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Tag: viva experiences

Nathan

Write It All Down

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Before you begin your viva prep, write down everything you can think of that you need to do. This is before you make a plan. Get down thoughts of any little or big thing. After a few days of letting those ideas breathe you can start to make sense of how and when you’ll get things done.

As you do your viva prep, record what you do. Make a record of your actions, the tasks you complete and the outputs you create. This will help you to see that you are moving forwards to your viva with purpose. You’re not simply passing the time: you’re investing time in helping you pass.

After your viva is done, take twenty minutes to capture your thoughts about what the viva was like. What did you do to get ready? What made a difference? Keep a hold of these as you may have an opportunity to share helpful thoughts with a future candidate who needs a little advice.

There’s a lot to do to get ready for the viva. Take time to write and think, both to help you plan, to keep you on track and to help others in the future.

Nathan

Alright

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Most vivas result in success, the majority result in minor corrections and a fair percentage are only one to two hours long. Questions are challenging but fair for the person who has to respond to them. However:

  • There are also long vivas.
  • There are tricky questions.
  • Some people do get major corrections.
  • And some candidates don’t enjoy the viva process.

What percentages of candidates have these experiences? Which candidates are more likely to have them? I don’t know. It would be almost impossible to say. But I do think if we try to summarise vivas with single attributes we can run into trouble. For example:

  • A long viva could be filled with interesting discussion. Tiring but satisfying.
  • Tricky questions can be fun to talk about or be only one out of hours of talking.
  • Major corrections will take work but will certainly make a thesis better.
  • Not enjoying the process could be for many reasons and would still most likely lead to passing.

I don’t think you can expect your viva to be the most amazing event of your life. I don’t think you can expect that it will be awful either. There’s a range of overlapping patterns of expectations that can guide you to getting ready.

Your viva will probably be neither “good” nor “bad”. Expect that it will be alright and expect that you will be fine.

Nathan

Most Vivas

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Most vivas are not too long. They regularly result in minor corrections. They most often have two examiners, with a possibility for an independent chair as well. The great majority of vivas result in success.

Remember all this, but also remember that your viva will be unique. Your research, your contribution and you are all unique elements to your viva experience.

As you prepare, take time to reflect on what your viva will likely have in common with every other viva. Be sure to focus on what makes your contribution and journey unique too.

Nathan

Crisis

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It feels like something big and earth-shattering has happened at least every few weeks for the last couple of years. The news starts to settle and something else comes up to disturb the peace.

This doesn’t have to be on a global or national scale either. In your daily life you can be upset and off-balance simply because the train is late, you catch a cold or you get sad news. Your short- and medium-term plans can be knocked to one side by somebody else’s change of plans or a sudden change of circumstances.

As you prepare for your viva, take a few small steps to help yourself just in case something was to go a little bit wrong:

  • Find and save emergency contact details for a member of staff who could help (if you had to postpone or an examiner cancelled, for example).
  • Plan your viva preparation with “wiggle room” – in case something disruptive happens.
  • Make as many decisions in advance as you can: what you’ll wear for the viva, what you need to have with you, what you will do on the morning of your viva day.

Build as much certainty as you can and take out small steps to guard against crisis and disruption.

Everything will be alright with your viva, but it might not all be exactly as you imagine or plan!

Nathan

The Final Break

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Vivas often conclude with a short break. Your examiners will need to have a final discussion between themselves to confirm the outcome, maybe to confer on corrections or even check what regulations says about how they pass the decision to you.

These intermissions typically range between five and twenty minutes. This is long enough for a PhD candidate to get really, really nervous: after all, there’s nothing else you can do at this point! No more writing, no more talking, now you’re just waiting for the result!

With nothing else to do in those moments, I’d suggest deciding in advance what you will do to pass the time. You don’t know in advance how long you might have, but you can decide, I’ll go refill my water bottle or I’ll just step outside and feel the breeze.

At the end of your viva, having something to do when there’s nothing else you can do is a really good idea. It’s a lot better than simply waiting.

Nathan

Expectations Are A Compass

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Every viva is unique, but there are enough common experiences that you can help yourself be ready.

It’s like walking through the countryside and you don’t quite know where your destination is. Your travelling companion asks where you’re going and you wave your hand vaguely and say, “Somewhere over there!”

