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Nathan

Best of Viva Survivors 2020: Viva Prep

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Every year on the blog I finish by sharing a few days of my favourite posts from the year. We start 2020’s round-up with the important topic of viva preparation, and posts that cover many different aspects of getting ready for the viva.

What will you be doing to get ready for your viva? And have you read any other helpful posts on the topic on Viva Survivors, or elsewhere, that you could share with someone who needed help?

Tomorrow: the best of my long posts from this year!

Nathan

That One Question

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That one question you know you’ll struggle with.

It might be a rational concern or an irrational worry, but either way, you can do something about it. Whatever the question is about, if you know it troubles you before the viva then you can do something to prepare for it.

  • Read something.
  • Write something.
  • Think something.
  • Ask someone.
  • Make some notes.
  • Check a journal.
  • Write a response to reflect on.

If there’s a question that bothers you before the viva, then you can do something just in case it comes up.

Nathan

Choosing To Act

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This whole year has felt outside of my control. I imagine, at least at times, that you’ve felt similar.

Still, I could choose how I would act. I could choose how I would approach things. The outcome of a situation might not have been within my power to control, and in some cases I’ve only had a few options to choose from – but I could still choose.

All through your PhD, you’ve made choices. Decisions about methods, choices about projects to follow (or not); you choose which literature to read and follow, and which you will leave out of your bibliography.

During your prep you can choose what actions you take. What steps you will follow to get ready. When you take them and how you do them is up to you.

And in the viva you can choose how you will approach the discussion. How will you listen? How will you respond?

The more actions you take, and the more you act to follow your intentions, the more likely you are to find the successful outcome you’re looking for.

Nathan

Testing Your Talent

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That’s what the viva is all about. How good is your research? How well did you do it? How well do you know it and your field? And just how good are you?

It’s a test that doesn’t require perfection to pass. Preparation will help you get ready, but remember: you can’t have got to submission by being merely lucky, and you can’t have done the work unless you were good.

The viva might test you, but your talent will help you succeed.

Nathan

The Power of Prep

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It won’t make you perfect.

It won’t mean you’ll get no corrections.

It won’t mean you’ll be blank-free in the viva, or that it’s impossible you’ll be stumped.

It doesn’t come with anything like a guarantee.

But it means that, for a small investment of time, you are as ready as you can possibly be to meet your examiners and talk about your work with them. You’ve taken the time to boost yourself, not better yourself. You already know everything you need to know, you can already do everything you need to do.

This is the stretch before the race, or checking your lines just before you walk on stage.

The little extra that helps you get the viva done.

Nathan

Ready!

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Not just prepared for your viva.

Not just OK.

And not “not too nervous…”

Ready!

How would that really feel? What would you have done to be ready, do you think? How long would it take? When would you start before your viva?

What do you need to do to get ready?

Nathan

Scratch Your Itch

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If I’m ever asked to give general advice for PhD candidates I suggest that they find some way to scratch their itch:

Find a nice little side project to your main research, something that might use your skills, talents or knowledge in a slightly different way. Find something that makes you smile to work on it. Find something perhaps even unconnected to your research but which helps you to make something or do something that helps others. If all it does is help you balance out your normal work time, then it’s time well spent.

There’s a place for itch-scratching in viva prep too. Make notes on the favourite parts of your thesis. Find interesting papers to read and challenge yourself with. Have coffee with friends to talk about the last few years or perhaps have a mini-viva. Even incentivise your prep with some kind of fun reward.

All of these sorts of things have a place in helping you get ready.

What could you do? What have you been putting off? What could you use to both scratch an itch – A new project? Answering a question to keep you thinking? Presenting your work? – and help you get ready?

Nathan

Do Less

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Viva prep is less.

Less reading than when you were researching.

Less writing than when you were writing up.

Less thinking than when you were figuring things out.

The viva is a fraction of the time you’ll spend on getting ready, and viva prep is a vanishingly small period compared to the months you’ll put into your PhD. Perspective matters. You need to get ready for the viva, but the real work that helps you pass has already been done.

Nathan

Ten 5-Minute Viva Prep Tasks

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A half-hour or hour of viva prep doesn’t have to be spent with your eyes glued to the pages of your thesis. Yes, you need to read, and yes you need to spend time on slightly longer, considered tasks – but short activities can be useful too. A few five-minute tasks spread between longer pieces of work can add to your sense of being ready.

Small things add up. Here are ten ideas for five-minute viva prep tasks:

  1. Reflect on a key reference for your thesis and write a paragraph about why it helped your work.
  2. Think and write down three questions you’d like to ask your examiners (and make a note of why for each).
  3. Record yourself (either audio or video) responding to the question, “What are you most proud of in your research?”
  4. Write about a tricky challenge you overcame. Why was it tricky? How did you resolve the situation? What did that help you to do?
  5. Search through your thesis for five pages/points that are great; put a Post-it Note or bookmark with all of them so you can find them again with ease.
  6. Record yourself responding to the question, “What do you not know about the viva process that you think would help?”
  7. Click the random Viva Survivors post link five times to get five random pieces of advice/help/perspective!
  8. Record yourself responding to the question, “What do you hope your examiners ask you about?”
  9. Make a list of five things you could do on the days leading up to your viva to help you feel confident.
  10. Take five minutes to listen to or watch one of the recording tasks from above.

More time-intensive tasks are required to build up your preparation for the viva. Smaller tasks help too. Think about how you can use your time well to increase your readiness for your viva.

(and contrast with 1-minute viva prep tasks!)

Nathan

Viva Prep & Focus

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Viva preparation helps you to change focus from the kind of work needed to get you to submission to the work needed to get you through the viva.

Is it ready, how much more, did I tweak that change that get it right…

Rush and overtime, a few more days, got to get it done get it done get it done done done

Prep, and the viva, require a slower pace. Nerves or anxiety come from the viva being important: rushing, continuing to try and get everything “right” is only going to compound nerves.

Use your viva prep time to change your focus. Slow down. Take your time. Read your thesis, make some notes, practise a little, remind yourself of your accomplishments and abilities.

Change your focus from rush to ready.

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