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Nathan

After Your Viva…

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…take ten minutes and talk to some future candidates in your department or network. Tell them about your viva experience. Set your focus on sharing what happened and what it felt like.

Share what sorts of questions you got. Share what surprised you. Share anything you can about the flow and format.

Your story is unique, but if more viva stories are shared perhaps the overall perception of the viva will shift a little. It will be less of an unknown. More people will have a sense of what it’s all about.

Share your viva story when you’re done.

Nathan

Average and Typical

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What is an average viva?

I get this question at least once a month. I struggle to answer.

I can’t talk about length, because while there is a skewing towards two hours across disciplines, the range is pretty big. It’s tricky to talk about the exact style of the exam; it is a semi-structured discussion but the nature of questions is going to vary a lot from discipline to discipline.

Examiners will be qualified and prepared, but they might not be experts – depending on your field there might not be an expert who can examine you. I suppose it is fair to say most people find out the result within thirty minutes of the end of the viva (after a short break). Most people are fairly happy with the corrections they’re asked to do.

But what is average?

Can we change the question? How about: what is typical for the viva?

Typically it comes at the end of a successful project. Typically the candidate has spent a significant period of time becoming experienced. Typically they’ve written a good thesis. Typically they’ve continued to build on all of this work in the period leading up to the viva by getting prepared.

There are lots of ways the variety of vivas struggle to come to some average. But typically? Typically, you’re up to the challenge.

Nathan

Story Time

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My sister got me some Story Cubes for my birthday last month. I’d played with some before, but never had a set to call my own. They’re great for playing little story-making games and just generally for helping ideas along.

Last week as I was having a little fun they fell into the following sequence:

My mind jumped to the viva straight away!

PhD candidates spend a long time learning enough to write their thesis. Things are going well, through good times and bad, then they look ahead and all they see is questions coming their way! Questions in the viva, questions about the viva, questions and questions and questions… But help is at hand. There’s lots of support. The end is a happy one.

People look for patterns. We all carry mindsets of what we know or believe to be true. We tell a story based on what we’ve seen before. Even if you have some doubts about the viva, about the process, about how best to prepare – think about what you know from your research. Think about how you got to this point.

Think about your story.

Postscript: I kept playing with the Story Cubes, and this was the next arrangement that came up…

I’m glad this doesn’t tell a viva story!

Nathan

The Knock On The Door Of Room 524

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After my viva I waited in my office for seventeen minutes for the result.

  1. Thirsty. Drink some water.
  2. Hungry. Chocolate! …mmm…
  3. Dazed. Wh-…?!
  4. Puzzled. How has it been four hours?
  5. Tired. Why did I have insomnia last night?
  6. Anxious. What did they think?
  7. Self-critical. Why did I not spend more time on…?
  8. Curious. It’s two in the afternoon, where is everyone?
  9. Confident. I did well, it’s a pass!
  10. Confident………? …….it is a pass, right?
  11. Lonely. It’d be nice to have someone to talk to.
  12. Perplexed. Seriously, how was that four hours?
  13. Exhausted. Three hours of sleep, four hours in the viva…
  14. Confident. (…I think…)
  15. Hungry. …but I should wait until after they call me back.
  16. Shattered. Do I have to celebrate today?
  17. Poised. How much longer until they come and get-KNOCK KNOCK

Those seventeen minutes felt longer than the four hours. And then it was over.

Nathan

Thousands!!!

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There are thousands of questions you could be asked in the viva!

…but you won’t be asked most of them.

Remember: you only have to answer one at a time.

Nathan

Hear

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What’s the probability that you’ll hear one of the following statements said in the viva?

“This is the best thesis I’ve ever read!”

“You should be doing my job!”

“You are one of the foremost minds in the country – nay! The world!”

None of these are impossible utterances in the viva, but they’re pretty unlikely.

What can you definitely hear in the viva? You.

Capable. Knowledgeable. Fully participating in the discussion.

Ready.

Nathan

Event Horizon

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At a workshop in December, a PhD candidate told me he couldn’t see past the “event horizon of his viva.” This put into words, quite beautifully, something I’ve felt for a long time about the important events in my life. Some things seem so massive that they draw you in completely. There’s no escape from thinking about them.

Time and space breaks down at the viva. Perspective gets skewed. The viva feels so big it distorts everything. What can you do as it draws you in?

  • Look back: you’re getting close, but you’ve come a long way to get to these few hours (and must have done a lot to get there)
  • Look forward: make plans for afterwards. Focus on the post-viva reality. This isn’t the end.
  • Look around: there are people who can help you in all sorts of ways, even if that’s just to help you get a bit of perspective.

Steer your focus. The viva doesn’t have to be a black hole.

Nathan

Not The End

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One way to look at the viva is that it’s the end of the PhD. The finish line. The finale. You’ll probably have corrections to do, but in your mind, this is it, the end.

Except… It’s not. Not by a long stretch. Whether it’s been three, four or seven years, all that time has been when you were doing a PhD. The viva is the start of having a PhD.

Being a PhD.

Something to remember.

Nathan

Bad Viva Advice

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Do none of these things.

  1. Ask your examiners, “Did you get the cheque?”
  2. Start with a joke: “Did you hear about the stupid examiners who missed the obvious plagiarism on page 25?”
  3. Shake a Magic 8-Ball after each question.
  4. Humblebrag.
  5. Plead ignorance: “I don’t know how it got in there!” When asked what you mean say, “Nothing! Nothing!”
  6. Preface every response with, “Well I’m no expert, but…”
  7. Sigh a lot.
  8. Ask if you can sit in-between your examiners. Before they answer, pick up a chair and say, “Come on, scooch.”
  9. Red Bull. Lots of Red Bull.

Candidates sometimes worry that they might do the wrong thing in the viva. Common sense rules. You’re going to have a great conversation with experienced academics about your long-term research project. Your instincts won’t lead you astray.

Thankfully there’s not a lot of bad viva advice out there. Listen for the good stuff, run it past your gut feeling. You’ll get it right.

Nathan

The 99th Percentile

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“Excuse me, can you reach that?” Usually, yes. I’m six feet and four inches tall and in the 99th percentile for height in the UK. I didn’t have to work on it much, it just happened.

PhDs don’t just happen. Nobody gets onto a PhD programme, or gets through one, by being lazy or unskilled. You have to know things and you have to do things. Yet you compare yourself to others and you grow to doubt yourself. The viva comes around and you wonder, “What will the examiners think? What will they ask? How will they rate me?”

There’s a background fear in some candidates that examiners are just better. And not in a small way. “Examiners are at the 99th percentile!”

They’re six feet four, looking down on you.

Right?

I’m not so sure. It matters what you measure. Does it matter, assuming that it’s true, that your examiners are at the 99th percentile? Are you being examined on your total knowledge of your field? And if you were, wouldn’t you comfortably be in the top 90% or higher?

And what percentile are you at when it comes to more than your field? Where are you when it comes to you niche? When it comes to your research? Your thesis?

Your examiners may know a lot, and they may have experiences and knowledge that you don’t – but they don’t have YOUR knowledge and YOUR experience, or YOUR considered perspective from years of study.

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