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Tag: getting ready

Nathan

Review Your Records

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Progress during a PhD can be hard to see sometimes. Days and weeks of incremental gains, the occasional epiphany soon pushed into the background by more hard work.

If you’re nearing the end of your PhD, review your records. Maybe your research journal or diary, perhaps a progress record that your institution insisted you keep. Maybe even the remains of notes or plans that have now evolved or been fulfilled. If your records are scrappy in places then work to remember and fill in the blanks.

Whatever you have, reflect on it all and remember: you did this. The successes you’ve found are yours. The results you have flow on from the work you’ve done and the talent you’ve developed.

It’s easy to pause and think, “How did I get here?” As you come to the end of your PhD, do the difficult work of really reflecting on that question. You’ll find confidence in the answer that you can take to your viva.

Nathan

Running On Empty

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If you’ve nothing left when you sit down to get ready for the viva, then you’re not ready to get ready.

Take a break.

Submit, then stop.

Pause, then prep.

Relax and restore, then ready yourself. You can’t get ready for the viva if you have nothing more to give.

A few weeks or even a few days can be enough to recover from that final push to get your thesis finished and submitted. Viva preparation does not require fantastic efforts either, so if in day-to-day life, after work and other commitments you only have a little, then only give a little. You don’t need to ruin yourself to get ready.

Rest, restore and refuel first.

Nathan

You Have Passed

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It’s a minute before your viva starts. You’re probably a little nervous. Ready but recognising the importance.

As you begin remember you have passed…

  • …whatever requirements you had to in order to get on to your research programme…
  • …the difficult first months of a doctorate when you have to figure so much out…
  • …all reports, upgrade and transfer vivas along the way…
  • …probable scrutiny in the eyes of your peers by giving conference talks or paper…
  • …your supervisors’ standards by meeting them many times…
  • …your own doubts and concerns, or enough of them, to get the work done…

…and now you have one more thing to pass.

Given that you’ve passed so much already, it’s fair to assume that you’re going to pass this one too.

So go pass.

Nathan

Pick A Place

Daily Post

Following yesterday’s post, consider the environment that you’re going to work in to get ready for the viva. What can you do to make it as supportive as possible? Where will you go?

  • If you’re at home, where will you be? What could you arrange to make it a nice space for working?
  • If you’re somewhere else, what do you need to take with you? How can you find a little peace for getting what you need to do done?
  • And wherever you are, what resources could you bring together to make your viva prep space as effective as possible?

A little thought before you begin can make a great difference.

Nathan

Pick A Time

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If you can manage it, a little routine could be useful for helping you to get ready for the viva. Viva prep will not be the first thing that goes in your diary or on your wall planner. You’ll have other commitments and responsibilities that have to come first. The prep needs to get done though. Think carefully:

  • When are there gaps in your schedule for half an hour to an hour of considered work?
  • How could you find a time that means you won’t be too tired?
  • Is there a way to make consistent times that you can do viva prep?

Reflect a little and find times when you could get the work done. It doesn’t have to be every day, but having a routine could be useful to help you tune into the work that needs doing.

Nathan

The Last Little Thing

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I had read my thesis. I had made notes, lots of them. Read papers by my examiners. Had six or seven hour-long conversations with my supervisor in the almost-two months leading from submission to my viva. My viva was 10am on a Monday morning, and I had a weekend free and clear to rest, relax and check anything else I needed to check.

Which I did!

And then at 9:45am on Monday, with fifteen minutes to go before the start of my viva I knocked on my supervisor’s door and said, “Hi Hugh, can I just go over the definition of a genus 2 handlebody one more time? Thanks! It’s when…”

A basic definition was perhaps not the best thing to be checking just before my viva. It was a minor point, but a worry point – something I kept checking again and again because I was sure I was misremembering something, or that something fundamental wasn’t quite sticking in my mind.

What minor points concern you? Even little things can add up to a big worry or a heap of nerves. You don’t have to start your prep by tidying away small concerns, but nor is it a good idea to finish your prep with them either.

Nathan

You Can Do It

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If not you, who?

Because you’re the only person who can pass your viva.

If not now, when?

Because until you’re in the viva you have time to prepare, time to get ready.

Time to remind yourself that you’re the only person who can pass your viva.

Nathan

Every Day Is A Restart

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Not just the 1st of January. Not the 2nd, once you finish celebrating New Year’s Day!

Every day is a chance to look at what you do, how you do it, why you do it and think, “What else…?”

What else can you do to help build your talent?

What else can you do to steer your confidence?

What else will you need to be ready for your viva?

What else can you achieve in this new year?

Nathan

Here We Go Again

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Deep breath.

Get ready.

However much of your PhD is left, whatever 2020 did to you, take what you’ve got – of your research, your thesis and yourself – and build on it.

Find what’s good and do more good.

Find what’s hindering you and steer away from it.

Find what you need to help you get to submission, to the viva and beyond.

If your viva is this year, even if it’s months and months away, just reflect, “What could I do to help myself be ready?” Tuck those thoughts away, and come back to them when it’s time to prepare.

One more time, survive means “manage to keep going in difficult circumstances“.

My wish for you for 2021: Keep Going.

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!

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