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Tag: the PhD journey

Nathan

Making A Choice

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You don’t get to simply choose your examiners. You don’t get to choose what questions they will ask at your viva. You don’t get to choose whether or not you feel nervous on your viva day.

You can choose how you get ready for your viva though. You can choose the attitude that you show up with to your prep and your viva day. You can choose to steer yourself towards confidence.

You can choose the kind of person you want to be at your viva and choose to work towards that.

Of course, it’s not a single choice: it’s a daily, repeated choice to work towards something good.

Like the rest of your PhD journey.

Nathan

Keeping Up

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I had a bright idea recently to show a prep idea I’d had for making a summary based on a thesis chapter.

I’m exploring video project ideas and thought this might be good as a production and editing test. I also wanted to see if the idea was valid: take a thesis chapter, pull out the important points, capture the information in a useful way, use a nice acronym maybe and so on.

Except when I sat down with my thesis to think and plan for the video I realised I didn’t really understand my research any more.

 

It’s been 18 years since I finished my PhD. It’s probably fifteen years since I thought seriously about that work.

It’s a little familiar as I read it. I know I did it. And I kind of get it.

But I can’t do it any more.

That part of my mathematical knowledge, if it’s still there, is buried beneath almost twenty years of being a researcher-developer.

I don’t write about maths any more. I write about vivas.

I don’t solve equations now: I respond to questions and emotions and problems with the viva.

 

I’m not upset. I love what I do. I am still pretty good at maths but my overall skillset is geared around a different kind of work. I’m happy but it does feel bittersweet to see that former part of my life experience reduced.

With that in mind here’s a question I hope you take in the spirit I offer it: “What do you need to hold on to from your PhD experience when you’re done? And how will you keep that knowledge or skillset alive in your life after the PhD?”

Nathan

Number Problems

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Your PhD success is not directly measured by big numbers.

It’s not in the thousands of words in your thesis. It doesn’t correlate with the number of papers you’ve read or the number you’ve cited. You don’t need a heroic number of hours invested into mastering a skill. You don’t need to do more than the last person.

The numbers that really help may sound similar but they help in different ways.

  • The number of papers you’ve read helps you know what you need to know.
  • Take confidence from knowing you have written 200 good pages not for simply having 200 pages.
  • You’ve invested thousands of hours to show your determination and express your ability – you’ve not simply done a lot.

Bigger alone isn’t better. Recognise the value of the numbers that matter to your PhD.

Nathan

Final Checks For The Viva

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Check that you’ve read the regulations.

Check you have done all the prep you meant to.

Check you know the logistics for your viva day.

Check you’ve got your thesis and anything else you need ready.

And check in with yourself: remember you did all of that over the course of years so you can do this too.

 

PS: If you’re still checking what the viva is all about then also check out my 1-hour 7 Reasons You’ll Pass Your Viva webinar next Wednesday 7th October 2026. Registration includes attendance, one of my pdf publications and a catch-up recording if you can’t attend live. There are also two more sessions before Christmas if November or December might be better!

Nathan

The Work

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The work you need to do to get ready for your viva – and to do well at your viva – is the same as the work for your whole PhD so far:

  • You have to find out more.
  • You have to figure out more.
  • You have to figure out how to tell others about what you’ve learned and done.

The purpose and need involved with prep and the viva might be specific and different to the rest of your PhD but the work is the same. It’s the same for every PhD candidate regardless of discipline.

So: what does that work look like for you as you get ready?

 

PS: You can find out more about the specific work of rehearsal in Viva Survivors Select 14 which is out now. If you like the blog, want more help and want to support what I do then please check it out. It’s the latest issue in my series of curated collections of viva help: twenty posts from the blog’s archive and new help to help you get ready!

Nathan

The Scale Of Prep

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A full-time PhD might involve five or six thousand hours of work.

A viva will most likely be done in three or four hours at most.

Between these vastly different scales sits viva prep: twenty to thirty hours of work for most candidates.

