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Tag: viva expectations

Nathan

People Like Us

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Seth Godin, one of my favourite people in the world, defines culture as people like us do things like this.

It’s helpful to unpick who “us” is and what “this” is in the context of viva prep.

  • People like your examiners do things like prepare well for your viva.
  • People like your institutional staff do things like provide helpful resources and sessions to help you get ready for your viva.
  • People like your supervisors do things like offer mock vivas and perspectives to help you prepare.

When we consider the bigger culture of the viva and the people like you, the people who have a viva, there are some really big cultural “this”-points to recognise too.

  • People like you do things like succeed at the viva.
  • People like you do things like prepare well for the viva.
  • People like you do things like staying determined, becoming knowledgeable, developing their abilities and building their confidence.

People like you do things like succeed at their viva – then go on to even better things.

Nathan

Questioning Difficulty

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A simple distinction for the viva: your examiners might have difficult questions for you but they’re not asking them to be difficult.

Difficult questions naturally follow your work. They come from doing something original. They result from writing a book and needing to explore it deeply. They follow the challenges of your research into the particular challenge of your viva.

Neither your external or your internal is purposefully asking difficult questions to make you sweat, to make you worried, to tear your work apart or to bring you down. The viva is not a hazing ritual you have to get through before you’re allowed to call yourself Dr.

Expect difficult questions at your viva – not difficult people.

Nathan

A Chance For Final Changes

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Most PhD candidates are asked to complete corrections as a result of their viva.

They’re not a mark against the candidate. Corrections result from the fact that writing is hard and writing a book is very hard.

Most candidates get corrections. It’s likely you will as well. After the viva you have a chance to make final changes before your book is finished forever.

Thank your examiners for their time and observations. Do the work. Then move on.

Nathan

Behaving As Expected

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PhD candidates can get a sense of what to expect for their viva from reading their institution’s regulations, learning about general viva experiences and asking about recent vivas in their department.

Together these create expectations.

Some expectations will be really clear, like knowing the people who will be examining. Others will cover a range of possibilities, like expecting the viva to be longer than two hours. Some aspects may be unknown but a candidate can still get a sense of the situation: you might not know the first question but will still have an idea of what examiners typically ask.

Viva expectations prompt behaviour. This sort of thing will happen so I will do this to be ready.

Consider what you know about the viva and how that can help you as you prepare.

Nathan

Supervisor Support

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Talk to your supervisor around submission time to get a sense of how they can support you when you prepare for your viva.

Your supervisor is best-placed to offer advice and perspective as you get ready. You might not need a lot from them. Maybe you want a mock viva. Perhaps they can share some thoughts on your examiners or the general process of vivas.

Whatever you need, you can be sure that they are busy. They’ll want to help but will only have a limited amount of time to do so and a limited availability as well. So talk to them at submission to get a sense of what they can do, when they can do it and how you’ll make it work.

Nathan

Red Flags

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Are there any red flags for examiner selection? Are there people I should try to avoid?

Let’s start with a caveat: there are people in every sphere of life who build up a clear reputation for behaving badly. In academia, these are the people who everyone knows at conferences as making long self-serving comments rather than asking questions after seminars. Perhaps they’re known for arrogance or for being thoughtless and rude.

People like this have a Semaphore Guilds-worth of red flags around them.

Clear signs of this behaviour are worth avoiding if possible – if asked for examiner suggestions by your supervisor – so that you can avoid the possibility of that behaviour in your viva.

 

Beyond that: I can’t think of any real red flags that people have shared with me or from the general expectations and patterns of viva life.

Anecdotally, new academics could be more thorough in the viva. They may ask more questions if it’s one of their first times acting as an examiner. That’s not bad: they’re trying to do the job well. It’s not a reflection on you or your thesis. A longer viva could simply be a little uncomfortable by the end.

Beyond bad behaviour there are no real red flags unless they’re personal ones. Maybe you would prefer someone you’ve cited; a personal red flag would be someone who has no direct contact with your research. Or perhaps you want someone who could be a future collaborator. A red flag would be someone who might not connect well with your future research goals.

