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Tag: viva confidence

Nathan

7 Confidence-Boosting Questions For The Viva

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Confidence isn’t like flicking a switch. Confidence has to be fine-tuned by practice and experience. Confidence in your own ability can be dented by the importance of a big event (like the viva) and the nervousness that can come with it.

While I don’t recommend trying to “hack” your confidence or fake it, if you feel you need something to boost your confidence you could start with some of the following questions:

  1. What have you done well during your PhD?
  2. What skills or talents can you see improvement in?
  3. How did you find your biggest results?
  4. When have you been at your most confident as a researcher?
  5. What music helps you to feel happy?
  6. What could you wear to the viva to help you show your best self?
  7. Who could give you positive feedback to help boost your confidence?

No tricks, no hacks, just questions. The answers might help you find a little more confidence for the viva.

Nathan

Make Your Jar Of Awesome

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A Bank Holiday PhD Craft Project.

You need a jar, some small pieces of paper and decorations: fun stickers, labels and so on.

Stick a label on the outside that proudly says, “I, Future Doctor insert last name here, am Awesome!”

On the pieces of paper write things that have been awesome during your PhD so far, one thing per slip. When have you succeeded? What have you done that has been cool? When did you get the right answer? When did you master a skill or process? When did you make a breakthrough? When did you do something well? When did you feel proud?

Put all the slips in the jar, and put the jar somewhere prominent in your workspace.

From now on, when you do something awesome, write it on a piece of paper, add it to the jar and shake it up.

If you find yourself having a tough day, feeling unsure, losing confidence – particularly close to submission or the viva – take a slip out to remind yourself how great you are.

Because you are great. You have to be, to be doing this.

You don’t get to submission and the viva without filling your jar full of awesome.

(big thanks to an idea I read in Tim Ferriss’ Tribe Of Mentors for this post!)

Nathan

Stories & Statistics

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Both have a place in shaping your expectations of the viva.

Stats can give you an outline, a pencil drawing that is a reasonable shape of the viva experience.

Stories can help to colour in that picture, give you details to help you see what vivas are like and how they feel.

Both have a place: your outline might vary a little, you might paint with different colours, but listening to stories and putting them together with the statistics for viva experiences should give you a useful blurry picture for your viva.

Squint and maybe you’ll see your future! Ask for advice, ask to hear about experiences, and then see how they make sense with where you are. No-one needs to go to their viva with a blank page for expectations.

Nathan

Manage To Keep Going In Difficult Circumstances

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You can survive the viva, but you don’t just survive the viva.

“Manage to keep going in difficult circumstances” suggests someone has been doing this for a while.

“Manage to keep going in difficult circumstances” tells you someone has experience.

“Manage to keep going in difficult circumstances” is encouraging, not overwhelming.

“Manage to keep going in difficult circumstances” is honest, but not the full story.

Surviving doesn’t just happen in the viva: you survive because of the knowledge, skill and experience you take to the viva.

Nathan

Upgraded

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The viva at the end of the PhD is a unique set of circumstances in your doctoral journey – but there are other events like the viva.

Most candidates will have had to pass a transfer or upgrade viva at some point (for full time candidates this is often around the end of the first year). In some institutions and departments this might be like a mini-viva, testing everything that you’ve done to that point in a similar style to the end of the PhD viva. In some places, the transfer viva is more like a simple conversation.

(I remember two defining questions from mine: “What have you done?” and “Are you happy?”)

Your transfer viva might only have a superficial resemblance to the main viva, but you must have passed it to get to submission. That counts. You were upgraded.

And you must have answered difficult questions in meetings, after conference talks and while you were doing your research. You upgraded then too.

A lot of focus is given to your thesis and research, but it is worth remembering that a far greater output of your PhD journey is you.

A new you, a more talented, more knowledgeable, more capable you.

Upgraded.

Nathan

You Know Enough

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Before your viva remember:

You don’t know everything.

You can’t know everything.

You’re not expected to know everything.

But you know a lot. You know a lot more than when you started.

You know enough.

Nathan

The Last Thing

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One of my favourite questions to ask final year PhD researchers is “What’s the biggest challenge in the way of you finishing?”

It’s good to focus. It’s good, even if it is something scary, to get it out in the open. Once it is acknowledged, it can be worked on. Once you’ve said, “This is the biggest, most important thing I still have to do,” then you can start to plan what actions need to be taken. Maybe you won’t work on it every day, but you know what your biggest priority is.

It could also be a good way to frame your viva preparation.

Maybe, “What is the most important thing I need to do before the viva?”

Or, “What is the biggest gap in my preparation?”

Or, maybe try asking yourself, “What’s the best thing I can do to continue my success?”

Nathan

Confidence Through Practice

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As of last week I have delivered my Viva Survivor session 217 times. More than fifty of those were in 2018!

I feel confident with the session and how I deliver it partly because of the number of times I’ve done it. I rehearse things, I get to try things out, I get to play and tinker – I’ve got hundreds and hundreds of hours of doing it, thousands more thinking about the session and getting ready, doing things like this blog and so on.

I use this as an example in Viva Survivor when talking about confidence.

Confidence really can come through practice – not simply repetition, but deliberate practice, trial and error, learning, getting results, having setbacks, pushing on… My confidence with Viva Survivor is unshakeable.

You might have one mock viva before your real viva. You can’t have two hundred but you will have hundreds of good days of practice as a researcher. Hundreds of days of building your talent while you produce a thesis.

Find your confidence in all of the good work you must have done to get to submission.

Nathan

The Centre Of Attention

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In the viva, it’s you. Your work is what’s being discussed, but you did it. You’re the topic of conversation.

How do you feel about that?

At a recent Viva Survivor session, a participant told me that he was sure about his work, confident in his ability, but he felt really uncomfortable being the centre of attention. That feeling can be hard to shift. There’s no magic solution; a well-intentioned “don’t worry” won’t solve the problem.

Maybe a change of language could help: instead of “I have to be the centre of attention” maybe “I get to be the centre of attention”. Your viva isn’t just happening, it’s happening for a reason, because you’ve done something good.

Maybe practice could help: find opportunities to put yourself in the spotlight. A mock viva. Give a talk. Invite a group of friends to come for coffee and ask you all about your work. Get more comfortable.

Trying to live with discomfort won’t help. Trying to just not worry is no good. You have to do something.

Think and change your perspective. Act and change your perspective. Pick one or do both.

Nathan

Standards

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There isn’t a standard viva format.

There are reasonable expectations, but no guarantees.

Probable durations, but very long and very short outliers.

A range of possible first questions, but no certainty for the exact start of your viva.

There’s no standard format, but there are standards: standards for your examiners, standards for the process, standards for what a good thesis might be like.

Be confident that you meet the standard for a good, talented researcher.

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