Expectations for the viva give you a compass. Knowledge about viva lengths helps you to prepare yourself for the effort. Understanding the purpose behind questions raises confidence for responding. Expectations help give you direction even if the final destination is a little uncertain.

The more you know about what to expect from the viva generally, the more you can help yourself be ready for your viva particularly.

Nathan

Expect Success

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Expect to succeed at your viva. There’s a variety of experiences, but this one is very, very common.

Expect your viva to last hours. Expect your examiners to be prepared. Expect that you will be challenged by the process. Expect that you will be asked to complete corrections as well!

The vast majority of viva candidates pass. You can only get to thesis submission after years of work, guidance and development. Your research grows because you grow. You make something good in your thesis because you yourself are good at what you do.

Expect your viva will be difficult but expect that you will succeed.

Nathan

Gingerbread Houses

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My wife and daughter love decorating gingerbread houses at this time of year.

Sometimes they’ll work on two houses at the same time, one each. Their houses will be the same structurally with walls and roof baked from the same moulds. They’ll each take their own icing, sweets and chocolates to make their house look special.

A long time ago I made a present for someone at Christmas-time, by taking a gingerbread mould and making the walls out of chocolate. It looked good, but the walls were so thick I felt sorry for their teeth afterwards…

 

All of which makes me think of vivas of course! Vivas follow patterns, the same way that gingerbread houses follow the moulds they’re baked in.

The dough in a gingerbread mix might be more or less well-combined than is typical. An ingredient might be over-represented in sometime or lacking entirely. Gingerbread houses follow patterns in the same way that vivas do. They can also vary wildly based on how people engage with them – or decorate them!

And sometimes they can follow the same pattern but be very different because the ingredients are different, like the chocolate house I made.

Patterns and common expectations still create different experiences. Your viva will be unique, but not unknown.

It’s not hard to get a good sense of what to expect – and expect that your viva will be one of a kind.

My chocolate house from long ago, plus my wife's far better house from that year! A light gingerbread house decorated with white icing and smarties roof, next to a dark chocolate house made from the same mould, decorated barely with white icing, smarties and a stacked cookie chimney
My chocolate house from long ago, plus my wife’s far better house from that year!
Nathan

What’s Bad?

Daily Post

Is it possible to have a “bad” viva?

There are lots of general expectations about the viva process. A reasonable expectation for the duration is two to three hours. There are outliers: it’s possible to be finished in less than an hour, but it’s not a possibility to be hoped for. My viva was four hours and I once met someone whose viva was five hours!

I don’t think my viva was “bad” but can imagine that for another person four hours would have felt like an awfully long time.

Maybe there are certain questions that would feel bad to receive. Perhaps a particular focus by an examiner would be unwelcome. There’s a very remote chance that an examiner could approach the viva with the wrong attitude: looking to find problems or to show off their own knowledge and experience.

That would be objectively bad and it’s very unlikely, thankfully.

 

Most ideas of a “bad” viva are subjective: you have concerns about what could make your viva “bad” for you. If you can name those concerns then maybe you can do something about them.

For example, if a “bad” viva would be one where you forgot things, then you could take steps in your prep to help in case that happened. If a “bad” viva focussed on a particular topic, then you could do extra reading in preparation, or take time to rehearse more for talking about it.

If you have an idea of something that would make your viva “bad”, first check to see if it’s at all likely. Knowing that it probably won’t happen could be enough to help – but if not, consider what steps you could take to help yourself.

Nathan

Together

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That’s how a viva happens: you need to have your examiners there. You can’t do it alone.

Before your viva:

  • Be sure you know who your examiners are and what they have done. Checking their recent papers will be enough.
  • Rehearse for being in the viva with some kind of practice like a mock viva.
  • Check your institution’s regulations and learn about viva expectations to get a sense of the roles of your examiners, their responsibilities and your responsibilities.

You need your examiners in order to have a viva, for the discussion to take place and for your success to be confirmed.

 

PS: One more thing that will help is the Viva Help Bundle – three great resources including a book of the best of Viva Survivors, a guide to 101 actions you can take to have a great viva and a reflective writing game about the PhD journey. The Viva Help Bundle is available at a special price of £6 until November 30th 2023. Please do take a look!

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