Daily viva help for PhDs
Being fortunate means working hard and that hard work paying off.
Being lucky means that you didn’t need to apply yourself for the success you’ve found.
Being fortunate is achieving something through your labour.
Being lucky is getting something through a lottery.
As you get to your viva, be careful of the words you use to describe your progress.
Were you lucky to get this far or are you fortunate to have found the results you have?
Find half an hour in the days after your viva to sit and reflect on what you’ve done.
You stayed determined. You learned and developed. You created something that no-one else has ever done and that many people can’t do. You built memories. You added to human knowledge and understanding. You succeeded.
Then you passed your viva.
And think, with all of that behind you, where could you go now?
You might have very certain plans, but they are only one possibility. You have risen to an incredible challenge. I choose to believe that you have many more opportunities ahead of you where you can show that you can do something truly special.
Find half an hour in the days after your viva to sit and reflect and remember: I did this – and I can do a lot more.
How do you measure or remind yourself of your confidence?
Do you do that at all?
For a long time I struggled with feeling excessively nervous. A lot of things I read and learned about told me that building up confidence would help: confidence would not get rid of nervousness but it would help to put it into perspective.
For all the little things I tried, I still encountered situations where I felt terrible because of nervousness. The situations – giving a talk, attending a meeting – still went fine, but they were more difficult for me because of how uncomfortable I felt.
A turning point was realising just how much work I had done in the past. If I felt nervous before giving a talk I could remind myself of how many times I had rehearsed it. If I felt nervous before giving one of my regular sessions I could remind myself of how many times I had shared it before and with how many hundreds of researchers.
Over time I realised I was counting many thousands of researchers.
I still feel nervous before any session I deliver. That’s OK though. It reminds me that I’m doing something important and I want it to go well.
I now feel confident before any session I deliver. I’m reminded by my numbers: I’ve now delivered over 400 viva help sessions to almost 9000 postgraduate researchers. I’ve published more than 2500 daily posts on this blog. These numbers help remind me of who I am, what I’ve done and what I can do in the current situation.
What stats could you track? What numbers might make a difference to you?
It could be the number of papers you’ve read. It might help to track the number of experiments you’ve run or people you’ve interviewed, depending on your kind of research. Work out the number of days or hours you showed up to do the necessary work of your PhD.
To help your confidence and help yourself find your own meaningful numbers and statistics.
If you feel confident in the days leading up to your viva then do what you can to hold on to that feeling. Remind yourself of what you’ve done to come so far. Remind yourself of the difference your work makes.
If you feel certain of what to expect from your viva then hold on to that certainty. Make notes for yourself of what others have told you. Write down what seems most relevant from the regulations.
If you feel ready to talk in your viva then hold on as much as possible. Rehearse for your viva. Read your thesis and write summaries. Keep going with your preparations to keep that feeling alive for yourself.
Hold on. There’s not long to go and not much to do before you finish your PhD.
The more I do, the more I find I don’t know!
This sentiment was shared by a generous participant at a recent viva help webinar I ran. Before I had a chance to respond the chat was filled with thumbs up emojis, hearts and five people writing “Same!” and “Me too!”
A thesis takes years of work. A candidate learns and grows and develops – and discovers that there is still more they don’t know. Despite all the work. More papers. More books. More ideas. More questions and more answers to explore.
Not knowing something might feel pretty bad depending on the day or the situation. The viva is perhaps a singularly uncomfortable environment to realise you don’t know something. The weeks and months leading up to then could be pretty hard too. Knowing you have done so much and knowing that there is so much you still don’t know.
(and knowing, in some cases, that there are things you almost certainly will never know)
The more I do, the more I find I don’t know!
If this sounds familiar, focus on the first clause: you’re doing something. You know things. You are making something. You are finding things.
Before you focus on what you don’t know, take a long time to examine, explore and record what you know – and remember that this will be enough for your viva.
Are there any red flags for examiner selection? Are there people I should try to avoid?
Let’s start with a caveat: there are people in every sphere of life who build up a clear reputation for behaving badly. In academia, these are the people who everyone knows at conferences as making long self-serving comments rather than asking questions after seminars. Perhaps they’re known for arrogance or for being thoughtless and rude.
People like this have a Semaphore Guilds-worth of red flags around them.
Clear signs of this behaviour are worth avoiding if possible – if asked for examiner suggestions by your supervisor – so that you can avoid the possibility of that behaviour in your viva.
Beyond that: I can’t think of any real red flags that people have shared with me or from the general expectations and patterns of viva life.
Anecdotally, new academics could be more thorough in the viva. They may ask more questions if it’s one of their first times acting as an examiner. That’s not bad: they’re trying to do the job well. It’s not a reflection on you or your thesis. A longer viva could simply be a little uncomfortable by the end.
Beyond bad behaviour there are no real red flags unless they’re personal ones. Maybe you would prefer someone you’ve cited; a personal red flag would be someone who has no direct contact with your research. Or perhaps you want someone who could be a future collaborator. A red flag would be someone who might not connect well with your future research goals.
You don’t get to choose your examiners. You might be able to make suggestions to your supervisors. It’s worth considering who would be a good choice if you do have the opportunity – and what might be a red flag for you.
If you have red flags, who might that exclude from a list of potential examiners? More importantly, who might be a good choice for you?
Viva failure is exceptionally rare.
I’ve asked graduate schools, doctoral colleges and doctoral training programmes: they consistently tell me around one in one thousand vivas result in failure. That’s not zero, but I think we can reasonably deduce a few things:
If candidates reflect on their journey they’ll appreciate they’ve done enough. If people read the regulations and ask about expectations they should find information that helps. If they ask for advice or help with preparation then they should be able to figure out what to do (and do it).
Could things be better? Most likely! It would be great if all candidates enjoyed their viva experience. It would be great if the culture around the vivas was less opaque and mysterious so people knew more of what to expect.
All of that said: do the work, ask for help, take time to get ready and there’s almost zero chance that you’ll fail.
It’s a marathon, not a sprint.
Lots of metaphors about the PhD and the viva recall marathons. They suggest perspective on how much time is involved, the pace, the determination and so on. It’s even common to see writers talk about the viva as the final mile of the PhD journey.
The viva is the last big challenge – but marathons aren’t 26 miles in length.
A marathon is 26 miles and 385 yards.
After 26 miles of progress there’s still a little more.
Not quite a quarter of a mile.
Submission is the 26 mile marker. The viva is that last 385 yards. Still a little to do. A little more work. A little more determination. But you really are almost there.
…compared with the amount of time you’ve invested in your PhD.
That doesn’t make them easy. That doesn’t mean they’ll fly by if they are many hours long. That doesn’t mean there’s no need to prepare.
Those thousands of hours in your PhD journey help make sure that the short time in your viva will result in success.
If you’re reading this and you’re in your first or second year of your PhD, you don’t have to worry about your viva! You don’t have to give it any great thought: for now, keep on with the main work of your research and your own development. You don’t need to be focussing on your viva.
And with that said, if you want to help yourself now and when you get to the viva, consider doing some of the following:
Little things you do over a long period of time will help you both on the journey and at your destination. Your viva is a way off in the distance. Don’t worry about it, but help yourself as you make your way there.
And of course, if you’re in your third year or fast-approaching your viva, you can follow the ideas above, they’ll still help!