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Tag: viva expectations

Nathan

Success

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What does viva success look like to you? What’s the outcome that will make you happy?

If you set it as getting no corrections, or finishing within a certain time limit there may be nothing you could do to be successful.

If you try to be perfect, responding to questions quickly or with perfect paragraphs of ideas and arguments, you will almost certainly fail.

If you define success as doing your best, being prepared, being switched on and ready to engage with your examiners then you’ll have a goal you can achieve.

You get to choose. What will success at the viva mean to you?

Nathan

Easy Viva, Hard Viva

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Is it better to have an easy viva or a hard viva?

I got this question at one of my final Viva Survivor sessions before my summer break. I have lots of thoughts…

First, the answer really depends on what we mean by “easy” and “hard”. It depends on the candidate and their preferences. If easy means zero challenge, does that mean the viva means nothing really? If hard means almost-overwhelming questions and discussions, does that mean it was fair? And regardless of whether you want or have an “easy” or “hard” viva, there are no guarantees one way or the other…

Around a year ago I wrote a little on this topic (Easy, Hard, Challenging). The final thought from that post seems relevant to the question today:

On the day you could find [the viva] easy or hard, but it will still be a challenge.

It’s still a challenge even if you are necessarily talented.

You don’t know what kind of viva you’ll get in advance. You can know what kind of candidate you are, and rise to meet whatever challenge you find in your viva.

Nathan

Looking Forward

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Think about what might be good in the viva.

  • If you could, what would you like to talk about with your examiners?
  • If you could ask any question, what would you ask?
  • What tone would you want for the discussion?
  • If you could show your examiners your talent, what would you do?

What are you looking forward to? And how could you try to make it happen?

Nathan

Don’t Know, Do Know

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Candidates often worry about “what they don’t know” but frame it as a nebulous fear that waits out of the corner of their eye… What they don’t know is something that examiners do know, and examiners are looking to use that against them perhaps. What they don’t know is unpredictable, unclear and uncertain. That makes it something to be afraid of.

It can seem unclear, but I think we can examine this more clearly by contrasting what you don’t know with what you do know.

What You Don’t Know

  • Everything.
  • What your examiners think about your thesis.
  • What questions they want to ask.
  • What the outcome of your viva will be.

What You Do Know

  • Enough – you’ve read enough papers, done enough work, built up enough knowledge.
  • What you think of your work, what your supervisor thinks of it, what others have told you about it.
  • How to answer questions: you’ve built this talent up throughout your PhD.
  • What the most likely viva outcome is, and why that happens.

Seth Godin has truly timeless advice on this sort of thing: you get to choose which list you focus on.

In this case, the second one is much, much more useful.

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

Exceptions To The Rule

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There are always some. For the viva think of them as exceptions to the expectations…

  • …the six hour vivas, out of the ordinary, but they do happen.
  • …the vivas done over video chat, which don’t happen that often, but often enough.
  • …the vivas where an examiner doesn’t have a PhD, or perhaps where there are two external examiners.
  • …the viva where the candidate is stood for four hours answering questions in front of a blackboard!

That last one was me. Totally unexpected, not unpleasant or terrible, just different. At the time I didn’t have either knowledge or experience to know it was out of the ordinary. I’ve never met anyone else who has stood for their whole viva.

There was a reason for why my viva happened that way: I was asked to give a presentation, and I stayed at the blackboard.

There are reasons for all of the exceptions; they don’t just happen, particular circumstances lead them that way. Not all exceptions to the rule can be seen in advance, but some – like the make-up of your examining group, or being asked to give a presentation, or doing the viva over videochat – can be. In all of those cases, there are rules and regulations for what happens.

Expectations for the exceptions.

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

Viva Dreams, Viva Goals

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What are your viva dreams? What would you really love it to be like?

Two hours or less? Great, smiling faces as you walk into the room? Examiners gushing praise at you? No questions?! No corrections?!

Some of that sounds nice.

But what can you really do about it?

What are your viva goals? What are you practically going to work towards?

Being prepared for the day? Presenting a confident, capable researcher to your examiners? Being prepared to listen and engage with questions? Showing your examiners what you can do well?

All possible.

A dream can inspire and motivate, but could be difficult (or impossible) to work towards.

Set goals instead: figure out what you can do, then make it a reality.

Nathan

No Strangers

Daily Post

There are lots of possible examiner qualities candidates might prefer – an expert, someone you’ve cited, someone relatively new – but all of these are just preferences. There’s no right or wrong preference: it’s just how you feel. Reflect on your preferences and make some suggestions to your supervisor. See which names surface in the discussion.

My only other piece of advice for candidates would be to aim for examiners who aren’t strangers.

Aim for an internal who you have spoken to before. Aim for an external you have met at conferences. Aim for people who aren’t big question marks when you think about them and their work. Knowing even a little about your examiners can boost your confidence a lot for the viva.

Nathan

Everyone Is Human

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No-one is perfect. Everyone can make a mistake.

You can miss a typo in your thesis. You can mis-remember a reference in the viva. You can not-quite-catch the importance of a question.

Your examiners can not-quite-get a concept you write about. They could mis-hear you. They could not recognise a typo as a typo.

And they know you could be nervous. They could be nervous. Exams make a lot of people nervous. That doesn’t mean there is something wrong with you, your thesis or the viva.

Everyone is human. Remember that and you’ll realise that the little human imperfections don’t add up to much compared to the achievement of your research, your development as a person and your talent on the day.

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