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Tag: reflection

Nathan

Thoughts on Viva Prep

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A loose collection of thoughts on getting ready for your viva…

If you’ve not submitted your thesis then you don’t need to start getting ready for your viva.

You need time to read your thesis, annotate it, check any relevant papers, make any useful summaries and rehearse.

A useful range for time needed to do viva prep well is 20 to 30 hours, depending on size of thesis, free time, confidence and so on.

Everyone is different:

  • How long do you think that will take for you?
  • How busy are you generally?
  • Then how long before your viva do you need to start preparing so you don’t rush and stress yourself?

Sketch a plan around submission time for how you might do the work. Probably only start the work once you know your viva date. Don’t overcomplicate things. Don’t tie yourself up in knots. If you have a problem, get help. If you need support, don’t be afraid to ask.

Viva prep is work that continues the development that has lead you this far, not something wholly new. You already know and can do the overwhelming majority of what you need to do for your viva when you submit.

Maybe viva prep is not so much getting ready as proving to yourself that you are ready.

Nathan

Highs & Lows

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No project, period or PhD is super-excellent all the time, or super-terrible for that matter.

There’s ups and downs, highs and lows. I can remember some of mine from my PhD days…

Highs from my PhD:

  • Realising the fundamental structure of the first algorithm I created.
  • Winning a poster prize from my department.
  • Realising a key step of a proof before my supervisor – and being able to explain it to him.
  • Being asked to help with two residential skills workshops…
  • …and being invited back to help again after I did a good job the first time!

Lows from my PhD:

  • Postponing two months of supervisory meetings because I was ashamed I hadn’t solved something.
  • Comparing myself to office-mates who seemed so much more capable than me.
  • Not finding an answer to the problem in my seventh chapter.
  • Being super-anxious before every presentation I did.
  • Not admitting when I didn’t understand things.

What have yours been during your PhD? As you get closer to the viva, perhaps make a list of highs and a list of lows. File the lows list away – don’t throw it away, just don’t give it your attention. It doesn’t define you.

Keep the highs list to hand. Give it your attention from time to time through your preparation. You can find confidence from considering the highs of your PhD.

Postscript: this is another variation on the Make Two Lists approach of the wonderful Seth Godin! Credit where credit is due 🙂

Post-postscript: my viva doesn’t feature on either of my lists. I don’t think I know anyone who would put their viva on a list of PhD-highs or PhD-lows. Something to keep in mind maybe…

Nathan

Two Reflective Mini-Vivas

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I’ve been playing around with my Mini-Vivas resource recently: I have ideas for other related game-like resources, and am thinking about how to adapt it for other purposes. I happened to roll some dice to get a few mini-viva sets and the following two struck me as being particularly reflective ahead of a viva…

First Set:

  • Where did your research ideas come from?
  • How did your process change as you did your PhD?
  • How did the existing literature in the field influence you?
  • What are your main conclusions?
  • What publications do you hope to produce?

Second Set:

  • Why did you want to pursue your research?
  • How did your process change as you did your PhD?
  • How does your work build on prior research?
  • What questions would you like to ask your examiners?
  • If you could start again, knowing what you know now, what would you keep the same?

While I think it’s more useful to ask a friend or colleague to prompt you with questions as practice, that’s not always possible. There are several suggestions on the mini-vivas page for how you could use questions by yourself. The sets in this post couple help you to summarise key aspects of your research and get you reflecting on the last few years of work.

A little reflection can go a long way to helping you be ready for your viva.

Nathan

Thesis & Viva

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A few loosely connected thoughts…

The viva is bigger in some ways than the thesis, but takes much less time (to read or write!).

A lot of focus is given to the viva, but without a good thesis you won’t pass your PhD.

Your thesis has to be good. Your viva has to go well. The former helps the latter.

Your thesis prompts the discussion for the viva, but doesn’t hold all the questions (or answers).

You don’t have a viva without a thesis first, and you don’t need to prepare for your viva until your thesis is finished.

Nathan

Demo Discs

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I’m old enough to remember demo discs: CDs or DVDs that came with gaming magazines and which allowed people to try new games or software before the full release.

(I’m actually old enough to remember demo cassettes, but let’s put that to one side as I start my six-month countdown to my forties…)

Demo discs gave fans the chance to try things. Here’s the first thirty minutes of the new game you’re excited for! Here’s something interesting to whet your appetite! Here’s a little something to get you used to this new thing!

Demo discs were useful to set expectations and raise interest. Demo discs are less common now due to digital downloads, but it’s possible to demo or trial all sorts of things in a useful way.

Like the viva!

A mock viva is a demo for the real thing: it can never be the same, it might be time-limited and you might only be able to trial it once, but it will help set your expectations.

A mini-viva is a demo for your viva: it focusses on specific parts of your work, it’s feature-limited as well as time-limited, but it’s also simple to get started. (user-friendly!)

A seminar is a demo for your viva: it’s not the same format, but showcases a lot of the elements that will go into your viva.

Explore your options for rehearsing for your viva. There are lots of demo options available to help you prepare.

Nathan

The First Viva

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The first viva must have been really awkward.

What questions would the examiners ask? How might the candidate know what to expect? How would the examiners know what to expect?!

Who decided what made a good thesis? Or if the candidate had done enough? Or if they did enough in the viva?!

Why were they even having a viva???

Of course, the viva as we know it today is an evolution of former practices. Structure given to culture, rules to rhythms. That’s not a bad thing: it may be tricky to pinpoint exactly when and where PhD vivas started, but we know where they are now.

