You Are Here

Tag: viva confidence

Nathan

Fun & Games

Daily Post

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.

  • When did you have fun while doing your research? What made those experiences fun?
  • Have you been able to challenge yourself to get better at something?
  • Was it possible to share your growth or your research with others?

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.

Nathan

Keep A Record

Daily Post

From day one of your PhD keep a record whenever you achieve something.

  • Learn something new? Write it down.
  • Finish a project? Write it down.
  • Read a helpful paper? Write it down.
  • Complete a task even when it is difficult? Write it down and underline it.
  • Thrive in a challenging meeting? Write it down and add an asterisk.
  • Present your work in any format? Write it down, underline, asterisk and break out the highlighter!

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.

Nathan

Hitting The Target

Daily Post

An archer doesn’t get close to the target consistently through luck. If their arrow flies and strikes the bullseye they have been fortunate: this particular moment of skill has been rewarded.

It takes time, effort and learning to build capability to the point where someone can consistently hit their target. An archer has a different skillset from a researcher, but both need to demonstrate a great level of commitment and growth tif they are to be good enough to meet the challenges that face them.

When you sit with your examiners, discuss your work and respond to challenging questions you will show yourself to be capable of hitting your target consistently. There’s no luck: it takes time, effort and learning, everything you will have invested in during your PhD journey.

Nathan

The Distinction

Daily Post

Viva prep is the set of tasks and activities related to your research and thesis that help you be prepared for meeting with your examiners. You feel comfortable responding to their questions and engaging with the discussion. Viva prep involves reading your thesis, making notes, checking papers and rehearsing.

Getting ready for the viva requires viva prep, but also preparing oneself emotionally for the viva. It involves feeling confident. It involves reflecting on your doctoral journey to realise that your work has value and that you are talented. Getting ready is a lot of practical work and a lot of hidden work.

Viva prep is something that you do in the weeks leading up to your viva, but getting ready for your viva is something that you start when you begin your PhD – if not earlier.

Nathan

Good Day Socks Work!

Daily Post

I wore a pair of my good day socks to the viva – socks that I always wore when I wanted the day to be a good day – and I passed!

After my viva I continued to wear the socks on days I thought would be challenging: a day I was doing a seminar for the first time or travelling and had to make a series of connections. The socks helped me to feel better.

Were they lucky socks? No! They just helped me to navigate challenging days more easily. I felt better wearing them – and realised eventually that I could have every day be a good day if I had enough pairs!

I also have particular shirts, a picture that my daughter drew for me and a special paperweight that help me. All of them help me to feel better when I have something difficult to do.

Do my good day socks or other comforts have anything to do with the particulars of my work? No, they’re just part of the story I tell myself that leads me to feel confident.

Good day socks work for me, but they might not work for you. Before your viva, take time to find something that will help. Look for the little things that can help lead you to the confidence that helps you feel ready.

Nathan

Soundtrack For The Viva

Daily Post

I find that I do a lot of work better when I’m listening to music.

Whether I’m writing, working through admin, searching, researching or just developing ideas, I tend to have music in the background. More often than not, particularly if I’m doing something creative, I listen to music without words – movie or video game soundtracks – with the occasional rock or pop music for energising me to get admin done!

 

If you could have a soundtrack playing during your viva, what would it be? What music could help you focus? Perhaps certain music would help you remember the last few years of work? Or maybe you’d just need something quiet or calm to help the general mood of the room.

It’s very unlikely you will have music at your viva, but it’s worth reframing the questions above to think about what else you can do to help yourself in that space.

  • What could you do to help you focus?
  • What would help your memory of your work?
  • What could you do to feel calm as you approach your viva?

Music might help you in preparation; take time to explore what you could do to help yourself on the day of the viva too.

Nathan

A Little Help

Update

I’ve been publishing Viva Survivors for over six years. In writing more than 2300 posts I’ve shared why candidates succeed, what they can expect, what they can do to prepare and how they can find the confidence to believe that it will all be OK on the day. If you need a little help for your viva, you can probably find it in the archives of this blog

If you need a little extra help then remember the community you have around you: you know people who have examined vivas, who have prepared recently or who have succeeded in the past. There’s a lot of help close at hand if you look for it.

And finally if you have your viva coming up and you still feel like you need a little more help, then please take a look at the Viva Help Bundle of ebooks – which is on a very special sale until the end of November.

The Viva Help Bundle contains:

  1. Keep Going, my collection of 150+ posts from the first five years of the Viva Survivors daily blog.
  2. 101 Steps To A Great Viva, my guide to practical steps that every viva candidate can take to help themselves.
  3. How You Got Here, a short reflective writing game to look back over the PhD journey and find confidence.

Actually, there’s a lot of help packed into the Viva Help Bundle – and it is available for £6 until Thursday 30th November 2023. If you think it might be the help you’re looking for, please take a look. And if you want to know more, please get in touch 🙂

Nathan

Retell Your Story

Daily Post

Once upon a time, the story I told people about myself was that I loved maths, really enjoyed learning more about all kinds of maths, and wanted to do a Masters and a PhD. And I was happy and lucky that my supervisor was so good and supportive.

And a few years later I told anyone who asked that I’d enjoyed the challenge of my PhD in maths and was looking for new challenges. I felt very fortunate to have had all the support I had to that point, but I was looking for something else.

Nowadays I’m far more likely to just mention that I did a PhD (a long time ago!) and that gave me a start in the more important part of my life as a researcher-developer. I’ve spent fifteen years learning ways to help PGRs become PhDs.

Over time my story changed: partly because I grew older and had a different focus but also because I was telling different people about who I was and what I did.

My story changed because I saw myself differently, I understood myself better and I gained a better appreciation of things. I wasn’t lucky to get my PhD, I was fortunate that my hard work had paid off.

What story do you tell yourself about your success so far? What do you highlight as being the things that have made you the capable researcher that you are?

Whatever your story, remember that you are not the person you were when you started your PhD journey. Your story changes over time but you can also change the way you tell that story, both to others and to yourself.

Nathan

Generalisations

Daily Post

Be careful when you come to generalise your probable viva experience.

Regulations, viva stories and hearing about vivas from your department all have a role to play in building up your personal expectations. Be sure you have enough suitable information to build your expectations.

This idea also counts for when you think about your work.

You can’t generalise past experiences and responses to your research directly to your viva. Seminars, and past discussions don’t dictate what your examiners might make of your research. If you’ve had tricky meetings or difficult conference talks in the past that doesn’t have to define your future viva experience.

 

Read regulations, ask people you can trust and build up a good picture of what to expect. Reflect on your journey and remember that you have grown throughout the process.

You are capable, you are good enough and you must have made something by now.

That’s a reasonable generalisation to make about someone close to their viva.

Nathan

Prep To Succeed

Daily Post

Viva prep gives space to review and reflect, highlights important information and allows you to rehearse the kind of work you’ll do in the viva.

Viva preparation is a series of actions leading to success.

Do the work and you’ll be prepared, not perfect. You don’t succeed by getting all the right answers, but by being ready to respond to the questions and comments of your examiners.

1 … 16 17 18 19 20 … 68