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Tag: viva confidence

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 ÂŁ6 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

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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.

Nathan

Viva Day Confidence

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Feeling confident on the day of your viva isn’t a magic shield against difficult questions. It doesn’t mean that you won’t or can’t feel nervous about the prospect of meeting your examiners.

Feeling confident for your viva means you’re as certain as you can be you’ve done as much as you can to get ready. You’re certain your work has value. You’re certain that you are capable. And you feel certain that whatever questions your examiners ask you will be able to engage with them and respond to them.

Viva day confidence is built up through work and reflection – and thankfully you have plenty of opportunities over the course of your PhD and in your viva preparation to build up your confidence.

Remember the work you’ve done. Remember what it means. Remember what a difference your learning and research and effort have made to you. Reflect on the work and all the impacts and you have the firm foundations for feeling confident on your viva day.

Nathan

Remember The Right Things

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You don’t need to recall all the details of every day of your PhD to pass your viva. You don’t need to have memorised every page of every paper you have read when you talk to your examiners – or remember every page that you have written for that matter.

Of course, you need to read your thesis to prepare for your viva. It help to review what you’ve done and consider likely areas you’ll discuss. It helps to have a way to remember what’s really important.

But, more importantly, you need to remember that you did the work.

You need to remember what the viva is really for.

You need to remember what your viva and what success means to you.

And you need to remember that there are lots of things you could do to help you remember the things that matter the most.

Nathan

On Worry Tummy

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Worry Tummy – that’s what we call nerves and apprehension in our house.

That’s what my daughter called it. Over time my wife and I took it on as part of the “secret language” of our family – the in-jokes, portmanteaus and phrases that probably don’t make sense outside of our little context.

But worry tummy is hopefully clear enough.

 

Worry tummy is the general feeling of apprehension that bubbles up when an event is imminent and you’re not really sure you feel ready for it.

Perhaps you don’t have a good enough sense of what it will be like and consequently don’t know if you can meet the challenge. Perhaps you know a little but can’t feel sure that you are ready or that you’ll enjoy it.

Often, worry tummy occurs when there is almost no chance of avoiding the situation at all, making it doubly difficult to deal with.

 

I imagine that worry tummy is more common in the very young than people working towards a PhD! If there was one educational event that could cause worry tummy in people past their teens it’s the viva.

The last exam of the final degree. Talked about in hushed tones and rumours. The viva isn’t clear most of the time so how could you know if you are up to the challenge?

By finding out more. By reflecting on your journey. By realising just how good you must be to get this far.

 

It’s not wrong to experience worry tummy at any age – or to feel nervous about your viva.

Whatever you call it, whatever you feel, there’s a reason for that feeling.

And if you don’t like it, you can do something about it.

Nathan

A Manifesto On Good Viva Prep

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This isn’t finished, but here are some thoughts that I’ve been knitting together for a long time…

Good viva prep is personal. It responds to the needs of a candidate.

Good viva prep is effective. It takes only the time needed and meets the needs of a candidate.

Good viva prep is planned in advance. A candidate’s time is valuable and stress and rush can only hinder readiness.

Good viva prep creates greater certainty. It improves understanding of the general experience of the viva and gives greater confidence in being ready for the viva.

Good viva prep is supported by others. This happens in big and small ways, because while getting ready is the candidate’s responsibility it will be better with help.

And good viva prep is only as good as a candidate makes it – so make yours good!

Nathan

Believe It Or Not

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If you believe your examiners will be fair with their questions then you’ll be more likely to try to engage with them, rather than suspect a trap or harsh comment.

If you believe you can get prepared during the submission period then you’ll be more likely to feel ready when the time comes.

If you believe the mostly positive stories about viva experiences that you hear and read then you’re going to act as though your viva will be a mostly positive occasion too.

 

What have you heard about the viva? What do you believe about it? And how does that help you (or not)?

Nathan

One More

Daily Post

One more hour of reading could help you to remember that key piece of information that’s slipped your mind.

One more conversation with your supervisor might boost your confidence for meeting your examiners in the viva.

One more look through your thesis with a highlighter in hand might show you that detail you’ve been missing – or the typo you’ve missed so far!

 

One more of any of these might be one too many things though: there is a practical limit of how much prep you can do and how much prep you need to do.

The viva is only one more day when you have to show up and do things you have done many, many times before.

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