Daily viva help for PhDs
It’s what you must have done over the course of your PhD.
Your research and thesis must have a significant, original contribution – or, more simply, you must have made a difference. Something now exists that didn’t before and that something matters.
Remember that and be ready to talk about it in your viva.
What do you do if you have an hour left until your viva and you feel a little nervous?
You do something.
When you’re nervous in the viva you can only be there and engage as best you can. Before then, if you feel nervous, you can do lots of things to help yourself. Be thoughtful as you prepare: if you were to feel nervous in the last minutes before your viva, what could you do to help yourself?
In preparation for the viva you can reflect on possible questions, talk with friends or have a mock viva – but don’t forget that you’re not the only one in the spotlight on the big day!
Your thesis is centre-stage with you. Your examiners have read it cover to cover, so you’d best do the same as well. Your examiners will be thinking about it a lot, so it helps if you do too. They’ll be considering it carefully so take some time to do likewise.
Being in the spotlight, for you or your thesis, might not always feel great – but the only way to get around that feeling is to spend more time in the spotlight. More time rehearsing, more time reading and reflecting.
I didn’t feel particular nervousness about the viva, but I don’t remember feeling great about it either. To feel a tiny bit better I wore my most comfortable shoes. I continued to do this for years afterwards when I was in situations – mostly work-related – where I felt uncomfortable.
In fact, I did everything I could to make my situation comfortable. Comfortable shoes. A preparation routine. Arriving early to make sure I had plenty of time. Anything and everything I could think of to feel more comfortable and more capable.
The nature of the viva can make it very uncomfortable for some candidates. It’s to be expected: general nervousness or apprehension about what might happen can be unsettling. Feelings of nervousness about the viva aren’t bad in themselves – they’re normal responses to the environment you’ll be in – but they aren’t comfortable and they aren’t always helpful.
So, if the event could feel uncomfortable, what could you do to increase your comfort?
What could you do to increase your comfort at the viva? Once you have some options, decide what you will do to be more comfortable on viva day.
I like thought experiments, both philosophically and in fiction. It can be fun to ask what if? and then follow that thinking to see what might happen next. It’s useful in the kind of work I do too, thinking through how a session might run or how a new webinar might help someone. It can identify issues that need addressing in advance – or eliminate headaches before they happen!
Thought experiments allow us to get ahead of problems sometimes, but they can also be a distraction. A lot of what if questions about the viva are completely understandable but can also be very distracting:
I have specific advice for each of these, but the general response to all of them is: “Then you would pause, think and ultimately respond to the situation in the moment in whatever way seems best.”
Because that’s all you can do.
You can prepare, you can practise and you can ask yourself what if – in the end you have to stop worrying and wondering about thought experiments.
Remember who you are, what you did, what you can do and what you bring to the viva.
For all the nerves you might feel, despite any knocks to confidence or worries about research, it’s worth remembering that if you are headed towards your viva date you are precisely where you’re meant to be.
You did the work. You learned. You grew. You got better. Your thesis is proof of that. It’s not perfect, and neither are you, but by now both of you are good enough to meet the standard.
If you don’t feel that, you’re the only one who can change that feeling. Find out more about the viva perhaps, work to boost your confidence, do the necessary work to get ready – and remember that this is where you’re meant to be.
Right here, right now, on track to succeeding in your viva.
You need to feel prepared and confident for your viva.
What does that mean for you? I don’t know.
I can make some guesses:
You will need particular things to feel prepared and confident for your viva. You are the only person who can figure out what practical things will help you feel that way.
At the start of a new academic year I’m reminded of how much my life has changed over the last few years; while for the most part I am very happy with where I am now, I still remember vividly how sharp and how stark things have been at times.
Survive means manage to keep going in difficult circumstances – and while it doesn’t have to be dire to be difficult it helps to reflect a little and remember how you have made it through.
If you have survived this far that means you kept going. How? What did you do through your PhD to make it so far when things have been so tough? What have you learned about yourself? How did you adapt?
As your viva comes closer, whatever else you feel, remember that you persisted. Whatever bad times you’ve had, you held on, you made it through. You were determined, often enough, to get to the end. How did you hold on? And what you can do now to keep holding on until your viva is done?
When have you been stretched during your PhD? What projects or work have you done that was a challenge to your skills and knowledge?
I think it’s unhelpful to view the PhD (and the viva) as the most awesome and incredible challenge in the world ever™ – but it’s also unhelpful to not recognise the growth that happens through the challenges someone faces along the way.
Reflect on the challenges. Reflect on the stretches – when they happened, why they happened, what you learned. You couldn’t have got this far without becoming better. Whenever your viva is, remember that throughout your PhD you have become more than what you were at the start.
More talented. More skilled. More knowledgeable. More accomplished.
All the stretches along the way have helped you become who you are today. Remember that and be confident for the viva.
Two words I wish someone had shared with me over my PhD journey.
Presenting helps in so many ways to build someone up – both for the challenges of doing a PhD, succeeding in the viva and being more ready for life afterwards.
Presenting helps because it makes you think of your audience. To communicate you have to think about who they are, what they want and what they need from you.
Presenting helps because it encourages you to be clear. You have to really think about your message, how you express it, how you structure it and so on. This can be a real benefit for writing, for thinking and for asking questions.
Presenting helps because it makes the presenter nervous – of course, that’s not always a comfortable thing! It helps because, if you take some time, you realise that nervousness is related to the importance of what you’re saying. You have something valuable to share.
Presenting helps because it’s an iterative learning process: there’s always something to learn, something you can take away for the next time.
Presenting throughout the PhD can help you a lot. Presenting as part of viva preparation can be really useful to help explore the words you use to explain your research – and to clarify what makes your work valuable.