You don’t get to choose your examiners. You might be able to make suggestions to your supervisors. It’s worth considering who would be a good choice if you do have the opportunity – and what might be a red flag for you.

If you have red flags, who might that exclude from a list of potential examiners? More importantly, who might be a good choice for you?

Nathan

Escape The Room

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We’ve become a little obsessed with puzzles and escape rooms in our house. It’s odd because we’ve not actually visited a real-life one yet!

My family has been enjoying mystery and challenge programmes that involve escape rooms, as well as video games and board games that have layers of puzzles. We can’t get enough. A visit to a real world escape room is somewhere in our plans for this year.

 

I was reflecting on this yesterday and it made me think of the viva and some questions I’ve been asked in the past:

  • How can I make my viva shorter?
  • What can I do to answer questions quickly?
  • How can I steer my examiners away from topics?
  • If I write a shorter thesis does that put a limit on the length of my viva?
  • Seriously, what can I do to make my viva only an hour?!

In all of the many themes for escape rooms I wonder if anyone has done a viva-themed one?

There are lots of verbs I would associate with the viva, but escape isn’t one of them. You can’t make your viva shorter; you can make it better. You can take your time to respond well. You don’t need to give quick answers: you need to give good responses.

Your examiners can’t be steered. They have things they need to explore with you and that’s that. Work towards giving good responses. And of course, there’s no data that suggests a shorter thesis leads to a shorter viva!

Engage with your viva rather than try to escape from it. Worries about doing well are valid, but try to invest your energy in being great instead of getting away.

Nathan

Almost Zero

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Viva failure is exceptionally rare.

I’ve asked graduate schools, doctoral colleges and doctoral training programmes: they consistently tell me around one in one thousand vivas result in failure. That’s not zero, but I think we can reasonably deduce a few things:

  • The vast majority of PhD candidates meet the requirements, both in their thesis and themselves, in order to succeed.
  • The regulations and patterns of experience at the viva result in success (whatever shortcomings they might have).
  • However people prepare – whether they read a blog, buy a book or attend a webinar/workshop – they do enough to help themselves succeed.

If candidates reflect on their journey they’ll appreciate they’ve done enough. If people read the regulations and ask about expectations they should find information that helps. If they ask for advice or help with preparation then they should be able to figure out what to do (and do it).

Could things be better? Most likely! It would be great if all candidates enjoyed their viva experience. It would be great if the culture around the vivas was less opaque and mysterious so people knew more of what to expect.

All of that said: do the work, ask for help, take time to get ready and there’s almost zero chance that you’ll fail.

Nathan

Other Vivas

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Every viva is unique. Every viva is similar and different to every other viva. Vivas follow patterns. Vivas are not mysterious but you don’t know what will happen until you get there. Expectations are not guarantees.

Hearing about someone else’s experience at the viva can help you to understand what yours might be like. Learning about what happens generally can help put some parameters on what you can reasonably expect for your own.

But finding out that a friend didn’t enjoy their viva doesn’t mean that you won’t enjoy yours. Discovering that a group of friends all had long vivas might set some expectations with you, but doesn’t provide guarantees.

Finding out about other vivas is useful but only part of the process of getting ready. Read the regulations, ask your friends and colleagues about what happened and then use that information to help you as you prepare.

Your viva will be the same as many others and also different from every other viva. You can still be ready to meet your examiners and succeed on the day.

Nathan

The Flow of Discussion

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It’s important to remember that the viva is a discussion.

The viva is not a quiz, not an interview, not a question-and-answer session. Your examiners have notes and questions and plans – but no script. There is no big sheet of things to tick off.

Questions and comments are prompts. They are a means to get you to talk. They help you find your way through and help your examiners see what they need.

Questions are not skewers! Comments are not automatically criticisms!

The discussion in the viva flows from your examiners: most of the questions will come from them. But that still leaves room for you to ask questions. There’s space for you to dig deeper too.

And even if the discussion does start with your examiners, where do their questions come from?

From your research, your thesis and ultimately from you.

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