Daily viva help for PhDs
Your thesis is proof that you did the work. It’s the best summary you are able to make of years of research you’ve done.
Your thesis is a talisman to hold on to. It’s one more thing you can look to for confidence in your capability and knowledge.
Your thesis is a resource to use in the viva. Read it in preparation and annotate it to make it more helpful..
Your thesis is one book, but can mean lots of things.
What’s the most helpful story you can tell yourself about your thesis?
What are you really good at?
What do you notice you have become particularly skilled at doing over the course of your PhD?
What topics do you know you’re particularly knowledgeable about?
How do you know you’re good? What’s your evidence?
How do you explain to yourself – and others – that you’re good at something?
Reflect and find the words to describe what you do well and how you know you do it well. Recognising that you are capable and knowledgeable is a helpful basis for feeling confident for your viva.
There really isn’t any other way to get to submission and the viva: you must be great at what you do. However, if you’re not feeling great, then reflect and find things you do well or things you know lots about.
If you already know that you’re capable, work to find words to tell yourself a good story about that so you really believe it ahead of your viva.
It’s almost twenty years since I started my PhD.
I remember the first week very clearly, sitting at my desk, skim-reading through papers I couldn’t grasp, making notes and chatting with my office-mates.
I very distinctly remember thinking, “I don’t know what I’m doing, but at least I have a long time to figure it out.”
And I did have a long time, and I did – more or less – figure it out.
But that time went by so fast. Before I realised I was looking at my final months of writing up, those weeks of prep, those hours of my viva and an eye-blink afterwards when I did my corrections.
Plan the end of your PhD before you get too close. When will you do your prep and how will you get it done? What might your corrections period look like? And what are the key dates or weeks when you will have to hit targets?
Before you know it, you’ll be done.
Very simple viva directions!
There’s a process and prep, a thesis and a candidate, two examiners with questions and comments and expectations and –
– really you just need to sit down and talk.
Have a conversation. A discussion. A chat.
Three prepared people, one thesis, one PhD journey and a few hours for everyone to do what they need to do.
Be ready to sit down and talk. Prepare, rehearse, be ready.
In tabletop role-playing games, players have character sheets. These are a way of capturing information about the person you are pretending to be in the game. Are you a warrior or a wizard? What equipment do you have? Character sheets list statistics about the character, measures of how skilful someone is and perhaps key details about their past or their talents.
If all of the above sounds totally unfamiliar then from real life picture a CV or resume. These do something similar to a character sheet. They show what someone has achieved, a shorthand for showing ability and success, essential skills and qualifications. It’s not the whole story, but a helpful summary for reminding someone or sharing key details.
As you prepare for your viva, consider making a character sheet for yourself. List your accomplishments, summarise the skills and talents that make you amazing, and highlight the ways you have levelled up. Summarise what you can do now as a result of your PhD journey.
In a game, a character sheet might describe someone fictional and amazing. For the viva, create something which shows a real, amazing person: you.
If it won’t cause pain or upset, think back to who you were when you started your PhD journey.
Consider what you knew and what you could do, and compare that with your capability today.
Being ready for the viva is partly all the work you’ve done, partly the specific preparations for the viva and partly how you feel about yourself and what you can do. A PhD journey can be long and difficult; sometimes, when reflecting it can be natural to remember the beginnings or the harder moments.
Instead, remember where you are today. Remember the skills, the knowledge, the talent and the success that you have. You are not the person you were. You are not who you were when you began.
Now you can do so much more.
You know so much more.
And you have achieved so much more than when you started.
To build confidence for your viva, write down three successes from your PhD journey. Think back over the years of work and find three things that have been good: maybe things you did well, results that didn’t exist before or ideas that you have developed and shared.
Find three successes and write a little about each, focussing on why they are a success and what you did to make them great. You don’t need to spend long to capture something good.
In fact, you could probably take ten minutes every day to write about three successes from your PhD journey. Between submission and the viva make a habit of looking back and finding three successes from your PhD: make a habit of building your confidence for the viva.
Remember that as you finish your PhD journey and have your viva that you are part of something.
Several somethings!
Also remember that your PhD journey is only a part of you: not all of you and not the best of you. As you finish that journey you have to figure out what it really means for your future and what you will do next.
You are the only person in your viva who can speak for you and your work. The questions and comments from your examiners, the discussion that follows, all of it is is centred on getting you to engage and talk. You, and you alone, can respond.
Before the viva, however, you are not alone – there are many people who can offer you support.
You get to the viva, alone, but supported. You’re the only one in a position to respond, buoyed by the support and help of many others. You, and you alone, can – and will – rise to this challenge.
It’s not wrong to want your viva to be done. That’s a natural response to the challenge and the situation.
But don’t try to rush your viva so it’s over as soon as possible. Don’t try to get every thought out as quickly as you can.
Likewise viva prep takes time. Give yourself a break before you begin. Take your time to do it well and take your time to think.
Perhaps if you feel impatient for your prep to be done or your viva to be over, stop and – if you can – think for a moment about what the real issue is. What’s driving how you feel? And what can you do about it?