Daily viva help for PhDs
Your viva isn’t a day just like any other.
It’s unique to you, but it will be similar to a lot of other vivas.
Check the regulations, talk to others about their experiences and ask your supervisors for their thoughts on what to look out for. Focus on what you can prepare for, rather than worry about what you can’t control.
It’s a big day: important now, but only one important day in your life.
You can’t be perfect. You can be prepared.
Help yourself by switching your goal for the viva. Move away from wanting “nothing to be wrong” and work towards “being ready and confident”.
No-one has a perfect viva. Everyone can be prepared for their viva.
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.
Viva preparation starts after submission, but the right questions – asked in advance – can help you submit well and set up your success in your preparation and viva. Before submission, ask your supervisors the following and build on these in discussion:
These questions will not paint the whole picture for your thesis, your preparation or the viva. They will be a good start. You can trust that your supervisors want you to pass, and want to give you appropriate assistance.
Use these discussions to help your submission and state of mind as you head towards the viva.
So many people told me this about the viva before my own, or have told me since about theirs. For most people it’s the simplest way to say something about their viva. But there’s no detail, and in the absence of information, doubts and worries can creep in and play for future candidates who simply hear, “It was fine”…
If you want to find out about vivas, ask for details. You don’t need a minute-by-minute breakdown. You need more than “fine” to make a useful set of expectations and banish worries.
If you’re asked about your viva, give details. Tell candidates how long it was, what surprised you, what questions stood out, what the process was like.
Show them it was fine, don’t simply tell them it was.
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!
Early last year, I was sharing my Viva Survivor session to a dozen people in large room. It was a cold day outside but a warm room thanks to the heating. The session got off to a good start after introductions and sharing the outline, and I was moving on to the first topic.
I’d not been talking for long, when a tremendous noise started up from the windows at the far side of the room. Really loud, regular banging, like construction workers fixing scaffolding. After a minute we all realised it couldn’t be that, it was going on for too long. So we looked around outside for the cause of this terrible banging but couldn’t see anything. With nothing in sight and nothing to do we just tried to ignore it.
I presented for another hour before our break. The noise was still going. My voice was hoarse and all our ears were aching.
So I went to check and couldn’t see anything again. And it was only then that I realised that the noise sounded like it was coming from outside…
…but was actually coming from near the windows. From the radiator. A regular banging noise was vibrating outwards from the radiator, shaking the metal window frames.
And was silenced by turning a valve on the base of the radiator’s pipework. The room laughed and cheered! Then we all groaned as we saw how simple the solution had been; we could only have resolved it when we knew the real problem.
Keep this in mind for your viva: if your examiners have a criticism, or think there is a problem, make sure you know what it is before you start to respond. Ask questions to get more information or to find out their reasons. Sometimes you might know what to do. But other times you might need a little more to then simply turn the valve off at the base of their concerns.
The viva isn’t a one-way Q&A. Engage with your examiners to respond to all of their questions as well as you can.
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.
You have no choice about having a viva or not. No real choice about who your examiners will be. No choice about how they feel or what questions they ask. No choice about how much time you’ll have after submission to prepare. You probably have no choice about how a question will feel when it’s asked.
But you can choose to submit your thesis. You can choose to think about potential examiners and give suggestions to your supervisor. You can choose to prepare, you can decide how you’ll spend your time. You can choose your mindset. However a question feels you can choose to answer as best as you possibly can.
You can choose to go to your viva as ready as you can be.
Make your choice.
“What’s the best time of day to have your viva?” Some candidates want to know!
My answer always comes in two parts.
Part One: Anecdotal pros and cons. Vivas usually have to finish by 5pm at the latest, so a morning viva could be longer in principle than an afternoon viva. But you can start earlier and don’t have to be nervous all day. An afternoon viva could be shorter, but you have longer with butterflies in your stomach. There’s a trade-off maybe, but it’s purely anecdotal.
Part Two: The timing of your viva may not be within your control. A morning or afternoon viva has no special impact on the outcome of the viva. There are far more important things you can focus on. How will you prepare? What do you need to do? What is your contribution? How can you help yourself feel confident? Much more important questions for you to consider.
Look for answers to your questions about the viva – ask me, ask your supervisor, ask colleagues about their experiences – but don’t forget that some questions, answers and responses may be more useful than others.