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Nathan

This Is More Of A Comment

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Listen to any comments, especially in the viva.

There might be a question underneath.

The question might be in the comment. It could be a challenge, but that challenge might be a small thing that only needs a small response.

It could be the question comes from you. It could be you listen to your examiner’s comment, and you ask a question to bring that thought into the discussion more. You can find out more, get a sense of why this comment is important to your examiner. Then you’ll see what you need to do to say more.

Or you might listen and realise it’s just a comment.

An idea, nothing big, serious or scary. Just a thought, an “I wonder…”

Something to acknowledge, but nothing to do.

Nathan

8 Things You Need To Know About The Viva

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I ask people at the start of Viva Survivor sessions what they need to know about the viva. I ask if they have gaps of knowledge, worries about what might happen or vague hypotheticals.

I’m happy to answer anything and everything that candidates want to talk about. Recently, a participant in a session turned the question around on me: what did I think people needed to know?

It’s a good question. Here’s my answer:

  1. The vast majority of candidates pass the viva. This doesn’t “just happen”…
  2. …candidates pass the viva because of what they’ve done, what they know and what they can do. Perfection is not the goal or expectation. Candidates must necessarily be really good at what they do to get to submission and the viva.
  3. Examiners will be prepared, and that’s a good thing. They’ve read your thesis, made notes and thought a lot about questions; that’s far better than the alternative!
  4. Examiners may have challenging questions, but they ask them with respect for you and your work. They’re not there to interrogate or tear work apart. Questions can be challenging, but that’s due to the nature and standard of the research involved.
  5. There are broad expectations for what the viva is like. These aren’t secret.
  6. Most candidates get some form of corrections. You probably will too. Examiners recommend them to help make the best possible thesis submission.
  7. The viva can be prepared for. You can’t anticipate and have model answers for every question, but by preparing well you can be ready and confident to answer any question that comes up.
  8. The viva might be the final test, but it’s not the only test. You’ve invested a lot of time and energy into your PhD: the viva is not the only milestone you’ve passed. You’ve consistently applied yourself and achieved. The viva is one more time you have to meet the standard.

And that’s what I think candidates need to know about the viva.

Nathan

Not The Point

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Sir Ken Robinson’s work on education and creativity has changed the world. His TED talks have been seen by hundreds of millions of people, and his words, ideas and humour have impacted so many more. His first TED Talk, “Do schools kill creativity?” was a revelation to me when I saw it for the first time, shortly after I finished my PhD. I’ve listened to it so many times since then that I think there are parts I could perform if I were of a mind to.

I was listening to it again the other day, when a passage jumped out at me. From the transcript:

If you were to visit education as an alien and say “What’s it for, public education?” I think you’d have to conclude, if you look at the output, who really succeeds by this, who does everything they should, who gets all the brownie points, who are the winners — I think you’d have to conclude the whole purpose of public education throughout the world is to produce university professors. Isn’t it? They’re the people who come out the top. And I used to be one, so there.

And I like university professors, but, you know, we shouldn’t hold them up as the high-water mark of all human achievement. They’re just a form of life. Another form of life.

And of course he’s right, the point of education isn’t to make university professors. There are important elements in any system or idea. They might be crucial, but they’re not the point. In many situations we often mistake something important for the point.

Yes, the viva is important, but it’s not the point of the PhD process.

Nathan

What Matters

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An incomplete list of what matters about you, your PhD, your thesis and your viva:

  • That you did the work;
  • That you put the time and effort in;
  • That you feel reasonably confident for the viva;
  • That you prepare for the viva;
  • That you have examiners who have done their prep;
  • That you have done something meaningful;
  • That you have talent and are a capable researcher in your field.

An incomplete list of what DOESN’T matter about you, your PhD, your thesis and your viva:

  • That you do or don’t have a certain number of publications in print or forthcoming;
  • That you have decided to stay or not in academia after your PhD;
  • That you feel nervous;
  • That you have typos in your thesis;
  • That you will get corrections in your viva;
  • That you haven’t read everything in your field;
  • That you don’t know everything.

In my experience, sadly, candidates pay a lot of attention to the second list but mistakenly think that the items either matter a lot or are problems that have to be solved.

Which list will you focus on?

Nathan

Putting The PhD Together

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The process of doing a PhD is like doing a really hard jigsaw when you don’t have the picture to start with.

It takes time to get going. You have to find the corners, establish your boundaries, and make sure that everything fits in place.

