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Tag: getting ready

Nathan

The Day Before

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Gather what you need: thesis, notes, pen, paper… What else do you need for your viva?

Decide on what you will wear: wear something for comfort, for confidence, to feel right or to feel happy… Decide in advance to remove a decision from the day of the viva.

Check the details: whether online or in-person, check what you’ll do or where you’ll go… Then put it away for the next day.

Talk if you need to: find a trusted person, someone who can listen if you have any worries or concerns from nerves… You may or may not need this, but find someone in advance who could support you.

Rest: take a break, relax, distract yourself… All the work you can do to get ready has probably been done.

Nathan

7 Nudges For Viva Prep

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While there are lots of good tasks that can help with viva preparation, maybe it would be better to gently nudge candidates. A few gentle nudges could be far more helpful to offer than a super-structured programme of work and deadlines.

So:

  1. Sketch a plan for your prep.
  2. Ask for help.
  3. Your thesis can help in the viva – how could you prepare with it?
  4. Tell people about your work, and invite questions.
  5. Listen to stories about viva experiences.
  6. Reflect on the work you’ve done already.
  7. Explore what you could do to build your confidence.

A few gentle nudges can move someone to figure out what they need to do to feel ready for the viva.

Nathan

Yet

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If ever you’re tempted, by a hard day or a tough moment in your PhD to say one of the following, remember to add the word “yet”:

  • I haven’t got it to work…
  • I haven’t figured it out…
  • I’ve not submitted my thesis…
  • I’m not ready for my viva…

“Yet” is a reminder – you can do this, you want to do this, there’s time to do this – and even a promise, I will do this.

You might not be there yet, you might not be ready yet, but you will be.

There’s time. Keep going.

 

(inspired by countless posts and podcasts by the always-inspiring Seth Godin)

Nathan

Bringing It All Together

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Viva preparation is not the hardest part of the PhD journey by a long way, but it requires a little thought for it not to be overwhelming.

What do you need to do? Where do you see the gaps for yourself? If you have trouble remembering things, then re-read them and make useful notes. Consider what you could add in annotations to help your thesis more useful. Think about when to rehearse with a mock viva or a good chat with friends. Make a list of what you really need to do, rather than work in an ad hoc way.

When do you start? Consider your responsibilities, consider when you could fit in thirty minutes to an hour a day. It’s better to view prep as a daily practice in most cases, a gentle lead up to feeling you are prepared, rather than a last minute cram to get “everything” done.

It could feel like there’s lots to do to be prepared for the viva. In comparison to the time and effort of the rest of your PhD there’s really very little. If you have a busy life already then it’s worth planning in advance how you will make space for it.

But remember: you can do it.

Nathan

No Time Like Now

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Today, whether your viva is tomorrow or a year from now, is a perfect opportunity to build your confidence.

Today, whether you feel nervous, uncertain or excited about your viva, is a great time to reflect and see how far you’ve come and steer yourself towards feeling better about your PhD and your progress.

It’s never too late to do something to help your PhD and viva – and while you don’t need to actively prepare for the viva until after submission, it’s also never too early to reflect on your talent and build your confidence.

Nathan

The Overview

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It’s reasonable to expect your examiners to ask you to summarise what you’ve done. It’s a fairly common opening question. Given that a thesis could run to many tens of thousands of words it’s probable your examiners would want you to be concise in exploring or explaining what you did.

Being asked to give an overview, either of your thesis, your research or your results, shouldn’t be too taxing for you. Over the course of your PhD you will have spoken about your work many times and given “the short version”. You will have written about your research in lots of ways. There’s lots of practice and material in your mind to draw on when you get to the viva.

A little more rehearsal won’t hurt you though!

In the weeks leading up to your viva consider what you would typically say if asked to summarise your work. Perhaps write it out or record yourself and reflect: Does this really capture it all? If there was one thing to add, what would it be? Find a good opportunity to run it past your supervisor or a trusted friend and get their opinion.

