You Are Here

Tag: talent work time

Nathan

Saturday Morning Transformations

Daily Post

In our house we’re all fans of Saturday morning cartoons and adventure shows. If someone or a group have magical items, secret abilities, arch-enemies or a world to save, then we are there to watch and enjoy the story!

Often, characters have to transform somehow to show their abilities off. She-Ra has a magical sword. The Power Rangers, whatever incarnation of the programme – Power Rangers Dino Charge forever! – have items that help them morph from teenagers into giant-robot-summoning-superheroes.

Also often, characters will be faced with situations where they can’t access their abilities. In one episode there’s a magic dampening field and they can’t transform. They lose their power item. Their powers are taken away.

In those stories they discover that, actually, their greatest power was inside them all along. Determination. Intelligence. Experience.

I have a quarter of a million words of reflection, advice, tips and thoughts on this blog to encourage PhD candidates. Practical steps to take, questions to reflect on, resources to use. And you have a window of opportunity to get ready for the viva after you submit.

If you take all of that away, you would still have what you really need for your viva: everything you’ve done so far for your PhD, everything you know, everything you can do and the drive to keep going.

Viva prep helps. Advice helps. Learning about expectations helps. But you already have what you need to succeed in the viva.

So why not take a little time off and rest before you dive into prep and finding out more about the viva?

If you need to relax, might I suggest you watch some Saturday morning cartoons?

Nathan

So Far, So Good

Daily Post

Say it with emphasis as you get nearer to the viva: “If I’ve come so far, I must be so good.”

Not perfect, not omniscient, not without nerves for such an important event.

You’ve come so far on your PhD journey, so you must be good enough to pass your viva.

Nathan

From Day One

Daily Post

How did you feel at the start of your PhD? How do you feel now?

What have you learned since the day you started your PhD? How much have you invested into your research? How many pages have you produced in your thesis? How many more have been edited out along the way?

From day one you work and learn and make something amazing – that leads to one day where you have the chance to talk about it, defend your choices, explain and explore and more.

You got this far through your PhD journey by working hard. You get through the viva in the same way.

Nathan

Invisible Work

Daily Post

My daughter was surprised when she came home and saw some new bookcases and a wardrobe in her bedroom. “Wow! How did you do this?!” She couldn’t quite get the hours of reading instructions, hammering, using tools and moving things to get it all in place.

It’s a little the same in academia I think. I remember being amazed at conferences that everyone else in the audience would be nodding along to talks. I could barely understand the ideas.

How are they getting all this? Why am I not getting it? How did that person talking figure this out?

At that early stage in my PhD I hadn’t had time to do the “invisible work” that could help me to understand. The background reading, the practice, the skill building, all the hours that go in to getting good at something.

Once you are good at something, it’s easy to forget about all that time you’ve invested, and simply focus on the end result. For passing the viva it’s essential to try to hold on to that awareness of time spent. Hold on to the understanding that you have invested all of that time and focus into work that has produced a good thesis and a good candidate.

You got this far because you did the work, even if everyone else sees only the end result.

Nathan

Unanticipated, Not Unmanageable

Daily Post

Every viva is “unique, not unknown” – always different, but following patterns from regulations, expectations and even traditions within departments or universities.

We can also say with confidence that a viva could be “unanticipated, not unmanageable” in how it occurs. A viva could deviate from expectations in a way that no-one could expect from the outset: a question could be unpredicted, a comment could seem random, a line of discussion could even be uncomfortable.

All of which would be unanticipated – but not unmanageable. Given the time a candidate would spend working on their PhD, investing in their development and getting ready, the viva could be surprising, more than the expected challenge, but still within the capabilities of the candidate.

Unique, not unknown. Unanticipated, not unmanageable.

Which is the short way of saying that you can have reasonable expectations, and rise to the challenge of anything you can’t foresee.

Even shorter: you can do it.