Progress can be slow for a long time, but you start to see patterns, and slowly the gaps are filled.

When you’re done you might have ideas about what you could have done differently – but you don’t need to do them. You have what you need, and it works or you wouldn’t have the picture that you do.

The viva is telling someone about the jigsaw; they don’t have to go through the same process, but they want to know what yours was like, and what the picture was that you got at the end. Take time to think back over how you did it and what you got, so you can be clear with your examiners.

Whatever you ultimately feel about your picture, remember that your PhD jigsaw wouldn’t be finished if it wasn’t for your efforts.

Nathan

Edge Cases

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The vivas that take place over Skype.

The third examiner in the room, or the second external.

The examiner that isn’t an academic.

These aren’t what most candidates would expect, but they don’t make your viva unique and unpredictable. Your viva is unique because you’re unique, your thesis is unique – no-one will ever have the exam that you do. If you have a viva over videoconferencing, or if your examiner doesn’t have a PhD, you shouldn’t worry. These things don’t happen all the time, but they aren’t happening for the first time in your viva either.

They’re not common but the edge cases still have expectations. You can ask and find out about them.

Nathan

No Spoilers!

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A few weeks ago I was patiently (at first, then impatiently) waiting for Avengers Endgame to be released at the cinema. Tickets booked, clock ticking down in my brain to when I could go and find out what happened. I expected that the heroes would win, but was desperate to know how…

…but not so desperate to read any reviews or leaks or spoilers. That would be heresy. I wanted to be as spoiler-free as possible. The trailer might have shown me some odd sequences, made me wonder, “Well, how did they get to there? And who are they talking to? And…” but that was just to whet my appetite.

There are no spoilers for the viva, of course. Unlike a movie it can’t be spoiled by someone telling you what happens in advance because it’s not happened. It’s not a spoiler to know you’re very, very likely to pass.

A spoiler would be knowing what questions were going to be asked, or what your examiners exactly thought in advance. And I think those would be spoilers: they would spoil the conversation, the viva would be less of a test of your talent and more a test of your memory. A viva spoiled like this would be a sad conclusion to a PhD journey.

Thankfully, there are no spoilers at all for the viva. The hero of the story will win. We might not know exactly how, but there are some pretty good reasons why…

Nathan

Formally Informal…

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…or Informally Formal?

How do we classify the viva?

  • Are there regulations that spell out that the viva is relaxed and has a format which allows for variation?
  • Or is there an understanding among everyone involved that this is serious, but that the rules are agreed on by the “community” rather than someone at the top?

Which is it? Could it be both? Or neither? Does it matter?

I think what matters is that candidates check the regulations, find out about experiences and expectations, then think about what they need to do to meet them. The classification for how formal the viva is or isn’t is just one more piece of baggage, that doesn’t help unless we know what’s really involved.

Nathan

Begin With The End In Mind

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I love that expression, but find it hard a lot of the time to put it into effect. Very often I’m in the middle of something before I realise the end that I’m looking for; I’m working on something I find interesting and then see what it needs to be (or what I want it to be).

I think most PhDs don’t know what the end of their research or the end of the PhD will be like until they’re somewhere in the middle. That’s fine too. You don’t need to start preparing for the viva until you’ve submitted, but once you have a sense of what you’re aiming for you can begin to steer yourself in that destination.

  • You can think about how to make your thesis better. How can you communicate your research? How can you anticipate the needs of your audience? How can you structure your thesis well?
  • You can find out about the viva. What are realistic expectations? What are the regulations for your university? What are vivas really like?
  • You can think about what you need to be ready for the viva. What little steps can you take? What do you need to do? What would a confident you look like?

You don’t need everything all at once. You don’t need to start preparing for the viva until your thesis is done. But once you know where you’re going you can start to lay the foundations for the end of your PhD.

Begin, in the middle, with the end in mind…

Nathan

Wants & Needs For The Viva

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Wants and needs are two different things, but they can be easy to confuse.

  • You might want to submit a perfect thesis, but that’s impossible. So think, what does your thesis need to have?
  • You might want the best possible examiners, but they might be busy. What do you need in a good examiner?
  • You might want to be 100% free of nerves for the viva, but how likely is that? What do you need to do to be as ready as you can be?

As your PhD comes to a close, it’s not wrong to think through all the things you want – for your thesis, for your viva prep, for the viva itself – but make sure you ask yourself, “What do I really need to do this?”

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