If asked to give an overview or summary in the viva, there’s no way you can tell your examiners everything that might be possibly relevant. A little rehearsal before the viva can help you be sure that you’re giving them enough.

Nathan

Diamonds and Pressure

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“You need pressure to make diamonds.”

It’s a cheesy sentiment, but it’s true that sometimes we need the pressure of a situation to have a breakthrough, grow, build talent or find something amazing.

The viva isn’t one of those situations though. Your success there shouldn’t be via pressure on the day. If you talk to plenty of graduates about their experiences, pressure isn’t something they describe.

Diamonds need pressure, but they need time too. If we want to think about diamonds, the PhD and metaphors, then really it’s you who is the diamond in the story.

Nathan

Arriving

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You might not have to travel for your viva, but it’s still good to consider how you’ll arrive.

What will the journey be like, possibly from one room to another? What could you do to help you transition from a space in your home to the space for your viva?

What will you wear? Hopefully something comfortable, but could you also wear something that helps your confidence?

What will you take with you to the viva? What do you need when you’re there?

A little thought on arriving, even if it’s in your home, can be a great boost for how your viva starts and how you’ll feel throughout.

Nathan

Solving The Prep Problem

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I’ve loved maths since I was a child and first realised the wonder that 4 times 6 was the same as 6 times 4. My love sent me on a journey that lead to a PhD in pure maths. A lot of specific technical knowledge and talent has been vacated over the last thirteen years to make room for other things in my brain, but I’d like to think that the maths mindset has never left me.

There’s a shorthand that a lot of people use when they think about maths – “it’s all about getting the right answer” – as if that’s always simply one thing. Different problems lead to different solutions though; in some cases the “right answer” is really a whole collection of things, a solution space.

It’s the same sort of thing with the problem of “how to do a PhD well” or “how to prepare for a viva”. Neither has a right way. There are lots of possible solutions that might work for someone.

The solution space for viva prep is huge:

  • You could spend an hour every day between submission and the viva, doing something purposeful to help you get ready.
  • You could do nothing, no further work after submission.
  • You could read your thesis the day before and leave it at that.
  • You could read your thesis every day and try to impress it all into your brain.
  • You could read lists of questions and try to figure out what to say.
  • You could cover your thesis in notes and helpful marks.
  • And you could do combinations of all of these – and even more.

Time is a variable, confidence is another – though it’s much harder to measure – as well as access to resources, personal needs and circumstances. All these variables, and more besides, have to go into the equation for how to prepare, when to start, what to do and everything else involved in viva prep.

 

But… One thing I know about the maths mindset, or how I tend to think about things, is that it is easy to overcomplicate things. To try and factor in everything, or solve the biggest, grandest problem – when actually, there are much simpler ways to look at things, or even to consider just parts of the problem. For starters:

  • To get ready for the viva, to begin with, you need to have read your thesis. So do that.
  • It could be helpful to find out more about the viva. So make a note of when you’ll read the regulations.
  • You need to decide if you want to ask for a mock viva. So have a think, and ask or not.

I try to think about the Big Problem Of Viva Prep For Everyone. You only need to think about the little problem of getting yourself ready. It’s much simpler, and you can probably identify all the variables with ease.

Take a look, and then solve for you.

Nathan

One Bite At A Time

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“How do you eat an elephant?” One bite at a time…

It’s an old joke or proverb, depending on how you look at it, but there’s certainly wisdom as well as eye-rolling.

You could never have done your PhD in a week. It takes years of slow, patient work. Learning, discovering, growing. You eat away at the problems of your research one bite at a time.

Getting ready for your viva is similar, but on a shorter timescale. A day of cramming is inferior compared to a few weeks of small tasks, getting ready by nibbling away at a finite to-do list, bit-by-bit. Confidence builds in the same way.

Slow, careful ways that lead to success.

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