You Are Here

Tag: viva expectations

Nathan

Expectations, Not Guarantees

Daily Post

Vivas aren’t a great big unknown. There are patterns of experience: for example, they tend to be two to three hours in duration, often begin with similar opening questions and typically result in minor corrections.

Yours will be unique though. It will probably fall within a range of expectations. It won’t be totally unknown or unanticipated, but you won’t know what will differ or how it will differ until you experience it.

Your viva will be unique, not unknown. You have to balance what you learn about viva experiences with the knowledge that yours won’t be quite the same. You can have reasonable expectations, but no guarantees of what yours will be like exactly.

Listen to stories, read the regulations and build up an idea of what a viva is like. Prepare for the general event. You don’t have to be prepared to hit a single target: you can be ready for whatever presents itself when you meet your examiners.

Nathan

The Last Time

Daily Post

Maybe your viva is the full stop on your research. Maybe it’s the final occasion where you will really have a conversation about what you’ve done.

That’s OK: a PhD is a big, important thing but it can be seen as a stepping stone. Maybe a stepping stone to a career in academia or perhaps a stepping stone to cross the river out of research and into something else.

Even if you have plans to continue the viva really is the last big challenge of your PhD journey. Corrections take time, but they’re not generally a big deal. This is it. This is the last time before you move on to whatever you’ll do next.

So make it count.

This last hurrah, the last time to share your work, defend your ideas, expand on the contribution you’ve made and what it really means to you. Don’t rush it, don’t put pressure on yourself. Go and make it great.

Nathan

Five Questions About Your Examiners

Daily Post

When you’re certain of who your examiners will be for your viva, ask five questions about them.

  1. Have you cited either of them in your thesis?
  2. What do you know of your internal’s recent publications?
  3. What do you know of your external’s recent publications?
  4. How well do you know them by reputation?
  5. Given their interests and research, what do you think they might want to explore from your thesis in the viva?

Of course, these questions invite other questions. If you’ve cited them, how have you cited them? What connections exist between your work and theirs? If you read their recent papers, what is familiar to you? What might you need to know more of?

And so on, and so on – but you don’t need to exhaustively check your examiners. Knowing a little about them helps you to engage with them in the viva.

Ask yourself a few questions about who they are, what they do and what all that means. That’s enough.

Nathan

That’s Just What Happens

Daily Post

If you open a cafe then you can expect occasional customers who want to make changes to what’s on the menu. They’ll ask for toast instead of bread, or wonder if you can take the tomatoes out of the salad.

That’s just what happens.

If you live near a primary school then you’ll come to expect that twice a day a lot of children and their adults will be moving through the area. Twice a day there will be more street noise and the roads will be more difficult to cross.

That’s just what happens.

And if you pursue a PhD, stay determined through years of work and produce a thesis, then you can expect that a couple of academics are going to want to talk about.

You could reasonably expect that, at your viva, you will get questions about what you did. Questions on anything and everything because your work is important. Your research makes a difference and that – among many other things – is interesting to the two people who will take on the role of your examiners.

More than anything, questions and discussion are what you can expect from your viva. That’s just what happens.

Nathan

Doing More

Daily Post

At the viva you’re doing more to tell your examiners about what you’ve done, how you did it and who you are. You’ve set that out in your thesis but now they need more from you.

They need you to do more to clarify what you did.

They need you to do more to explain what it means.

They might need you to do more to convince them of an opinion you hold.

They can ask you to do more to tell the story of why your research makes a contribution.

Whatever they need you to do, however, it’s more of what you’ve already done. Doing more is showing your knowledge, your ability, your thinking and all-round capability as a researcher.

It’s only a little more though. That’s all you need and all your examiners need for this final challenge.

Nathan

Only You

Daily Post

Remember that your viva comes as a response to the work you’ve done. There may be regulations for thesis examination and ideas for what makes a “good viva” but yours is just for you, based on the thesis you’ve written.

Because it follows your work it’s a challenge that only you can rise to – and because it follows your work it is a challenge that you will rise to.

Nathan

Short & Sweet?

Daily Post

Some vivas are less than an hour!

But you can’t realistically expect yours to be.

You can hope, but what does that do for you?

It’s much better to prepare for your viva and the discussion, rather than invest energy in hoping it will be over quickly.

 

PS: Something else that’s short and sweet is my helpful little guide, 101 Steps To A Great Viva! It’s on Kickstarter until Wednesday 31st May, raising funds to produce a print run. That goal has now been reached and I’m aiming a little higher so that all backers get a bonus resource for viva prep. You can find more details at this link.

Nathan

What You Expect

Daily Post

Every PhD candidate has expectations for their viva.

Some expect it to be long. Some believe it will be difficult. Some expect that examiners will be harsh. Other will expect that it’s all a formality. And some don’t know what to expect – or rather, they expect that there’s nothing to expect in particular!

But some candidates expect that it will be challenging but fair. They expect examiners to be thorough but reasonable. They have an expectation for how long it will be and what the tone will be like, but know that they won’t know exactly what it will be like until they’re actually there in the viva.

So what do you expect? And how do you know your expectations are reasonable?

Every viva is unique, but that doesn’t mean your viva has to be a total unknown before you go to it.

Nathan

Bit By Bit

Daily Post

Idea by idea. Paper by paper. Day by day.

There’s no other way to put your PhD together than keep showing up, good days and bad, and work your way through. Learn more, do more, achieve more and find your way to becoming a good and capable researcher in your field.

When the time comes, this approach is what helps you prepare for your viva too. There’s no single activity that flips the switch to “ready”.

And, really, it’s how you get through the viva too.

Question by question.

Chapter by chapter.

Response by response.

Minute by minute you demonstrate the capable researcher that you became bit by bit.

And that’s enough.

 

PS: I almost called this post “Step By Step” but thought that was too close to the title of 101 Steps To A Great Viva, still going strong on Kickstarter! The overall idea is still the same: it’s not one thing that makes you ready, but enough steps in the right direction can make a real difference. Check out 101 Steps To A Great Viva now and you can pledge support to be one of the first with a copy of the guide.

Nathan

Risky

Daily Post

Are there risks of danger, problems or disappointment in the viva?

In general when we consider risk it’s worth assessing three elements:

  • The Bad Thing: the problem or outcome you’re concerned about.
  • The Likelihood Of The Bad Thing: an honest assessment of how certain The Bad Thing is to happen.
  • The Potential Impact Of The Bad Thing: an honest assessment of what might follow if The Bad Thing happens.

So, for example: your examiners find a typo. That’s very likely in a book with tens of thousands of words, but it wouldn’t have a great impact on your success or the work needed to correct it.

Or: your examiners could find a section in your thesis that they don’t agree with. There’s a fair chance of that happening when considering new and interesting research. The impact could be an in-depth discussion of the points in the viva or perhaps a request for certain amendments to your thesis.

An extreme example: it’s possible to fail your viva. That would have an enormous negative impact in many ways – but it isn’t very likely at all. It’s a very rare situation.

If you think or feel something about a potential Bad Thing, ask yourself how likely it is. Ask yourself what might happen. Then consider what you really need to do in response, either to reduce the chance of it happening or lessen the impact if it does.

1 … 27 28 29 30 31 … 106