Daily viva help for PhDs
If you think you can or you think you can’t, you’re probably right.
(Henry Ford probably said something like this, but he probably heard something like it from someone else; see here)
A reflection for today: if your viva is coming up, honestly, truthfully, do you think you can pass it? If you do, what are you going to do to make it a certainty? If you think you can’t, what are you going to do to get help? Either way, what are you going to do?
One of my heroes, Seth Godin, describes in one of his books why people struggle when they learn to juggle. Wannabe jugglers focus so much on trying to catch balls that they don’t throw them enough. They want the catch to be perfect so they hesitate. The secret, as he shares it, is that you need to throw the ball a lot more and not worry about a perfect catch. Better to start the action first before worrying about how you’ll complete it. Seth’s really talking about projects, and fear, and hesitating before making something good. Every project is throwing the ball from right hand to left, a chance to do something well.
PhDs unfold over a long period of time. A PhD is like a big project, but it’s wrong to see it as a single throw of a ball. There’s so much more involved. Like juggling, you get good at doing the PhD by doing it. Reading more, writing more, doing more. Each step is a single throw. When you’re near submission or the viva you’ve caught the ball a lot. You must have become good at doing your research. You must have become good at being a researcher.
The viva is a big deal. It’s normal to be nervous. If you’re feeling uncertain, reflect on your skills. Reflect on your progress. Reflect on what exists now that didn’t exist when you started your PhD. Your thesis didn’t just happen: you’ve made a lot of catches.
I had an idea for explaining the PhD process, a picture in my head that I described to my wife:
Me: “PhD candidates are like salmon, swimming upstream to the source of ideas. It’s a difficult journey, long and tiring, but at the end-”
Mrs R: “They’re eaten by bears? Are examiners like bears?”
Me: “Erm, no. Well, I guess you could say-”
Mrs R: “I think a lot of salmon don’t make it. I’m sure I read that. Swimming against the current kills some salmon just for trying.”
Me: “…”
Mrs R: “And then some of the salmon that make it get eaten. By bears.”
Me: “…”
There are lots of metaphors and analogies that work in describing the PhD journey and the viva. They’re useful because they give us something to hook into. They can set expectations or help us through tough times. Find one that helps you.
But please don’t be a salmon.
You need pressure to make diamonds. It’s cheesy, but maybe you need the pressure of viva questions to find certain insights. I’ve lost track of the number of times someone has told me that they found new ideas through talking to their examiners. Sometimes a new connection or way of explaining something.
Viva pressure can produce amazing results, but it can seem overwhelming, particularly as the day draws near. If you feel nervous or anxious, remember that you also need time to make diamonds. Viva questions might seem pressured sometimes, but you can take time to answer them. There is no need to rush to respond. Listen to the question, think about it, make a note: you don’t have to have the whole answer when you start to speak. Start, and see where the discussion goes.
It’s cool when you can summarise your research in a tweet. I loved the challenge of explaining my work so that a layperson could understand.
I explore ways to tell apart complicated knotted structures. For my PhD, I found several new processes and results using maths!
There might be some value in breaking down your chapters or key results into soundbites, as a reflective exercise. You could start off with 100 words to summarise a chapter, then try to do it in 25. Could you explain a chapter in ten words? You’d lose something, but it could help you to think through what’s important.
Just remember: this might help you to reflect on your work, but you’ll need more words to tell your research story to your examiners. You can’t predict all of their questions ahead of time, but you can be sure that they want more than a quip.
…but you might get a lot of help from considering them:
Your examiners won’t ask these questions, but answers to them will help you. Reflect on your thesis and research journey. What do you not want to focus on?
How would you score yourself when it comes to your PhD? I would give the me-from-ten-years-ago maybe a seven. I got results, but I was careless at reading papers and I didn’t speak up often enough when I didn’t understand something.
I think I would have stretched to an eight if I could have thought more about the structure of my thesis, maybe if I’d read a few more examples to see how others had done it. A nine would have been if I had really unpicked and understood the theoretical background of Chapter 5. I don’t know what a ten would look like for me…
How about you? Your examiners aren’t going to give you a score or grade like this, but if you can honestly reflect then maybe you can give yourself a boost. If you’re, say, a seven now, what would help you to score an eight? If you rate yourself an eight for viva prep, how do you get closer to ten?
Think about how you can make a difference for yourself.
Sometimes a blank page can be beaten with prompts. If you want to get thoughts flowing, try the following:
If you come across any more prompts for thinking about your thesis, make a note of them. Use them yourself or pass them on to others. Keep thinking.
Be as grand as you like. The question could finish with many things: what is your contribution…
Turn it around a few times in your mind. Examine your work from a lot of perspectives. The scope of the answer could vary too. It may be that there are a handful of researchers who will really care, and a few dozen more who will be interested. It may be that your research could impact millions.
I have heard from many people who have had to answer a question about their research contribution at some point in their viva. Do you share your contribution in three bullet points? Can you share it that way? Do you start with why? Do you start with how you were inspired?
There are many ways to explore the topic of contribution. You need to find some way to think it through. You need to make opportunities to practise talking about it. When you do you unpick why your research is valuable. You explore why it’s worthwhile. It makes sense that your examiners would bring it up. What’s the best way you can explain your contribution?
What would a perfect viva look like?
No hard questions? Being told you had passed at the start? Friendly examiners? A one hour time limit?
Just like the perfect thesis, the perfect viva doesn’t exist. You have no way of knowing in advance what your examiners think or what they have planned for the viva. Most people will have a positive viva, but it’s not totally within their control. However, you can control how prepared you are for your viva. It’s totally up to you, what you do to get ready, what you read or write or think. So don’t focus on what perfect might look like: focus on what you can actually do.