You Are Here

Tag: viva experiences

Nathan

If Things Go Wrong

Daily Post

There’s a chance that something could go wrong before, during or after your viva. It might a small thing, but if something does go wrong:

  • Stop. Ask yourself why this thing is wrong.
  • Ask yourself if you can solve this yourself. Or is better to seek help from others? Depending on the situation it could be your supervisor, director of postgraduate studies, Graduate School staff or your examiners.
  • Do something. Whether it’s the answer to the problem or a first step, you have to do something. You’re the person who has to take action.

You might feel nervous, unsure, concerned, confused or even angry if something goes wrong in and around your viva. Any of those and any other feelings are perfectly understandable – but they can’t be the end of it. You have to do something.

Stop. Ask yourself if you can solve the situation yourself (and if not, find someone to ask for help). Then do something.

Because that’s the only way that problems around your viva can get resolved.

Nathan

Expectations, Not Guarantees

Daily Post

Vivas aren’t a great big unknown. There are patterns of experience: for example, they tend to be two to three hours in duration, often begin with similar opening questions and typically result in minor corrections.

Yours will be unique though. It will probably fall within a range of expectations. It won’t be totally unknown or unanticipated, but you won’t know what will differ or how it will differ until you experience it.

Your viva will be unique, not unknown. You have to balance what you learn about viva experiences with the knowledge that yours won’t be quite the same. You can have reasonable expectations, but no guarantees of what yours will be like exactly.

Listen to stories, read the regulations and build up an idea of what a viva is like. Prepare for the general event. You don’t have to be prepared to hit a single target: you can be ready for whatever presents itself when you meet your examiners.

Nathan

The Last Time

Daily Post

Maybe your viva is the full stop on your research. Maybe it’s the final occasion where you will really have a conversation about what you’ve done.

That’s OK: a PhD is a big, important thing but it can be seen as a stepping stone. Maybe a stepping stone to a career in academia or perhaps a stepping stone to cross the river out of research and into something else.

Even if you have plans to continue the viva really is the last big challenge of your PhD journey. Corrections take time, but they’re not generally a big deal. This is it. This is the last time before you move on to whatever you’ll do next.

So make it count.

This last hurrah, the last time to share your work, defend your ideas, expand on the contribution you’ve made and what it really means to you. Don’t rush it, don’t put pressure on yourself. Go and make it great.

Nathan

Before You Forget

Daily Post

There will be congratulations after your viva, from examiners and others, telling you how well you’ve done, how great you are and starting the necessary celebrations for a wonderfully big and amazing thing!

And before the celebrations really start to happen, take five minutes to make some notes. Grab a piece of paper, divide it into four and quickly jot down some thoughts:

  • What was the viva like for you?
  • What did your examiners ask?
  • What did you enjoy?
  • What corrections stand out to you?

Five minutes, four questions and one important task to complete before you forget. Those four questions and the notes you make could be a big help to you in the weeks that follow – or to others in the years afterwards.

Take the time to write a few things before you forget.

Nathan

Short & Sweet?

Daily Post

Some vivas are less than an hour!

But you can’t realistically expect yours to be.

You can hope, but what does that do for you?

It’s much better to prepare for your viva and the discussion, rather than invest energy in hoping it will be over quickly.

 

PS: Something else that’s short and sweet is my helpful little guide, 101 Steps To A Great Viva! It’s on Kickstarter until Wednesday 31st May, raising funds to produce a print run. That goal has now been reached and I’m aiming a little higher so that all backers get a bonus resource for viva prep. You can find more details at this link.

Nathan

What You Expect

Daily Post

Every PhD candidate has expectations for their viva.

Some expect it to be long. Some believe it will be difficult. Some expect that examiners will be harsh. Other will expect that it’s all a formality. And some don’t know what to expect – or rather, they expect that there’s nothing to expect in particular!

But some candidates expect that it will be challenging but fair. They expect examiners to be thorough but reasonable. They have an expectation for how long it will be and what the tone will be like, but know that they won’t know exactly what it will be like until they’re actually there in the viva.

So what do you expect? And how do you know your expectations are reasonable?

Every viva is unique, but that doesn’t mean your viva has to be a total unknown before you go to it.

Nathan

The Whispers

Daily Post

There are lots of whispers, rumours and half-truths about the viva.

…I know someone whose viva was almost a whole day…

…I’ve heard the internal barely says anything…

…why do we have to have them, what’s the point, most people pass anyway…

…don’t get corrections, they’re the worst, try to avoid them…

…you just have to hope it all goes well…

Make sure when you ask your friends for advice that you look for views not wholly skewed by worry, apocryphal stories and negativity.

Start with a solid foundation that isn’t built on whispers.

Nathan

“It Just Was”

Daily Post

Why was your viva so long?

I’ve been asked many times before about why my viva was four hours long, but the question surprised me at a recent webinar. I’m not sure why. Perhaps it had been some time since the last asking, or maybe I had something else on my mind that day. But I was prompted to a little bit of reflection.

Now, I’m not my examiners and I don’t have their perspective why my viva was four hours. I can only share what occurs to me and what I think. To begin with, I had a thesis describing six projects; they were all in the same area but about different ideas. That meant that we had to keep going back to square one with explanations as we talked about the thesis.

I also had some issues with presentation. While my examiners accepted my contribution, they were less happy with how the thesis was structured. Information didn’t flow in some places. In others it just didn’t meet their discipline expectations. We had to talk about that and about the corrections that would follow.

Just over halfway through my total viva time we had a break of about ten minutes, but I didn’t really notice that the time had passed. And at the time I didn’t have any awareness of typical viva lengths, what vivas were like and so on. I don’t really know why my viva was that long. It just was.

 

When someone asks about my experience, I think they’re really asking, “Why might my viva be four hours long?” – and that’s a much bigger question.

It could be that you have lots of projects – or just lots to talk about. It could be that there are issues like I had, with presentation or structure or clarity. It could be that your examiners need to unpick something to fully understand it.

Or it could be that everyone in the room is just really engaged by the discussion and they want to keep talking.

Four hour vivas are rare, all things considered. Don’t expect yours to be, but if it happens to be that long it’s not necessarily for any bad reason at all.

Nathan

Hole In One

Daily Post

You might have a viva that’s finished in an hour or less, but it’s not very likely. You can hope, but that’s about all you can do.

Instead of hoping you get some rare occurrence, why not focus your energy on something that could help you more in your viva?

Read your thesis. Write summaries. Rehearse for the discussion. Do the work to be ready for what happens, rather than hoping you get a rare, short viva.

Nathan

Patchwork

Daily Post

Every viva is different because every thesis and candidate are unique. Your thesis and experiences will to some extent ensure that your viva is different from every other viva before or after yours.

Every viva follows patterns because of university regulations, general expectations and departmental norms. There’s a patchwork of rules and ideas for what a viva is supposed to be like that gives every viva some structure. Taken together, each of these elements tells a candidate roughly what to expect: how long it might be, what kind of questions could come up and what the experience might feel like.

The more you stick pieces together, the better informed you can be and the more ready you can make yourself – while understanding that you won’t really know what will happen until you get there. The patchwork of regulations, expectations and norms helps you be ready for whatever happens.

1 … 6 7 8 9 10 … 27