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Tag: viva preparation

Nathan

The Overview

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It’s reasonable to expect your examiners to ask you to summarise what you’ve done. It’s a fairly common opening question. Given that a thesis could run to many tens of thousands of words it’s probable your examiners would want you to be concise in exploring or explaining what you did.

Being asked to give an overview, either of your thesis, your research or your results, shouldn’t be too taxing for you. Over the course of your PhD you will have spoken about your work many times and given “the short version”. You will have written about your research in lots of ways. There’s lots of practice and material in your mind to draw on when you get to the viva.

A little more rehearsal won’t hurt you though!

In the weeks leading up to your viva consider what you would typically say if asked to summarise your work. Perhaps write it out or record yourself and reflect: Does this really capture it all? If there was one thing to add, what would it be? Find a good opportunity to run it past your supervisor or a trusted friend and get their opinion.

If asked to give an overview or summary in the viva, there’s no way you can tell your examiners everything that might be possibly relevant. A little rehearsal before the viva can help you be sure that you’re giving them enough.

Nathan

Solving The Prep Problem

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I’ve loved maths since I was a child and first realised the wonder that 4 times 6 was the same as 6 times 4. My love sent me on a journey that lead to a PhD in pure maths. A lot of specific technical knowledge and talent has been vacated over the last thirteen years to make room for other things in my brain, but I’d like to think that the maths mindset has never left me.

There’s a shorthand that a lot of people use when they think about maths – “it’s all about getting the right answer” – as if that’s always simply one thing. Different problems lead to different solutions though; in some cases the “right answer” is really a whole collection of things, a solution space.

It’s the same sort of thing with the problem of “how to do a PhD well” or “how to prepare for a viva”. Neither has a right way. There are lots of possible solutions that might work for someone.

The solution space for viva prep is huge:

  • You could spend an hour every day between submission and the viva, doing something purposeful to help you get ready.
  • You could do nothing, no further work after submission.
  • You could read your thesis the day before and leave it at that.
  • You could read your thesis every day and try to impress it all into your brain.
  • You could read lists of questions and try to figure out what to say.
  • You could cover your thesis in notes and helpful marks.
  • And you could do combinations of all of these – and even more.

Time is a variable, confidence is another – though it’s much harder to measure – as well as access to resources, personal needs and circumstances. All these variables, and more besides, have to go into the equation for how to prepare, when to start, what to do and everything else involved in viva prep.

 

But… One thing I know about the maths mindset, or how I tend to think about things, is that it is easy to overcomplicate things. To try and factor in everything, or solve the biggest, grandest problem – when actually, there are much simpler ways to look at things, or even to consider just parts of the problem. For starters:

  • To get ready for the viva, to begin with, you need to have read your thesis. So do that.
  • It could be helpful to find out more about the viva. So make a note of when you’ll read the regulations.
  • You need to decide if you want to ask for a mock viva. So have a think, and ask or not.

I try to think about the Big Problem Of Viva Prep For Everyone. You only need to think about the little problem of getting yourself ready. It’s much simpler, and you can probably identify all the variables with ease.

Take a look, and then solve for you.

Nathan

One Bite At A Time

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“How do you eat an elephant?” One bite at a time…

It’s an old joke or proverb, depending on how you look at it, but there’s certainly wisdom as well as eye-rolling.

You could never have done your PhD in a week. It takes years of slow, patient work. Learning, discovering, growing. You eat away at the problems of your research one bite at a time.

Getting ready for your viva is similar, but on a shorter timescale. A day of cramming is inferior compared to a few weeks of small tasks, getting ready by nibbling away at a finite to-do list, bit-by-bit. Confidence builds in the same way.

Slow, careful ways that lead to success.

Nathan

Little Things, Big Differences

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I’m still not going to reveal my secret bread recipe, but I’ll share some of the little things I’ve learned that help me bake a good loaf:

  • Blending different bread flours gives a better flavour than just having one type.
  • Ratios really matter! It took time, but I found that a strict connection between quantities of flour, yeast and oil really help. For every 100g of flour, use 2g of instant yeast and 5ml of olive oil
  • Knead less, prove more.
  • Longer proving in general seems to lead to better flavour. Dough that rests in the fridge overnight nearly always tastes better.

