Unusual Expectations
Some PhD candidates have unusual expectations for their vivas.
I’m not a mind-reader, but I know this must be true because of the questions that some candidates ask. I have met candidates who have expected the following:
- Every question will be hard and every comment will be critical;
- The external will ask most of the questions and the internal won’t care;
- Success at the viva is 50/50, a coin toss between passing and failing;
- The examiners will play good cop/bad cop!
- The viva is just random so there’s no way to prepare.
These are all quite extreme! More benign and unusual expectations include candidates believing that they can’t take a break or that they can’t consult their thesis.
It’s not just that these expectations are wrong and don’t match reality: they are really negative. To hold them can only harm someone’s confidence as they get ready.
It’s not wrong to feel nervous ahead of your viva, but if you find yourself worried by an expectation or belief about the viva then find a way to check if your expectation is reasonable. If it’s unusual then you can maybe stop worrying.
And if you find that it isn’t unusual then there will still be something you can do towards feeling more prepared and more ready.
PS: I released the latest edition of Viva Survivors Select yesterday! The Confidence Issue contains twenty posts from the Viva Survivors archive exploring confidence for the viva including how to respond well to questions in the viva – something which definitely helps with having good expectations.