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Tag: reflection

Nathan

VIVA and the Viva

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I’ve shared a few acronyms in posts over the last year but today’s tool is different because I invented it!

VIVA is very useful to help with exploring your thesis before the viva; it’s a directed thinking tool in the same way that SWOT is used to analyse a situation. VIVA can be used simply. Take a sheet of paper for a chapter in your thesis and divide it into four. Then use a different word in each section to direct your attention as you make notes about the chapter:

  • Valuable (to others): what would someone else find valuable in this chapter?
  • Interesting (to you): what interests you about the work?
  • Vague: what doesn’t seem clear when you read it?
  • Ask: what questions would you like to ask your examiners if you had the opportunity?

This can help to draw out key points for your thesis. If you do this kind of analysis for each chapter then you build a really interesting summary. From considering what’s Valuable you unpick the contribution that you’ve made in your thesis, and by thinking about what is Interesting you rediscover your motivations. If you look for what’s Vague then you find what you need to strengthen ahead of discussion in the viva, and if you consider what questions to Ask you think ahead about the way the conversation might unfold.

I came up with VIVA about four years ago and it’s become one of the most useful ideas I’ve shared in my workshops. I’m surprised in looking back over this first year of the blog that I’ve not shared it here before! I hope you find it helpful ahead of your viva, and find some interesting ideas when you analyse your thesis.

In short: use VIVA to help with the viva!

Nathan

Six Thousand Hours…

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…is my ballpark, back-of-the-napkin calculation for how much time someone might spend working on a PhD.

Compare that to two to three hours in the viva.

Three orders of magnitude difference and then some.

If you’re nervous about the viva: you’ve taken no shortcuts to get here. In and among those thousands of hours are lots of reasons why you’re up to the challenge ahead.

Nathan

Easter Eggs

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Not the chocolate kind, the DVD extras. The secrets. The small, special things that only certain people will look for or notice.

My thesis had a few Easter Eggs. As a mathematician, it was about proving much stronger results than I needed for my theorems. As a metaphor, I needed to boil an egg, but what I did was write a cookbook called Everything Eggs: An Infinite Recipe Book With Yolks.

On a few occasions in my thesis I was able to include little things that were much more impressive once you looked closer. Little things, nice, but not necessary, but a contribution in their own way.

What are the things you’re proud of in your work even if others might not find them or know to look? Where are they hidden? Why did you do them? What do they mean?

Your thesis and research Easter Eggs could help or delight lots of people if they find them. Don’t forget them when you review your progress. They add something special to your research journey.

Nathan

The Next Iteration

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The end of the PhD looms. If you were to do it all again, what would you do differently?

Where would you send and spend your focus?

What would you drop from your task lists?

What would you keep exactly the same?

How would you develop yourself?

What would you read?

When would you do it?

How would you work?

And why – why would you make the changes you’d make and keep the same the things you wouldn’t?

You’re not going to do another PhD (probably!). You won’t get to go around again. Experience and hindsight really are great teachers though. It’s not pointless to think about how you would approach the PhD again even though you (probably!) never will.

It’s just one way of asking yourself, “What have I learned from all of this?”

Nathan

Talents and Skills

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There are two main outputs from a PhD programme: a thesis and a person.

It’s easy to see what’s new in a thesis perhaps; less easy to see how a person has changed. Take time to explore your qualities as you get closer to the viva. A useful resource might be Vitae‘s Researcher Development Framework. It is partly a breakdown of all of the skills and attributes that an effective researcher might have, but there are lots of supporting tools for making sense of them too.

What can you do now that you couldn’t before your PhD? How are you now more skilled? And what are you going to do with your talents and skills when your PhD is over?

Nathan

Everest

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The viva is often framed as the top of the mountain after an epic climb. It’s taken a long time, a lot of work, but finally you reach the summit of your PhD. Some people take the story even further, “it’s all downhill from here, hahaha…”

I think it’s more accurate to see your thesis submission as the summit. The viva comes a little later. The viva is talking about the climb, how you did it, what worked, what didn’t and maybe how it compares to other climbs.

While you’re up at the summit though, pause, look around. What’s on the other side of your PhD-mountain? Where are you going to go next?

Nathan

Lightbulb Moments

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What were your lightbulb moments during your PhD? When did you find yourself getting something, suddenly, maybe inexplicably, like someone just flicked a switch? What was happening? What had you tried already? How did you make that connection?

Last year, I wrote about a real lightbulb moment during my PhD. It’s no exaggeration to say that this idea, when applied, helped me to write three chapters of my thesis. It was a tiny result that allowed many others. It came to me like magic.

But it wasn’t.

It was work.

It came after weeks of exploration. Lots of failed attempts. Dozens of diagrams, calculations and notes that went around and around. And then the answer came, after work has made it possible to see the connection.

Sometimes results or ideas in research seem to come out of nowhere. Conclusions jump out from a sea of ideas and data. They’re a product of work, not luck.

Look back over your PhD before the viva. Find your lightbulb moments, then deconstruct them. How did you get to that moment when the light came on?

Nathan

Necessary, Broccoli

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Necessary and broccoli are my two word nemeses: two words that I can’t reliably spell correctly. It bugs me. It frustrates me. It’s not every day that I have to write about vegetables, but necessary is… essential. Spellcheck can sort me out when typing, but I’m often writing longhand on a flipchart in front of twenty people. I don’t want to mess up.

Lately I’ve just been thinking “one C, two Cs” to help me remember. It’s not perfect. For the most part I’ve got my frustration under control. Necessary and broccoli are two little blips that I can deal with. While I can’t always remember how to spell those words, there’s a lot more that I can do – a lot more I can do really well.

I remember preparing for my viva. My mind drifted to all of the little things (and some big) that my examiners might focus on. I can remember the frustration on my part, “Why didn’t I do X? Why don’t I know Y? When will I ever understand Z?”

After spending so long working on something and wanting it to be good, it’s easy to focus on things that you could do better. It’s hard not to wonder what examiners will make of flaws, blips and rough edges in your research or your practice. Maybe there are ways to make X, Y or Z better, but if those are the things you focus on you’ll just lead your mind to doubt.

So what can you do? Focus on your strengths first.

Start a list of things that are great in your research. Results, writing, presentation, style, your ideas, your insights, your passion, your supervisor, that one meeting that one time where you made a great observation, whatever you can find.

Don’t dismiss weakness, but don’t let that be the guide. Every time you come to do some viva prep, take out the list, quickly read it, then see if you can add one or two more things.

You’ve done a lot of great work to get you to the viva.

Necessarily.

Nathan

In The Moment…

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…it’s possible that you forget something.

…it’s possible you don’t understand something.

…it’s possible that you realise something.

…it’s possible that you think about something.

…it’s possible that you doubt yourself.

…it’s possible that you convince your examiner.

…it’s possible that you know something no-one else does.

…it’s possible that you’re the expert.

…it’s possible that you’ve made a mistake.

…it’s possible that you’ve got the answer to that unexpected question.

There’s a non-zero probability of all of the above. They can depend on a lot of things, but there’s a chance they all could happen, good or bad. Focus on some and you can find help, focus on others and you’ll only find distraction. You get to choose what you focus on, and what you do as a result.

Remember: it’s impossible to get to the viva without doing the work. You’re the reason you’ve got this far.

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