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Nathan

Busy Times

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Even before coronavirus, PhD candidates would ask me about what they should do to prepare for their vivas because they were busy.

  • “I have a full time job as well, what should I do?”
  • “I get home late, what should I prioritise?”
  • “How much time do I really need to spend?”

I shared a post a few months ago about the kinds of work to prioritise (here), but time is a hard thing to give an easy answer to. It really depends on circumstances.

Twenty to thirty hours of work at most would be enough. It can be spread out over weeks with a little planning. If you have a full time job or you get home late or you’re just stretched at the moment, it may feel really hard to find an hour in a week – nevermind an hour a day or even thirty minutes of peace.

But that’s what you need: peace, calm, quiet. An hour to breathe and read and think. Thirty minutes to add a few Post-its or make some notes.

If you’re busy you still have to find time to get the prep work you need to do done. I can’t help with finding time, but while you do have prepare for your viva – even if you’re busy – you have a greater duty to be kind to yourself. If you are exhausted, take a break. If you just cannot make time for a task, then rest. Effective viva prep doesn’t happen under pressure.

Nathan

The Pieces of the Viva Puzzle

Daily Post

There’s a lot of things wrapped up in the idea of a viva. It’s uncertain sometimes, what to do, how to be, what do you need, what do you have… Keeping track of all of the parts can feel hard.

Maybe it’s like a 1000-piece jigsaw without a picture to guide you. Hard, but not impossible. A challenge, but there are methods for solving the problem: find the corners, find the edges, group colours, start building it up, and so on.

With uncertainty you can’t always have step-by-step instructions, but you can have a method that moves you forward.

Remember: you’re already moving when your viva comes around. This isn’t the beginning, it’s the next step. So where are you? How did you get here? What could you do that would take you closer to ready? And what are you going to do next?

What are the final pieces for your viva puzzle?

Nathan

The First Day Of Viva Prep

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It’s not the day you submit, or the day after.

It’s not the first time you read your thesis after submission, or when you start to get ready for a mock viva.

It isn’t even when you really start to plan for submission, or first think about what your examiners might ask.

The first day of viva prep was a long time ago. The first day of your PhD, whenever you started the work that has lead to your thesis. You have been preparing for a long time before you get to the viva: developing your talent, building your knowledge, getting better.

A little extra prep after submission is needed to be ready. Don’t forget though, for your confidence, that you have been preparing for a long time.

Nathan

Raid The Stationery Cupboard

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There’s a lot you can do with only a few resources to prepare for your viva.

  • Pens and pencils can be used to add layers of information to your thesis. Underline typos consistently in one colour to make them easier to parse afterwards. Use pencil to add short notes in the margins.
  • Post-it Notes are great for marking out the starts of chapters and other important places. Longer notes that would be cramped in a margin can look great on a big Post-it; you can move them as needed afterwards too.
  • Use highlighters to selectively grab your attention. Chapter or section headings, important references or quotes – whatever you want to be able to see at a glance.
  • Get a small notebook to use as a viva preparation journal. Capture reflections, prompts, provocations, interesting questions.

There aren’t a lot of resources needed for viva preparation. Perhaps raid your department’s stationery cupboard before you take a trip to the local stationery shop!

Nathan

Eat The Frog

Daily Post

Last week I blogged about the Three Easy Wins idea for productivity, and shared some thoughts of what a candidate could do to get several quick pieces of viva prep done. If you were looking for something in the opposite direction, there’s also the “eat the frog” school of thought: if you knew the worst thing you had to do today was eat a frog, and you had to do it today, would you do it first thing or wait until 4pm?

Rather than put it off, you’d probably eat the frog right away – the day can only get better from there!

The productivity philosophy behind this is that a person would be most productive if they just get on with the least desirable task first. They’re then free to get on with less terrible tasks. For viva preparation perhaps this frog-like-task could be arranging a mock viva, exploring the work of examiners or sitting down to read the thesis. It could be reflecting on key questions, or re-reading tricky papers. There are lots of things that might just feel “Ugh!” – but once they’re done you can move on.

If you eat your viva prep frog, then everything else is less of a challenge!

Nathan

Thirty Minutes

Daily Post

Have you got thirty minutes to spare for your viva prep? In thirty minutes you can:

  • Read through a good chunk of a chapter;
  • Check a couple of references;
  • Make some notes about your examiners’ interests;
  • Create a list of interesting questions;
  • Add some annotation;
  • Reflect on what your research means.

There’s a lot more you could do. You can’t prepare for your viva in a hurry. Thirty minutes by itself won’t be enough…

…but thirty minutes regularly will do it.

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