Viva prep is much bigger than your viva and much, much smaller than the rest of your PhD.

Viva prep can feel like a lot when you have to do it but try to get the scale right in your mind. It’s particular work to help you prepare for the particular challenge of your viva.

 

PS: if you’re looking for more viva prep help then I have two suggestions for you. First, take a look at my Payhip store where I have a range of small publications to help with any viva worries you might have. Second, take a look at my 7 Reasons You’ll Pass Your Viva webinar I have coming up on Wednesday 7th October (and more sessions in November and December).

PPS: Third suggestion! I have a new Viva Survivors Select zine coming out this Wednesday! Look out for the announcement.

Nathan

The Negatives

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I spent a few months in the second year of my PhD trying to solve one calculation.

I stopped after seven weeks.

I had written and rewritten tortured sequences of symbols. I had found simpler ways to write things. I had noticed helpful formulations that made things easier to see. And I had an idea of what might actually be going on with my mathematical puzzle even if I couldn’t prove it.

Maybe I sound upbeat now but I was not thinking positively about it at the time.

In the summer of 2006 I was frustrated, tired, stuck and only seeing the seven weeks as wasted:

  • I had hundreds of sheets of handwritten notes that didn’t show an answer.
  • I had disappointed myself and I was sure that I had disappointed my supervisor.
  • I didn’t even know at that point if I was on track to finish my PhD.

I could only see the negatives.

 

It took time for me to find a different way of looking at things:

  • I didn’t have an answer but I had progress.
  • I hadn’t solved this problem but I had found new methods.
  • I had shown that some ideas weren’t good ones.
  • And I had a new hypothesis even if I couldn’t show it.

If you find yourself, like me, in a situation where you can only find the negatives in your research then you need to take a step back and really reflect.

It won’t all be bad.

Limitations and setbacks can still lead to progress. Failure can become success. It might not be the success you were expecting, it might be smaller or different, but it still counts for something.

If you’re struggling to frame your work in a positive way then take some time to reflect, particularly as you get ready for your viva.

You have to convince yourself that you’ve made a contribution before you can convince your examiners.

Nathan

A List Of Requirements

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Success at your viva requires:

  • A candidate (you).
  • One or more research projects.
  • One or more active supervisors.
  • A few years of work.
  • A suitably written thesis.
  • Regulations that have been followed.
  • Two or more examiners.
  • A period of preparation for those examiners.
  • A period of preparation for the candidate.
  • A sufficient amount of self confidence.
  • Adjustments to the typical viva process depending on the candidate’s personal requirements.
  • An interesting discussion that facilitates an exam.

What else do you require to succeed at your viva?

Nathan

What Challenge?

Daily Post

Here’s a helpful framing: the viva is simply the next challenge on your path to a PhD.

  • It implies you’ve already overcome other challenges.
  • It suggests the one in front of you can be overcome.
  • It’s on your path so it is knowable, at least in part.

The viva isn’t the only challenge or the final challenge. To get this far you have risen to many other situations and succeeded. Take what you’ve learned, prepare for the challenge that’s coming your way and keep going.

You can do it.

Nathan

All Change

Daily Post

How do you feel about the change that’s coming?

For a long time you’ve been a PhD candidate…

…and soon you won’t be.

How are you preparing yourself for the change?

You’ll change from someone writing a thesis to someone who has written it.

Someone who was thinking about their viva to someone preparing for it.

And change from someone waiting to start to someone who has done their corrections.

The change will happen fast.

Change isn’t intrinsically bad but it means something.

How are you feeling about it? What are you doing to be ready?

 

PS: The viva throws up a lot of feelings for candidates. It’s one aspect that I explore in this week’s new zine Viva Survivors Select 13, The Personal Issue. This latest curated issue of viva help digs into lots of ways that the viva is a deeply personal experience for candidates. From research to prep and examiners there’s a lot that makes your viva a personal thing. Find out more in the issue – and, of course, in many other posts on this site!

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