Daily viva help for PhDs
What are the best bits of your thesis?
What are your favourite memories of doing research?
What stands out when you think about how you’ve developed as a postgraduate researcher?
It’s important to spend time to reflect on difficult things and hard topics – but equally important to be certain about the good in your work and in your growth as a researcher.
Focus on the best bits first.
Most vivas are not too long. They regularly result in minor corrections. They most often have two examiners, with a possibility for an independent chair as well. The great majority of vivas result in success.
Remember all this, but also remember that your viva will be unique. Your research, your contribution and you are all unique elements to your viva experience.
As you prepare, take time to reflect on what your viva will likely have in common with every other viva. Be sure to focus on what makes your contribution and journey unique too.
There’s a lot you could have done during your PhD. By the time you submit you’ll be aware of the alternate methods, different approaches, endless questions you could have explored or papers you could have read but didn’t.
Particularly given the 2020s so far, you can imagine that many candidates will have made plans and had to change them: forced by COVID or other circumstances to find new ways to do things or different directions to go in. Maybe your own situation over the last few years has involved disruption or changes due to the pandemic.
“Maybe I should have… Maybe I could have… Maybe it would be better if…”
It’s only natural, with all these thoughts and more, to think about alternatives and other possibilities, even what might have been. It can be helpful as part of viva prep to be aware of how other methods work or have a guess at what a different research focus or opportunity might have brought.
However, it won’t help to think about those things at the expense of considering what you have actually done though. Whatever possibilities you’ve had to forego, if you’ve made it to submission and you’re preparing for your viva that means you did something right.
It means you succeeded. It means you have something to be proud of and something to focus on.
You didn’t do a lot of things during your PhD, for a lot of reasons.
What you did is amazing and worth preparing to talk about in your viva.
How many times have you faced difficult challenges during your PhD journey?
Think about how many meetings you’ve had with your supervisor.
Think about how many times you’ve presented your work as a paper or poster.
Consider how many times you’ve shared your work in a departmental seminar.
Remember how many times you’ve had a discussion about what you do, particularly those times you’ve responded to difficult questions.
Think about how many times you overcame an obstacle in your work – and how many times you showed up to do the work of your research!
How many times have you already succeeded before you meet your examiners?
Don’t make big resolutions for this year. Don’t set impossible goals for yourself.
Don’t put that on yourself, particularly if you’re finishing your PhD and your viva will be between now and December 31st.
Instead, try one thing. Every day, when you’re fully awake, before you start your work or leisure, just ask yourself: “What can I do today to make tomorrow better?”
It can be tiny. It could be a one-off. It could be the start of a habit. It could be by yourself or involve others. It could be the start of an activity or finishing something.
“What can I do today to make tomorrow better?”
Then do it.
All the best for 2024 and my particular best wishes if you’re working towards your viva. What can you do in the coming weeks and months to make that day better?
If you read through any handful of posts on Viva Survivors you’ll come across a reflection. With the work that I do supporting postgraduate researchers – and having done this for a very long time now – I like to reflect, look for patterns, look for connections and try to find interesting ways to explore what the viva is all about.
You’ll read many more reflections on the viva, viva prep and everything related in 2024 – but tomorrow look out for my favourite short posts of 2023.
The PhD journey is long, often tough and regularly features setback, failure and difficulty on the path to making a significant, original contribution.
It can also be very enjoyable, and while you can’t simply put all the obstacles to one side, it might help you more as you get ready for your viva to remember the good times.
Reflecting on how you overcame something can be powerful, but it’s also helps to remember those moments where you simply shone, where you enjoyed doing something that mattered.
From day one of your PhD keep a record whenever you achieve something.
From the start of your PhD, keep a record of your achievements – and by the end not only will you have a very impressive record indeed, but you’ll have a strong sense of confidence that your talent, capability and knowledge have grown.
If today is not day one of your PhD – if it’s more like day one thousand, say – you can still get some of these benefits for yourself.
Start keeping the record today and invest some time in looking back. Remember the times when you learned something, finished a project or read a helpful paper. Make note of the challenging tasks you persevered with, when you rose to the challenge of a discussion or presented your work.
Day one or day one thousand, there’s always time to build up your confidence for your viva. You always have an opportunity to do something to build the certainty that you’ve done something good in your research and that you are good enough as you are.
Important questions in the viva are interested in the why of the decisions you made during your PhD.
Why this topic?
Why this method rather than that one?
Why did you decide to focus on this approach?
Take a little time in your preparation to review the choices you’ve made and the reasons that supported them.
Stories say that there’s a pot of gold at the end of the rainbow.
The reality is that a rainbow’s end moves as you move. Make any progress in getting closer to where it appears to be and you’ll find that it’s not where you thought it was. Struggle and strive but it moves further away.
You can perhaps figure out where the end of the rainbow would be based on where you are now – but by the time you reach that point it will have shifted (or maybe disappeared).
I think this resonates with the reality of the PhD journey. The viva or graduation might seem like the big event you’re aiming towards, but as you get closer you’ll realise that there’s something more. You get closer to what seems like the end, only to find that there’s more waiting for you.
The PhD journey is just a part of the greater journey; it’s an important stage, and the benefit could be valuable to your future. If you feel like there’s nothing else but your PhD, remember there’s no pot of gold at the end. The end is further away and you are more than your research.