Nathan

Good Things

Daily Post

A simple piece of viva prep and confidence building: make a list of as many good things about your research and thesis as you can think of. Add anything about your development too, what knowledge or skills you’ve built up over the course of your PhD years.

It’s fine to list items, but even more powerful if you go back and add details as to why these things are good. Why is that result or piece of research good? What did reading that paper allow you to do? How does a skill help you?

A PhD can be hard for many reasons. There’s a lot of good there too.

Find the good, and use that to help you feel ready for your viva.

Nathan

Great Power

Daily Post

With great power comes great responsibility.

It’s fun to know that Stan Lee didn’t quite invent this phrase, but lovely to know that it’s popularisation is pretty much all due to Spider-Man. It applies to more than just superheroes and those in positions of power, it’s a beautiful truth that applies to many situations.

Like PhDs, of course! I have a couple of thoughts in mind for today.

First, through what you’ve built up over the course of your PhD, you owe it to yourself to prepare well for the viva. This doesn’t have to take a lot from you – remember, you’re powerful! – but you have that responsibility after all this work to see it through to a good conclusion. You have power in that.

Second, and more important by far, with all that power, you have a responsibility to do something that matters after your PhD. That could be a job in academia or somewhere else. It could be you start a business, or you volunteer your skills; it could be that you do something to help one person or many. Your family, your local community, your organisation or people all over the world. You can make a difference.

Knowledge is power, but you have more than just that. You have skill. You have talent. You have know-how as well as knowing lots. With the great power that you have, you have a responsibility to make a difference.

Spider-Man isn’t “better” than someone without powers. A person with a PhD isn’t “better” than someone without. But you might have skills that they don’t, skills that they could really need.

So help. Make a difference.

Be a hero.

Nathan

Being Right

Daily Post

“What if I’m wrong?” asks the concerned PhD candidate, getting ready for their viva.

Typos are a kind of wrong. Not quite meeting expectations with the thesis is too. Not knowing something is a flavour of wrong, but can be fixed.

You could be wrong when you respond to a question. Your examiners could know something, or have a different opinion, or a different belief… But perhaps they’re not right either. Perhaps you’re in a situation where there are lots of good “right” opinions. That could be interesting

Most of the time, considering the work you’ve done, the time you’ve spent, your talent, your knowledge and your thesis, you will be right.

That might be the easy part. Now you have to share what you know with others. That might be harder, but again, considering the work you’ve done, the time you’ve spent, your talent, your knowledge and your thesis, you’ll rise to that harder challenge when you need to.

Am I right?

Nathan

The Long Way

Daily Post

Between the first day of your PhD and your last you travel a huge distance. From potential to results, you’re talented when you start and even more talented when you submit – plus you have a lovely book too!

Across all that time it’s sometimes hard to see the moments when you succeeded, when you’ve had amazing times of personal growth or completed projects. The great stuff can be hard to pick out from all the days of hard work: reading, thinking, writing and developing what you did.

You can’t get to the end of your PhD, to submission and on track for the viva any other way. There’s no shortcuts, you have to come the long way.  To be sure of your confidence for the viva you have to review that journey when it nears the end. Look back over what you’ve done and consider how you got to where you are.

The PhD journey is long. It can be hard. It can be so hard to get to the end.

But you will – you will reach the end. As you get closer to the viva, reflect on how you got there and what that means.

Nathan

Diamonds and Pressure

Daily Post

“You need pressure to make diamonds.”

It’s a cheesy sentiment, but it’s true that sometimes we need the pressure of a situation to have a breakthrough, grow, build talent or find something amazing.

The viva isn’t one of those situations though. Your success there shouldn’t be via pressure on the day. If you talk to plenty of graduates about their experiences, pressure isn’t something they describe.

Diamonds need pressure, but they need time too. If we want to think about diamonds, the PhD and metaphors, then really it’s you who is the diamond in the story.

1 … 10 11 12 13 14