Daily viva help for PhDs
Almost finished your PhD but getting discouraged? Take a minute or two to reflect on one of these questions:
Whatever your why, it matters. If the end of your PhD starts to drag, if it becomes a grind to get it done, then return to your why.
And keep going. The end is in sight.
A thought: you and your examiners are more similar than you are different.
Similar: all researchers, all interested, all capable, all talented, all there in your viva for a good reason.
Different: they have more experience than you, you have more expertise than them. They’ve read your thesis, you wrote your thesis.
All of these points help the story of confidence you can tell yourself about the viva.
My daughter’s just finished nursery and starts “Big School” in September. It seems only like yesterday that she was starting, but it was nearly two years. Time flies…
We’re helping her make a memory box of her time at nursery. Pictures and projects, toys and books, the keepsakes and mementoes that she wants to have, and it’s got me thinking about what I would put in my PhD memory box. It’s ten years since I finished my PhD and I have fond memories but I know there are lots I will have forgotten now. I wish I had kept more of a diary or memory box, but I was too busy thinking “I’m done, what do I do next???”
For the end of the PhD I think it’s important to reinforce the idea that you haven’t just arrived at a destination as a passenger: you’ve worked to get there. What have you collected in your memory box along the way? What has helped? What helped you realise something new? What helped you get better? What do you just want to remember?
Time flies… Your story so far can help the story that’s coming, whether that’s your viva, your next job or whatever life has to throw at you. Find memories that help you and make them part of the story you remember.
Anyone who tells you the viva is no big deal is wrong. It comes at the end of years of research. It’s huge life achievement. It matters for many, many reasons.
Anyone who tells you the viva is the biggest deal ever is wrong. There’s more you will do, more you can be and more that matters more.
Also: anyone who tells you how to feel about your viva is wrong!
You get to decide how you feel and what it means to you.
One experienced candidate waiting to be done,
Two prepared examiners hoping this is fun.
Three years (or more) leading to this day,
Four key threads of prep can help along the way.
Five seconds pause can help get a thought together;
Six hours is unlikely (but never say never)!
Seven might be lucky, but you don’t need to be,
Eight lines is enough, now repeat: “It’s up to me.”
As an alternate route to unpicking the value of your thesis contribution, consider reflecting on the challenge that was involved in getting it done. I don’t only mean the labour of three or more years, but the deeper questions about the nature of the research itself.
Reflecting on the challenge is a different perspective, but it leads in the same direction. The challenge points to the value of what you’ve done.
Build your confidence by identifying your achievements from your PhD. There’s more than just your thesis. Reflect on the first time you…
Find your firsts: these are key moments in your PhD. They plot out a fantastic journey that’s brought you to today.
What message would you add to the end of your thesis?
You don’t have time to do every follow-up, or advance every idea. Perhaps you can leave that to someone else. Perhaps there is a new perspective that you have on the whole work, and a short note could set those thoughts out. Maybe there is a problem with something in your thesis, but you don’t quite know how to talk about it on the page. Or it could be that you just want to thank some people.
Reflect on your thesis. What postscript would you add?
PS: Now you’ve reflected on this, consider making some notes or even writing a message. Your examiners are unlikely to ask you anything like this directly, but this kind of reflection and review is useful to see what you think about your thesis now it’s done.
Quick exercise to get you reflecting on your whole PhD journey. What’s your…
Your mind has collected a lot of neat stuff over the last few years. What stands out?
In Jenga, whatever your intentions, you might knock the tower down at any moment. Your actions or a misplacement by the last player might make things so unstable that the tower can only fall.
It’s tempting to think of the viva is a precarious situation, but your thesis is not a Jenga tower, and the viva is not a game.
Questions from examiners aren’t like pulling bricks out. Your answers aren’t going to make your work fall apart. Discussion can bring in some wobbles, but your work is more than a tower of bricks. You designed this structure, it didn’t just come together out of a box.