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Tag: getting ready

Nathan

Advice Isn’t Enough

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You can read books about the viva. You can ask your supervisors for their advice. You can talk to friends and colleagues about their experiences. Get lots of recommendations.

And then you have to do something.

Take all the ideas and take action. Take everything you know about your research and thesis, factor in everyone’s advice, hints and helpful suggestions and take action.

Action that helps you remember what you need.

Action that helps you reflect on what you’ve done.

Action that helps get you one step close to where you need to be for talking to your viva.

At some point more knowledge and advice isn’t enough. You have to do something to help you get ready.

Nathan

A Contribution

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You’ve not simply done something for the last couple of years: you’ve made a contribution, made something different, made something that changes what came before. Made something that matters. You don’t need a model answer or script to hand to describe what you’ve done for your examiners, but it will help you in the viva to have reflected on how your work makes a difference.

So, quite simply, what’s your thesis contribution?

Before your viva make notes, reflect on your contribution and tell others about it. Then you’ll be more confident discussing what you’ve done with your examiners when you have to defend your thesis.

Nathan

Overthink

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Try not to overthink the viva.

It’s an exam, but just an exam. It’s an important conversation, but still just people discussing things. They’re asking questions, simply looking for honest responses.

Each question is a chance to add something to the viva, but is also just a question.

Preparation is about getting ready, not being perfect. Photographic recall and encyclopaedic knowledge are not required.

Overthinking won’t help you prepare for or get through the viva.

Nathan

Solved

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Outside of maths, solutions can sometimes be tricky to find.

  • There isn’t a solution for the problem of how to best prepare for the viva.
  • There isn’t a never-fails approach to responding to a question from one of your examiners.
  • There’s no perfect format for opening your viva with a fantastic summary of what’s in your thesis.

There are, however, lots of approaches that might work for all of these for you. You need to sit back, think about your needs, your research, your situation – and your solution will present itself.

  • Your way for getting ready: the plan you need, the tools you require, the space only you can make. Your solution and nobody else’s.
  • Your way for responding to questions in the viva. Not standard scripts but your thoughts put into words. You are the only one who can respond to your examiners’ questions.
  • Your way of summarising the years of work that makes up your research, your thesis.

You have the solution to all of your problems. Advice and expectations help – but if you solved the problems you found along the way through your PhD, you can solve any and all problems you find around your viva.

Nathan

The Whys of Prep

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Read your thesis to refresh your memory, not commit it to photographic recall.

Make notes in the margin or highlight sections to make things stand out; don’t seek to find problems or more to add to your thesis.

Read recent papers or your examiners’ publications to build your competence, not to expand your bibliography.

Have a mock viva to rehearse for your own, not to predict or perfect your approach.

Preparation is not about perfection at all. It’s about finding confidence in what you’ve done already; being sure that you’ve already reached a point where you are good enough.

Lots of work, a little prep and you are ready for the viva.

Nathan

Repeating

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Repeating.

You’ll probably be doing this in the viva. Saying similar things to what you’ve said or thought before. Rehashing old arguments and reasons. That’s OK – the viva is about exploring what you did and what you can do, so there’s bound to be an element of covering old ground (for you).

You need to do this in preparation of the viva too. Reading your thesis again, checking old notes and making new ones that summarise points. Checking papers you’ve read. Rehearsing with friends or supervisors the kinds of things that you might say in the viva itself. That’s to be expected.

But you could be repeating all through your final year too. Carefully, calmly repeating to yourself: I’m doing this. I’m good enough. I succeeded when I did X. I did something important when I finished Y. This chapter is good. I’m good. I’m good enough.

Repeating to yourself that you’re good enough isn’t magic or wish-making: it’s repeating the truth. It’s a reflection of yourself. Repeat the truth of how you’ve got this far, and you’ll find the confidence you need for your viva.

 

(this is a message I share a lot in my work, but let me know if you need to hear it again)

Nathan

Video Viva Prep

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Let’s keep it simple.

  • Check the regulations and requirements for your institution. Find out who will organise the viva, what platform you will use and the procedure for a video viva.
  • Practise using the tech. Check you can use the software, so you know where the buttons and options are. At the same time check your wi-fi and internet connection are up to the task.
  • Consider where you will be for your viva. You may have a regular workspace, but that might not be the best place to have your viva. Think about light, think about quiet and consider your options. There won’t be a perfect place, but there will be a best option.
  • Rehearse using the tech. Practise means knowing how the software operates. Rehearse means investing time to simulate the experience of being in the viva with your examiners. Do this to get confident in your ability to manage the practical elements of that situation.
  • Let go of the idea of a video viva being “wrong”. Put to one side the idea that it would be better to have your viva in-person, in your department, around the seminar table at the end of the corridor.

These points are all simple. The last one, however, might not be easy.

Nathan

Do One More Little Thing

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There are big things that need to be done to get ready for the viva, but lots of small things too.

Small things build up. Small gains in preparation. Small tasks that set up larger activity.

If you’ve done everything on the “one little thing list” I shared last year, here are a few more little things that could help you get ready, when you’re tired or pressured or time is tight:

  • Write two sentences about one great paper you used.
  • Stick one Post-it in your thesis to mark something amazing.
  • Find one song that helps build you up and add it to a playlist.
  • Scribble down one question you think you could answer really well.
  • Take five minutes to just rest.

A thesis and a PhD are typically made up of big things. Lots of small things help stick them together. Small wins, small gains, small improvements.

Prep for the viva isn’t so different.

Nathan

Let Go

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All the things you didn’t do. All the things you couldn’t do. All the ideas you didn’t follow. All the questions you couldn’t answer. All the opportunities you had to turn down.

You have to let them go when you prepare for the viva.

Whatever they mean, and whatever you might do with them in the future. They might be of interest in some way, or add context to something you could need to talk about. Exploring them might be a small part of your preparations but they can’t be your focus for getting ready.

Focus on what you did. Focus on the ideas you explored. Focus on the questions you answered, the results and conclusions you found. Focus on the opportunities that lead you somewhere.

Focus on who you are, not who you might have been.

Nathan

The Final Push

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Your final few days of viva preparations might involve a lot of work. If your time has been pressured because of other responsibilities you might feel like you have no other choice.

Your final few days of getting ready could involve talking with your supervisor or friends about your work, getting that final practice for engaging with your examiners in the viva.

Those final days should hopefully not involve reading and re-reading your thesis or notes to cram information into your brain: the viva isn’t a test of memory, you don’t need to have instant recall when you respond to your examiners.

Maybe, hopefully, the final push for your viva will be low-pressure, low-stress. I hope that after years of hard work and weeks of gentle prep you could have a few days of rest, relaxation and refreshing yourself before you meet your examiners. A few days before you pass, reminding yourself that you’ve almost done it, that you must be good at what you do to have got this far.

I think that’s the real final push: pushing yourself to believe that you are good enough.

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