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Tag: viva confidence

Nathan

How You Find Confidence

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You have to look for it.

If you want to feel confident for your viva it’s not enough to hope that you will feel good on the day. You have to do something before then to feel confident.

Reflecting on your PhD journey is a good start. Remembering and reminding yourself of the successes you’ve made and the growth in your knowledge and capability.

Highlight your particular achievements. Make a list and write about why these things matter and help you to feel good.

Explore viva expectations to get a sense of what happens in vivas. Consider how suitable you are to thrive in that situation: talking about yourself and the work you have done.

Decide on specific actions to take in the days leading up to your viva to feel better. What can you do to prompt confident feelings? What can you do to remind yourself of the many successes you’ve had?

It’s not enough to hope you feel confident. You have to search for and find confidence.

Nathan

Yes, You Can

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Can you know what to expect from the viva process?

Yes, you can because there are regulations and stories that describe the viva process. Yours will be unique but you can still know enough to know what to expect.

 

Can you know enough about your examiners to feel confident meeting them?

Yes, you can: talk to your supervisor and check your examiners’ recent publications to get a sense of who they are.

 

Can you be prepared for the viva?

Yes, you can be prepared for your viva! Take time to make a plan and do the work. There’s no shortcuts but also no long and hard tasks either.

 

Can you engage well with your examiners’ questions and respond to their comments?

Yes, you can engage well with your examiners at the viva. You know your stuff, you’ve taken time to prepare and a little rehearsal will help you be ready.

 

Can you succeed at your viva?

Yes, you can.

Nathan

Misunderstood

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Confusion can happen in the viva. Your examiners might not understand. They could have read a passage and got a different idea to what you meant. You could misunderstand a question, a comment or the point of a conversation.

Confusion in the viva doesn’t necessarily mean you’re wrong, your examiners are wrong or that something is wrong. It just means that there is confusion…

…but eventually confusion clears. It’s not comfortable but not harmful to your viva. It’s simply a possible part of the process.

It’s possible to actively work around confusion too. Pause to think. Check your thesis. Ask questions and in particular ask them to improve clarity. Check that your points are being understood.

Confusion isn’t comfortable but consideration and conversation clears the way to clarity.

Nathan

Find X

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I love maths problems that look really simple.

A simple statement that asks a question. A string of numbers looking for connection. A picture with an undefined angle or shaded area.

They can look really simple but require real thought to unpick what’s involved and then find X.

 

This isn’t very different from having concerns about the viva.

If you or someone you know feels worried we have to find the X that is worrying them. We have to unpick why X is a concern. We have to understand what that means. We can then start to think of possible options.

A maths problem typically has a single solution being looked for. Viva problems can have lots of possible solutions; they depend on the person or the situation.

In viva problems, finding X is the first step to a bigger solution. Find why the problem is a problem and you can start to find options for resolving the situation.

Nathan

Personal Statistics

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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.

Nathan

Hold On

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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.

Nathan

Not Knowing

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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.

Nathan

Better Questions

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It’s not uncommon or irrational for a PhD candidate to ask:

  • How long will my viva be?
  • What do I do if I go blank?
  • How do I get out of tricky questions?
  • Is it better to have a morning or afternoon viva?
  • How much time is given for minor corrections?

These are natural questions to have in mind. A supervisor or a friend might be able to offer advice or even a definitive answer for some of them.

These are natural questions for a candidate to ask of others, but it’s better to reflect on questions like:

  • What am I doing to get ready?
  • What makes my thesis contribution valuable?
  • What do the exam regulations say?
  • Who can help me be prepared?
  • What makes me a capable researcher?

Worry, concern and not knowing lead to questions about the viva and preparation.

There are often better questions to consider than the ones which first come to mind.

Nathan

What Comes Next

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“Good luck for your viva next week! Don’t worry, it’s not the end of the world!”

It’s not the end of the world – it’s the end of your PhD.

Perhaps, after so long spent researching and working on something, and even with the happy prospect of future plans and new horizons, a little of the worry and nervousness for the viva and the end of the PhD comes from just being worried for what comes next.

So make plans. Write lists. Draw out what you’ve done and what matters. Find some comfort at the thought of finishing something good. Reflect on what you’re carrying with you into the next stage of you.

Nerves and worry are normal as you finish anything. Nerves and worry are normal as you come to finish your PhD. It’s not the end of the world but the viva is a big part of the end of your PhD.

Nathan

Demonstrating Capability

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Assuming that you pass your viva it’s you who are the PhD, not your thesis. Your thesis is part of the mechanism for your success. Your examiners need to explore the contribution you’ve made and also examine your capability as a researcher in your field.

It might help before your viva to reflect a little on the last few years:

  • What have you learned?
  • What skills have you developed?
  • What research processes can you do now that you couldn’t when you started?
  • What makes you a good researcher?

The last question is simple to ask. The details should all be there when you look at the last few years, but it might be hard to put them into words. Take time to think about how you can demonstrate that you are a capable researcher.

What makes you good at what you do? What makes you good enough?

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