You Are Here

Tag: hope

Nathan

Hope and the Viva

Daily Post

You can hope that your viva won’t be too long – but be prepared to engage for as long as is required.

You can hope you don’t get corrections – but know that the most common outcome is minor corrections and know what’s involved.

You can hope your preparations are enough – but perhaps it’s better to do the work and feel certain that you are as ready as you need to be.

There is a place for hope in the viva process. I think that comes after you’ve done the work and have a feeling you’ve done all you can to be ready.

Nathan

Glass Half-Full

Daily Post

I think that the majority of PhD candidates can be broadly optimistic for their viva.

Believing that you’ll succeed doesn’t come from simply hoping though. Hope is good, but generally hope is what we have left when we have no meaningful actions we can take. A PhD candidate, on the other hand, can build up their capability and their confidence as they work through their PhD journey.

A candidate can do a lot more than hope that they will succeed: they can feel sure of it, optimistic that whatever happens they can engage well at their viva.