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Tag: the PhD journey

Nathan

Fault & Responsibility

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Examiners aren’t looking to find fault. They might have tough questions, they might think they see problems. Because of their experience they could have critical comments but these are never aimed at tearing work apart – or trying to tear a candidate apart.

In the viva, if something doesn’t seem right to them, instead of finding fault they could be looking for you to take responsibility. They don’t want to know who is to blame, but rather why something happened that way.

Sometimes mistakes are made. Sometimes, with good intentions, a plan of work doesn’t work out.

Taking responsibility doesn’t mean simply saying “It was me!” but rather exploring and explaining what happened, what you did and why things are the way they are.

You’re not at fault, you’re not to blame, but you have to take responsibility and then see what comes next.

Nathan

Over

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When your viva is finished, after the celebrations and congratulations, when you can breathe, take a few minutes to reflect:

  • How did I succeed?
  • What can I build on?
  • What can I do now?

Your PhD might be over, more or less, but there’s still a way for you to go. So reflect, take time to explore how you got where you are, what you can do and what you could do.

When you finish a PhD you are necessarily talented: there’s no other way you could get this far by being lucky.

This chapter of the story is over. What’s next?

Nathan

Lucky

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There’s no luck with the viva. No trick or superstition to rely on for success. Instead, it’s all on you.

What you did, what you know, what you can do.

None of that is due to luck either. There could be good fortune – when hard work pays off – and you achieve something that was uncertain, but there’s no simple luck.

There’s nothing that just gets you through – and nothing that simply, randomly, unluckily stops you.

You worked for your success. That work continues to help you through the viva.

Nathan

What Would You Change?

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It’s possible that your examiners would ask about changes to your research. Not what you could, would or might do to make things “better”, simply given your experience, what would you change?

It’s not a trick or a trap. The question is another way of exploring “what have you learned from the process of doing research?” They’re asking you to demonstrate how far you’ve come, not to showcase what is wrong with your work.

Reflecting on changes could be helpful in your preparation. It can help to make you more certain of what you did. You can be more confident of what you have learned. And before you meet your examiners in the viva it can help you to realise just how far you have come.

Nathan

The Outtakes

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I’m curious about outtakes in movies – the scenes that didn’t make it in or alternate versions of scenes that did.

Sometimes outtakes are shown as bloopers: the moments when things went wrong or when someone laughed. It’s helpful to see outtakes because it reminds you that however impressive something looks in a movie it’s taken time and effort to achieve that.

Your thesis will have outtakes too. Sections that aren’t included. Perhaps a whole chapter that just doesn’t fit. You’ll have loose threads you cut or ideas that had to be left out because of the space or time you had available.

As interesting as movie outtakes can be their existence also serves to remind us of something else: that there’s a reason that they were not in the finished film. They didn’t fit. They didn’t work. They were just people laughing, and as funny as that might be to see it doesn’t tell the story.

It’s the same with your thesis. You might second-guess yourself, or doubt if you have enough in your thesis at some point but remember: if you left something out of your thesis there is a good reason.

Remember what those reasons are and you can strengthen the reasons for including the work that you have.

Nathan

A Supervisor’s Faith

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At one of my final sessions before my summer break, a participant commented that supervisors wouldn’t let a candidate submit their thesis if they didn’t have faith that their thesis was good enough.

I think the core of this is true: good supervisors are invested in their researcher’s success. Good supervisors care enough to give guidance and feedback. Good supervisors make sure their researchers have an idea of what to expect from all stages of the PhD process, including the viva.

You have to believe, but you also have to ask. If you need more – guidance, feedback, information – then you have to take the first step to find out more.

You can have faith, but you can also take certainty from their support too. If your supervisors support your thesis submission you can be confident they think you’ve done enough and you’re good enough.

 

With thanks to soon-to-be-Dr Stewart McCreadie for his observation at a 7 Reasons You’ll Pass Your Viva session!

Nathan

Before and After Submission

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Before submission focus on getting your research completed and your thesis finished.

After submission focus on getting your confidence raised for the viva through a little preparation.

 

Before submission you don’t need to prepare for your viva.

After submission you don’t need to second-guess and nitpick details in your work.

 

Before submission you’re on track to pass your viva.

After submission you’re on track to pass your viva.

 

The definition of survive is manage to keep going in difficult circumstances. It applies to the whole PhD as much as it does to the viva.

 

Before submission? Keep going.

After submission? Keep going.

Nathan

New Beginning

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Your viva is almost the end of your PhD. What’s next?

An ending is also the start of something else. What’s your new beginning?

What do you take with you into this next chapter of your life? What new knowledge or skill set do you now have that you didn’t have before? What hopes or goals are you working towards? How are you better equipped to pursue them now that you have the experience of your PhD?

Before you start your new beginning, consider that all of that learning, development and knowledge will help you in the viva too.

Nathan

Again

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The viva’s not the first time you’ve had to respond to questions about your research.

The viva’s not the first time you’ve been asked about your contribution.

The viva’s not the first time you’ve really had to think hard about something.

And it’s unlikely that your viva is the second time you’ve had to do any of these, or the third, or the fourth.

Again and again throughout your PhD, in small and big ways, you grow, you learn and you become better than you were. Again and again you demonstrate that you are a talented, capable and knowledgeable researcher.

In the viva you have to do it again. One more time, but with all of that experience behind you.

You can do it. You’ve done it before, you can do it again.

Nathan

Good Fortune & Hard Work

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In my PhD I can remember times I was lucky. Lucky to be at a particular seminar and see an unsolved problem that I knew I could solve. Lucky to suddenly make a breakthrough and get the result I needed.

Except I wasn’t. I was in the right place at the right time perhaps, but I couldn’t have spotted the first solution without all the results I’d already achieved. I couldn’t make my breakthrough, everything slipping into place, without three weeks of background reading and calculations first.

Words matter.

In all my seminars I remind PhD candidates they’re not lucky to have finished their thesis or to have got results – they’re fortunate. Fortunate is when hard work pays off. There might not have been a certain outcome, but it could only have happened thanks to someone taking the actions that they did.

None of your PhD success is luck. It’s good fortune, when your hard work has paid off.

Remember your good fortune. Remember too the hard work that has got you there.

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