Daily viva help for PhDs
Make a little plan for the weeks leading up to your viva. It has to include reading your thesis, annotating it usefully, writing some summaries, reading important papers and rehearsing for talking with your examiners.
Do the work in a way that doesn’t overstretch or over-stress you. Record your progress to confirm for yourself that you’re getting ready.
And that’s it. There’s no trick, just you doing the work.
Or maybe, if there is magic, it’s all you.
As a mathematician I remember the thrill of the first time I encountered the ideas of group theory.
Without getting too technical, let’s consider one of the most simple ideas: imagine if it mattered which way around you added things up in a sum. Two plus three is five, but what if three plus two was something else? What would that mean? We can get really abstract with group theory. There are all sorts of weird and wonderful things you can do but that core concept is really important: in group theory it matters what order things are done.
The same is true in the real world too. If your socks are big enough you perhaps could put them over your shoes rather than the other way around. Your feet would be covered by the same two layers but definitely not in the same way. When cooking, sometimes it matters what order you add ingredients to a pan – and when!
When I write or talk about viva prep I often try to explain that viva prep can be broken down into lots of discrete tasks. These all add up to someone being ready, but of course it does matter what order these are done in. It’s not a good idea to have a mock viva before you’ve read your thesis or checked some papers. It helps to find out more of what to expect before you even start to get ready. It’s probably a good idea to look into your examiners’ publications before you ask your supervisor about them.
With some tasks it matters less, but still consider in advance how and when you do things, and in what order. Viva prep really can be divided into lots of smaller tasks. Taking your time to complete these can lead to you being ready. It all adds up – but it does matter what order you work on your viva preparation.
My daughter loves reading but hates tidying.
Consequently our living room builds up towers of books and ad hoc bookcases that lean against table ends. About once a fortnight something collapses, usually when just one more book has been added to an arrangement. Just one more book was just enough for the whole thing to give way.
As parents we encourage simplicity, putting things away, keeping what you need, tidying up what she’s finished with. She’s eight. She’ll get there.
(I hope!)
Viva prep isn’t that different, or at least how I’ve seen a lot of good candidates approach the work. They see “Just so much to do!” and think “How will I stack that up with what I already need to do?!”
It’s really not that much work. Starting with something simple helps.
Start by thinking about what you need to do to get ready. Start by listening to friends and colleagues about what they did. Start by making a little plan. Start by realising that you don’t have to stack all the work up: if you think ahead you can take your time. You can do the work in a way that works for you.
Then neither your viva prep nor your life will come crashing down around you.
If viva prep seems hard – you’re tired, stretched, stressed, busy – then think about how you can make doing it somehow rewarding to you.
You need to prepare for your viva, but that need by itself might not be enough. What can you do to help you get it done?
Doing viva prep reminds me a little of separating rubbish into recycling and non-recycling.
For your rubbish you might have two or more bins to collect things in. You could have a system in place for cleaning tins or bottles, stacking them somewhere and so on. It’s not a good idea to put everything in one container and then get on with things: with a little organisation the whole process works better.
It’s a necessary task so it helps to have a good way to get it done.
Viva prep is also better with a little planning. It pays to structure your time. It pays to set tasks in advance rather than decide what to do as you go along. It’s necessary as well: despite the many, many hours of work on your PhD you now need to prepare for the particular challenge of the viva.
Hopefully you get my point – please don’t let your takeaway be that good viva prep is rubbish!
To be more specific, provided you do the work it’s hard to not be prepared. Viva prep doesn’t need to take a lot of time, maybe twenty or thirty hours in total, and the type of work that helps is really clear.
Read your thesis, make some notes, check some papers, rehearse for the viva.
Do the work and you’ll be ready.
The only sense of “wrong” prep comes from the environment you might make. There’s no law that says when you have to start getting ready for the viva. You could start your prep a few days before – but that might be a very pressured situation! You could do an hour a day for the two months leading up – but that might spread things out a little too much, or mean that you invest more time than you need.
It’s hard to get prep wrong, but you have to think about the way you do the work to get it right for you.
Doing your viva prep might mean that you need more space or time than you currently have. You already have a busy life and now there’s one more thing to do. It’s only for a limited time but it could feel like a lot.
Thankfully, taken together, all of the tasks you might do to get ready for the viva don’t amount to much. Making space to do them means, depending on how busy you are, just finding a little room:
Thinking ahead and planning can create the space and environment you need to do the work as stress-free as possible. You’re busy, but only a little space is needed to get your prep done.
What’s the last thing you will do to get ready for your viva? What final action will leave you satisfied, a small smile on your face that you’ve done all you can?
When will it be? The morning of your viva, a final check of some detail? The day before, deciding what to wear? A few days ahead of your viva when you have a final chat with your supervisor?
Sketching out a plan for prep helps to make it real. Knowing the final step can give you something to guide you. Deciding for yourself what that final task will be really cements that this is for you.
Your research. Your prep. Your viva.
When I work with final year postgraduate researchers I ask them to consider prioritising the work they think they have to do with three lists:
Way back in the distant past of 2007/8 I had projects that would become chapters I needed in my thesis. I also had nice ideas which I didn’t have time to develop. My supervisor agreed they weren’t essential to my thesis contribution, so I put them to one side. There were also things I said no to. I said no to paid part-time work so I could focus on getting my thesis finished. I said no to new ideas as there wasn’t time to add more to my thesis. I said no to fun things that would have been a distraction.
This kind of prioritising can help with finding focus for the final year, but Need, Nice and No can also help with getting ready for the viva.
Viva prep isn’t a great challenge, but there are lots of things you could do in that period. It helps to separate out the kinds of work that are essential from what would help if you had time – and also from what you don’t need to focus on to be ready.
For example:
When you put something in the No category you free yourself to focus on what you Need. Prep tasks that are Nice you can do if you have time or if, like the mock viva, you feel it is right for you. Not every candidate needs a mock viva – although they can be very valuable – but every candidate needs to rehearse responding to questions as they would in the viva.
Find your focus for your viva prep. Reflect and think ahead. What do you need to do? What would be nice as you get ready? And what will you say no to so that you can focus?
Bring a quality of kindness to your preparation for the viva.
Don’t overload yourself.
Don’t start late so that you put pressure on your work.
Don’t rush so that you can make the most of it.
Don’t be afraid to ask for help.
Be kind to your future self by taking some time to plan what you need to do. Figure out a good start time. Don’t overwhelm your future self. Make a good space to work in and organise a good flow to get the work done.
Viva prep is work, but it shouldn’t be a chore. Be kind to yourself as you get ready.