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Tag: viva experiences

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

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

Not To Plan

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Vivas have institutional regulations, general expectations and local norms from recurring practice within departments all over the UK. Together these describe a picture of what any candidate can reasonably expect. The picture is a bit blurry in places but there’s a reasonable sense of what a viva is supposed to be like.

Individual candidates can have logistical expectations too. Examiner A and Examiner B are nominated and approved. Date and location are set. Preparations are completed, confidence builds and all is right with the world.

 

Then something happens.

In spring 2020 that something might have been a sudden shift to a video viva.

Or an examiner having to postpone or cancel the week before viva day.

Or through miscommunication it could be that the start time is not what was expected.

When things don’t go to plan, as viva expectations of all kinds collide with viva reality, what do you do? What can you do?

 

You ask for help. Whatever is driving the change of plans you ask for help, because it won’t solely be your problem to resolve. Talk to your supervisor, your director of postgraduate studies or someone in your graduate school. There will be a friendly face. They will listen. They will help.

The change will then become part of your expectations. A new examiner. A new date. A short delay or a moment or two while you adjust to a different video software.

Remember: things don’t have to go completely according to plan for you to succeed at your viva.

Nathan

Preparing For The Unknown

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Your examiners will have a plan for what they want to talk about at your viva.

This isn’t a script. They’re not asking a set list of questions like a questionnaire. They’re using pre-prepared questions and points to prompt the discussion.

You might have some expectations. Based on past experiences of talking about your work or because of your research you might think, “I’ll probably be asked about…” or “I’ll bet they want to talk about…”

It’s reasonable to have hopes or expectations, but you still won’t know until you get to your viva and it’s happening. There’s lots you can do to be prepared for the unknown though:

  • Talk to friends about their experiences.
  • Talk to your supervisors about viva expectations.
  • Reflect on your contribution to think about what examiners might want to talk about.
  • Read your thesis to remind yourself of what you’ve done.
  • Practise for the viva by talking about your work or having a mock viva.

You won’t know what questions will be asked until you get to your viva, but doing any of the above will help you feel a little more ready for whatever questions your examiners do ask.

Nathan

The Right Tools

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What do you need to take to your viva?

  • Your thesis. Annotated in advance, carefully read and available as a resource to help the discussion.
  • Pen and paper. Something to write on and something to write with, according to your own preferences.
  • Water. Something to drink as it’s unlikely your examiners or institution will provide refreshments.
  • Anything else? Depending on your research there might be a prototype or prop that you can show, or some accompanying materials. It depends!

You don’t need much in your viva. You need your thesis and some other basics will help.

The most important things you’re taking are your knowledge, your capability and your experience.

The right tools for the job.

Nathan

Working Out The Odds

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There are lots of statistics about the general experience of the PhD viva – but we can’t combine them to find out the probability of a particular outcome.

Want to know how likely it is you’ll have a four-hour viva with major corrections and three examiners instead of two? Sorry, I can’t tell you and you can’t work it out.

There are lots of patterns of experience. Vivas tend to result in minor corrections. They tend to be longer than two hours. But to combine these and other details meaningfully and make predictions we’d need to know a lot more.

PhDs and vivas are unique: they follow patterns, but are always different. The patterns can show you what you can do to be ready in whatever situation you find at your viva.

You don’t need to work out the odds of success: instead work towards being ready to talk with your examiners and prepared for passing your viva.

Nathan

Hope For Excited

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Hope is what we have when we have little leverage on the outcome.

I encourage PhD candidates to prepare for their viva rather than hope it will just all go well, because preparation leads to a better experience and a better outcome. No candidate needs to hope that they will be ready when they can act to be ready.

You might need to hope you feel excited or enthusiastic for meeting your examiners. It’s rare in my experience that candidates feel that way. I ask candidates how they feel about their viva at the start of every webinar I do and between five and ten percent say they feel excited.

At the end of a session they might say they feel better, but it’s rare that they now feel excited!

 

I know what someone can do to feel ready. I know the kinds of actions someone can take to be prepared. But I only hope that candidates feel excited. Confidence can ward against nervousness, but excitement is another thing entirely.

Maybe that’s something else I can consider in the future: how can you go from confident to excited?

Maybe if more people were excited it would be simpler to build up a positive culture around the viva.

And maybe then the viva would be something that fewer people were worried about.

Nathan

Expect The Expected

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Every viva is unique but no viva should be a great unknown.

Regulations and stories of viva experiences give a shape to the general process; departmental and disciplinary practices give some fine detail to specific viva norms. Taken together these give a general pattern of expectations: you can’t know exactly what will happen, but you can imagine something that the viva will tend towards.

Every viva is different, so you can expect the unexpected – a unique experience – but you can also expect your viva to be like others you’ve heard about in your preparations. You won’t know which details will follow the pattern exactly, or how closely, but unless your situation is very different from every other PhD candidate you can expect your viva to be similar to many past stories.

Every viva is unique but you can expect yours to follow expectations.

Nathan

I Heart Expectations

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Roses can be red,

But can also be blue;

Viva expectations are patterns,

But might not hold for you.

 

Viva expectations tell a story of likely future experiences. Everyone you know from your department is asked to prepare a presentation, so it’s likely you will be too.

Viva expectations are not perfect. Everyone you know may have had a viva of around two hours, but yours is closer to three in the event.

Statistics and stories help. The details can really matter, but the real help comes from looking deeper. Nevermind the first question or how long, what’s the purpose and process at work? What do you really need to do and know?

Nathan

Quizzical

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Some PhD candidates think of the viva as a TV quiz show. How do I know this? Because many, many candidates over the last decade have asked me questions like:

  • How many questions can I get wrong?
  • How can I score highly?
  • Can I pass on questions I don’t know?
  • How big is the thirty-second timer in the room?!

…OK, maybe they haven’t asked that last question! 🙂

But the questions people do ask give a window into how they think of something.

Thinking of the viva as being like a game show, even in some small ways, is not helpful. The viva is not a quiz show. Questions are not only true or false, they’re not multiple choice or needing to remember a fact.

The viva, first and foremost, is a discussion. That’s how you respond. That’s how you engage with your examiners.

Knowing things and being able to share information helps, but be ready for a conversation and not a quiz at your viva.

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