For your viva you can know what to expect. There are regulations, expectations and experiences to frame your understanding. Your viva might feel a little awkward and uncomfortable, but I’m sure it will be much better than the experience of the candidate at the first viva!

Nathan

What Do You Need?

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Before submission you need your research to be finished and your thesis to be done.

Before the viva you need to prepare your thesis and yourself. You need to read, to think, to speak and get ready.

In the viva you need your thesis, something to write on, something to drink and anything that will help you feel good in those few hours.

After the viva you need a way to celebrate – and you will need to celebrate!

And you might need other things, far more personal than I could know or guess. What do you need? How can you make sure you have them?

Nathan

Achievement Unlocked

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I’ve been keeping busy for the last few months, work and family life has had lots going on lately while we make changes and adjust. I’ve been enjoying games a lot: teaching my daughter lots of board games during the day, then switching over to my PlayStation 4 when she goes to bed for games she can’t play!

Most video games I play have some kind of trophies in them: parallel goals alongside the game’s main aims.

Instead of just finishing the Spider-Man game, seeing where the story goes, a trophy might be for taking certain pictures, or beating up bad guys, or collecting runaway pigeons (I hated that trophy). Oxenfree, a fantastic story game I’ve played three times and adore, has trophies for collecting things, but also for steering the game to different outcomes. Detroit: Become Human has similar trophies for the wildly different stories it can become, whereas the Untitled Goose Game has trophies for stealing a picnic, wearing a red bow tie and locking a child in a garage…

Whenever I earn a trophy in a game, a little ding! sounds and a medal-object briefly appears to say, “You achieved this!” Trophies on the PS4 range from Bronze (small accomplishments) and Silver (tricky challenges) to Gold (finishing the game or performing a near-impossible feat).

Trophies aren’t essential, of course, but they can be nice little motivators.

Which brings us back to the viva!

First, what achievements have you already unlocked? Over the course of your PhD, where can you see that you have achieved something?

  • It could be small – ding! You read a paper or solved a little problem!
  • It could be tough – ding! You finished re-drafting your methods chapter!
  • It could be a really big deal – ding! You submitted your thesis!

Take some time to map out what you have achieved – and realise that you’ve done a lot to get this far.

Perhaps consider what achievements lie before you on the path to your viva. Bronze trophies for gathering resources, Silvers for reading your thesis or having a mock viva, Gold for getting everything as ready as possible for the day.

Lots of games have Platinum trophies too: a trophy you get for earning every other trophy in the game. For most games this is particularly hard, ticking every box, exploring everywhere, doing everything.

For you and your viva, with so many trophies earned already, you can be confident that your PhD Platinum is within reach.

Nathan

Two Reasons I Couldn’t Sleep

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I couldn’t sleep the night before my viva because:

  1. I had no idea what my examiners were there to do, or what my viva might be like;
  2. I had little self-confidence in my ability to discuss or defend my research.

These are common problems for PhD candidates, and can be really stressing, though thankfully I’ve not met many people who’ve had insomnia the night before their viva!

I didn’t know why I was lying awake at the time, I wouldn’t have known what to do had I realised why I couldn’t sleep, but both problems have solutions.

The first is solved simply by asking and exploring. Check regulations, talk with academics about their approaches as examiners, talk with graduates about their experiences. Building a set of expectations for the viva is useful to shape how you think about it. Generally, vivas are fine, but you need to know more about them to really believe it.

The second problem has solutions, but they are not so quick. Building self-confidence takes time, but the rewards for time spent dramatically outweigh the investment. Of course, in preparation for your viva spend time reading your thesis, making notes, reading papers, having a mock viva and so on. All of these are necessary and can help with confidence. But what else will you do to confirm to yourself that you are an excellent researcher? That you are capable and accomplished? That you have done the work and have the talent to be at your viva?

It takes longer to solve the confidence problem, but every step you take will help.

Nathan

Three Years On

Daily Post

Viva Survivors started in 2012 as a podcast, but since April 18th 2017 it’s been a daily blog. Apart from the odd day off for Christmas I’ve published a post every day for three years!

Too much has happened, particularly recently, for me to offer something super-reflective about over one thousand posts, my changing work and practice, and so on, without that post being over nine thousand words long. Instead, let me share the posts that have punctuated the last three years, the beginning and the first two anniversaries:

  • No Accident: the starting point for all of my Viva Survivors musings and one of the core principles for my approach in helping candidates. Simply, it’s impossible to get to submission and the viva “by accident” – you can’t be that lucky. You really have to work to get to submission, and that work carries you through the viva.
  • One Year Later: a short post reflecting on what I’d built up over the course of the first year of the daily blog. I wanted to create resources as well, and while I’ve not been as prolific as I would like, I’m really glad The tiny book of viva prep has been helpful!
  • The Culture Around Vivas: thinking a little about expectations, where they come from, but flipping that to think about candidates too. The more I think about it, the more I think the culture of the viva, candidates and academia more generally is something that could be dug into as a means of help.

Things have changed abruptly in the last few months. The jigsaw of my life has been scattered, and in the absence of a picture to guide me I’m trying to fit the pieces together as well as I can. I’ve found the edges. I can see spaces where some pieces can no longer go. I’m working slowly to find a new picture that fits.

I’m not there yet, but I’m trying. Writing and publishing this blog helps me do that. I hope it helps you too.

I’m very thankful for all the readers, long term and new, who find this blog, subscribe to this blog, share this blog, support this blog and who find something useful here. I’m going to keep writing; I hope you keep reading!

Keep going!

Nathan

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