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Nathan

Find Your Music

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Find a piece of music that makes you feel happy. Find a piece of music that lifts you up and makes you feel like your best self.

Find a way to make sure that you have access to that music in the days leading up to your viva. Perhaps make sure you have a way to listen to that music on the day of your viva.

There are many ways to build confidence and how positive you feel about your viva. Consider how you prepare, what you wear, what you listen to.

You need to find what you need to help you feel how you want to feel about your viva. None of it is magic – sometimes it’s music!

 

PS: here’s my music, in case you’re curious.

Nathan

Good Preparation

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Viva prep is the work you do to help yourself feel ready. It’s a set of relatively simple tasks and activities like reading your thesis, rehearsing for the viva, making summaries. There are a lot of options for how you can approach things and when you combine all of the work together it’s relatively small in comparison to the rest of your PhD.

What helps make viva prep good?

You do.

 

As you begin, think about your situation: your work, your responsibilities and your commitments. How can you plan to do your viva prep in a way that won’t overload you?

Think about how and when you will get your prep done: what can you do to make that time effective? What can you do to work with the amount of energy or focus you might have available?

Explore your own preferences: if you need to read your thesis, for example, how will that work well for you? Will you read it for a chapter per day for a week? Will you take an afternoon to read it all?

 

There are specific tasks that help someone get ready for their viva. How you do the work, when you do the work and the circumstances you create for that will show you how good that preparation is. Good viva prep doesn’t follow a masterplan for all candidates. Good viva prep is personal: shaping the tasks to your circumstances and doing it with as little stress as possible.

Nathan

Positive Prep

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If viva prep feels like a grind and a bore then you need to change how you’re approaching it.

It’s not that it should be FUN or that you should perform a series of fist pumps every time you read your thesis, but it will help you to feel ready and confident for your viva if you have a positive association with your prep, your research and your thesis.

If prep feels like a grind and a bore then perhaps you could try some of the following:

  • Can you switch to a different task for a day or two?
  • Can you change the time that you’re doing viva prep work?
  • Can you move to a different space to get the work done?
  • Can you ask for help from someone?
  • Can you bring a little fun to the process?
  • Can you motivate yourself with a small reward of some kind?

Any positive connections you can find will help. What can you do to help you get your viva prep done in a positive way?

Nathan

Resolving Viva Problems

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Hope for the best, plan for – well, let’s not say the worst! However, sometimes the best doesn’t happen and it helps to have a way to tackle problems while you’re getting ready for the viva.

  • Maybe you read something that causes you to pause. Maybe you find a mistake in your thesis.
  • Perhaps an examiner cancels or has to postpone. Perhaps you encounter an issue with your own availability.
  • Or it could be as simple and difficult as nervousness, anxiety, worry or concern for what might happen when you get to the viva.

Problems come in all shapes and sizes. It’s very hard to remove the possibility of all problems occurring. Even so, keep in mind that whatever problems come your way you can always do something to help your situation.

Whatever problem you face as you get ready for your viva, ask yourself three questions:

  • Why is this a problem?
  • How could you improve the situation?
  • What will you do?

Asking why explores the reason for the problem. Asking how explores your options for tackling it. Asking what gives you a way forward.

These questions might only be the first step to clearing a problem aside, but that might be enough to help you past the situation and closer to being ready for your viva.

Nathan

Hope Helps…

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…but actions help more.

It’s good to hope you pass your viva and it goes well. It’s not wrong to hope that your examiners have nice questions for you. It’s pretty understandable to hope you get no or few corrections.

After that you have to do the work though, just as you have for the rest of your PhD.

Prepare well. Read up on expectations and who your examiners are. Be prepared for the real possibility of making corrections to your thesis after the viva.

Hope that your viva is a good one – then work towards being at your best for the viva.

Nathan

Where You Prepare

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For viva rehearsal activities you might need to meet others in offices, seminar rooms or cafés. However, for most viva prep you’ll likely be working by yourself. What kind of space will help your viva preparation?

Think about your preferences. Think about the practicalities of the situation. When will you do the work? How quiet do you need it to be? What resources do you need? Consider your options and choose the one that will work best for you. Can you do something to meet your needs even more?

Where you prepare can make a difference to how you prepare. Make a good space for where you’ll do your viva prep.

Nathan

Final Words

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The viva is not the only time in your life when you will have a big, important conversation about your PhD. It might be the final time though and it will be your only viva. As you prepare, take some time to think about how you can get as much as you need to from the experience.

  • How would you like your viva to conclude?
  • Are there specific questions you want to hear from your examiners by the end?
  • Is there an opinion you’d like to make sure you take time to ask for?

You might not be able to direct your viva but there are aspects you might be able to influence. If you have questions, make a list and take them with you so you remember to ask them.

Nathan

A Changing Why

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Why did you want to do a PhD?

Why did you want to explore the topics or projects you did?

Why did you keep going even when your PhD journey was hard?

Why did you want a PhD still when you were finishing?

Your examiners might not ask you directly about why you’ve been doing a PhD, but motivations are worth reflecting on before your viva. The reasons you started and kept going might change.

It helps to remind yourself why you did all this work, either to help with sharing things with your examiners or to keep you motivated for the final weeks of your PhD.

Nathan

Thinking In Advance

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Creating summaries as part of viva prep helps you to gather useful thoughts. A summary is a chance to focus and gives you space to think in advance of the viva.

Write an overview of your thesis and you bring together a lot of helpful information.

Make a list of what you’re most proud of and you highlight ideas to share with your examiners.

Prepare a summary of your research methodology and you bring together valuable points.

Do any or all of these, or create any kind of summary, and you’re not creating a script to read from in your viva. You’re doing some of your thinking in advance though: you’re helping yourself to pre-consider topics you might need to engage with when you meet your examiners.

Nathan

Always Something You Can Do

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These words sum up part of my general philosophy for PhD candidates at and before their viva.

There is always something you can do.

Before the viva if you feel nervous, anxious or worried, there is always something you can do to improve how you feel. If you are concerned about a particular aspect of your research and how to communicate it then will be something you can do to help yourself.

If you don’t know something about the viva process then there is something you can do, someone to ask or regulations to read. You can always do something to help your preparation, even a little more, right up to the moment you go to your viva.

In your viva, whatever happens, there is always something you can do to engage with the discussion. There is always something you can do to help how you’re feeling in that moment. There is always something you can do to respond well.

You can pause. You can think. You can take a sip of water. You can ask for a break. You can ask for clarification. You can write a note. You can work something out. You can check your thesis.

And you can be brilliant. That’s what you have to be to get to your viva.

There’s always something you can do – and actually there is a lot you can do to help yourself, whatever the situation.

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