about them.

You don’t need to read everything. You don’t need to include them in your thesis (unless of course there is a really good reason to). You don’t need to become an expert in what they do, because you’re an expert in what you do.

With the right framing, an hour or two of reading could give you a little boost for how you feel about engaging with your internal and external in the viva. What they wrote helps you to see what they do. What they do helps you to reflect on what might be coming up in your viva.

Nathan

The Prep List

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A list and two questions could be a simple way to manage your viva prep.

What do I need to do? How can I be sure I’ve done enough?

For the first question: look at what others tell you might help, compare it to where you feel there are gaps in your knowledge or confidence, and then make a list of what needs to be done as a result.

Assuming you’ve done enough simple work for your list, responding to the second question is straight-forward: when something gets done, cross it out. Move on to another task and as you see fewer and fewer things on the list you know you are closer and closer to being ready.

Lots of questions that explore viva prep can help – when to start, how much to do, when to do it and so on. These questions are valuable, but first explore what you need to do. What kinds of work will help you get ready?

Make a list, then work towards crossing it out.

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