Daily viva help for PhDs
Nerves don’t mean there’s something wrong. They’re just a symptom of you noticing that the viva is a big day.
Your viva is important, so you probably feel nervous as a consequence. Nothing more.
Prepare for your viva, because it is important. Do what you can to find confidence, because while confidence won’t banish nerves, it will help to keep them in check.
Acknowledge that your viva nerves are there. An anticipation of an important event. Nothing more.
You’ve done everything you can, become everything you are, know everything you can and need to know.
Viva day comes and you have to leap and trust you’ll reach the other side. A day that’s different from all the others in your PhD life, but still just a day like any other.
You’ve got what you need. So now you come to it: a leap of faith, an act of confidence.
Of course you’ll reach the other side of your examiners’ questions and discussion. How could you not?
Amusement park signs have never bothered me.
I’m tall and I don’t like rollercoasters. Those signs with arrows indicating heights have always been for someone else. My daughter, however, is six, and tall for her age, but short for the signs. “You can’t go on this one, it’s not for you, not yet, not now.” Tears of frustration follow, until another diversion is found.
Frustration and sometimes tears show up around the end of a PhD too. Frustration brought on by fear, worry, anxiety – candidates wondering if they’ve hit the mark. Has their thesis passed the test? Have they done enough? It’s not wrong to wonder, it’s natural given how important everything is at that stage. The thesis, the PhD, the effort that goes into them – your efforts – they’re all important.
It takes time for children to grow so that they pass the arrow on a rollercoaster sign. Academia doesn’t print any signs like that, but they’re there, invisible, and probably behind you now as you head towards the end of your PhD…
You Must Be This Good To Viva.
And to get as far as you have, you must be good enough.
You will be vulnerable in the viva. In a way, you have to be.
Your examiners have to ask you questions. But they are carefully asking questions. They’re not trying to hit a weak spot; they have to ask you questions, they have to listen to your responses, there has to be discussion. In doing so, they may hit a weak point, either in your work, your knowledge, your understanding or something else. But that’s not their intent.
You have to put yourself in a position where you’re open to questions. You have to put your thesis out there so that it can be questioned.
You can’t be invulnerable. You have to be vulnerable. For some people that’s one of the scariest things you can do.
What can you do? Acknowledge it, but don’t just worry about it. Work on it, maybe work through it. You can’t build a suit of armour that covers you, but you can – through preparation – make a more confident way of being open to questions and discussion.
A sappy rhyme
A silly card
Could never really say…
So little time
Easy or hard?
One important day!
A great big book
A lot of work
And now it comes to this…
Another look
No way to shirk
A date you cannot miss!
A thousand days
Or maybe more
And by that time you’re steady…
So many ways
And none a chore
And then you can be ready.
It’s not easy
You could worry yet
But you’re a survivor.
This poem’s cheesy
But I’d bet
That you’ll pass your viva.
It’s not one in a million, Cupid’s Arrow, or a lightning bolt that doesn’t strike twice.
Consistently you’ve done good work. You can do that one more time for your viva.
You might not love it, but you’ll survive it!
The success you’ll find in your viva is cumulative. It’s built on top of everything you’ve done over the last few years.
It’s not an all or nothing, once-in-a-lifetime event. You’re there because of every little thing (and quite a few big things) that you’ve done well, got right and been amazing at over the course of your PhD.
Find your confidence for your viva in all of your other successes that have come before.
It’s awards season. Great movies, shows, actors, directors, writers are all in competition. Five great people are up for this award, who will win?! Ten movies could all get that award – except, they can’t, only one can. Not just the best, but the best of the best.
Of course, PhD candidates don’t compete that way, not for their viva, not for their PhD, but language and mindset creep in.
You have to be better than good, better than great, you have to be perfect, you can’t make mistakes, you can’t go blank, you can’t slip up, you have to be better than anyone else!!!
To which I say, simply: no.
For the viva, for your PhD, you only have to be good. You have to be your best. Everything else is doubt and worry. We can’t sweep it away by saying “don’t worry.” You don’t have to focus on it either. Be your best. Be as good as you’ve become by the end of your PhD. Keep going.
And eventually, cross the stage and claim your prize.
If you feel good about your viva, ask yourself, “Why?”
If you feel nervous about your viva, ask yourself “Why?”
If you feel forgetful, ask yourself “Why?”
If you feel excited, ask yourself “Why?”
Different emotions seem good or bad when you think about your viva. In all cases, unpick them a little. However you feel, think about what you need to do next. You may not be in total control of how you feel, but you can do something. You might not need to change anything, but maybe you can add to how you feel.
Good and ready.
Nervous, but confident.
Forgetful, but prepared.
Excited and grounded.
So how do you feel? Why? How could you add to that in a positive way?
Our washing machine broke a few months ago and blew a fuse. The power was off all around our house.
In the moment, I knew the sort of thing I needed to do in our fusebox, but couldn’t tell which fuse had gone. It took a little experimentation (and a call to my father-in-law) before I figured out what needed to be done. Ten minutes later the lights were back on.
You might know the sorts of things you need to do to get ready for the viva, but not which specific things will help you feel ready. You might know you need to do something, but not know the thing that will help you feel confident.
So pull some levers. Flick some switches. Press some buttons.
Try things: reading, annotating, presenting, rehearsing, priming, deciding on what you will wear… The list of things you could do to get ready for the viva is long. You don’t need to do everything, but if you press enough buttons you’ll figure out what helps you feel and be ready. Press enough buttons and you’ll feel confident for the viva.
Press enough buttons and the lights will come on.
When I was a mathematician, some of my colleagues said maths research was like sculpture. A big block of stone was chipped away at until you had the art you were trying to make. You have to start with everything and keep working until you have the proof you wanted.
I was always fond of that analogy, and of the two philosophies that followed. One mathematician might say they were really creating the maths and results. Maths is an act of creation. Another mathematician would say the maths was already there, hidden, waiting to be revealed. In this way, maths is an act of discovery. I loved hearing different takes on this, and personally, when it comes to maths I’m on the side of discovery – the ideas are out there waiting to be found!
I’ve heard similar thoughts and feelings from people in other lines of research too. Often though, I notice people enthusiastically discussing this topic but missing something fundamental. Creation or discovery don’t happen by accident, only through work. Whether you create an equation or discover it, you do the work.
Whatever you have in your thesis, whatever kind of research you discuss in your viva, it only happens because you did it.