Whatever the recipe, for whatever the situation, tinker with the little things. Tinker, repeat and see what happens. The big ingredients or steps can take you so far, then the little things help you find big differences after that.

 

Back to your PhD and your viva.

What little things did you try in your PhD? How did they help? Where did you see great gains for trying small changes? And how could those small changes help you now in your viva?

What small things could you do now that might make a big difference for your viva?

Nathan

Saving For A Rainy Day

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That’s one way you could look at your PhD and the viva: throughout all of the reading, research and writing you’re storing up exactly what you need for when you sit down with your examiners. Whatever they bring your way, whatever “rain” comes from them, you’ve saved up enough to get through.

On the one hand, there’s some truth to this. Over the course of your PhD you will have saved up enough to be able to pass through the challenge of your viva.

On the other hand…

Whoever said that a rainy day had to be hard, or that a challenge couldn’t be enjoyable?

Why can’t it be true that you spend three or more years building yourself to be who you need to be for the viva – and then arrive to find it a good experience in it’s own right?

Nathan

Must-Have Annotations!

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Everyone is talking about them for Summer 2021! Your thesis is the must-have accessory for your viva wardrobe, and can be accessorised itself, in so many wonderful ways:

  • Strategic Post-it Notes to show the brilliant beginnings of chapters or index the important points you have to show-off!
  • Highlights are in this season: references, typos, key passages. Whatever matters most to you needs to stand out!
  • Marginalia matters too, and whatever you add to the borders of your thesis pages really helps to emphasise your own style – and your research!

Yes, this post is aiming to be both playful and serious. Memorable I hope, and an encouragement to think about how you can make your thesis more helpful for the viva too.

And, maybe, more fabulous!

Nathan

Lazy Viva Prep

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My favourite teacher in high school, Mr S., used to have a set of “laws” on his wall. First among them was a lazy mathematician is a good one. He would repeat and explain it a lot, because he didn’t mean we shouldn’t do any work!

His point was that a good mathematician knew lots of methods so they would know how to solve a problem with the least effort. A lazy mathematician would find only the answer they were looking for, and not waste time on other details. A lazy mathematician would think first and recognise what they needed to do before starting to solve an equation or draw a graph. Consequently, a lazy mathematician might seem to start slow, but would probably finish quickly.

For similar reasons I think that viva prep needs to be “lazy” too.

When getting ready for your viva, don’t do what you don’t need to do. Stop and consider the outcome you’re working towards before you get going. Reflect on your skillset and knowledge before committing to a hectic schedule of reading, writing and thinking. What tasks and practices do you really need to do?

You need to be ready for your viva, not ready for anything.

Nathan

Ready Means…

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…you did the work.

Not just the prep but all the work before that too.

You did the research. You wrote your thesis. You earned and achieved your way to submission.

You took time between submission and the viva to read more, check more and do more to be sure you were talented.

Ready means you’re probably still nervous but confident anyway; polished but not perfect.

Ready means you’ll go to your viva and pass.

Any PhD candidate can be ready for their viva, and that means you can be too!

When it’s time, go get ready.

Nathan

Responses to Classic Questions

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“How do I get ready to answer classic questions in the viva?”

I’ve been asked this many times over the last decade – I’ve met over 5000 candidates in seminars and webinars, so there’s a lot of questions I’ve been asked more than once!

First, we have to dismiss the idea of “classic” or “common” questions. There are topics that frequently come up, like summarising research or being able to talk about methods or conclusions. Questions vary a lot though, and that’s before we account for every thesis being unique. You can’t prepare a response for every question that could be asked. There’s too many!

It’s far better to think of preparation for questions as being ready to participate in the viva. So what can you do to get ready?

  • Find opportunities to talk about your work.
  • Be ready to explain why you did it, how you did it, what happened as a result.
  • Be willing to explore what you know, what you did and what you can do as a researcher.

You don’t need rehearsed answers to “classic questions” – you need the confidence to respond to whatever your examiners ask. Finding opportunities to talk with others and share what you’ve done can be enough to build that confidence.

Nathan

The Whys of Prep

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Read your thesis to refresh your memory, not commit it to photographic recall.

Make notes in the margin or highlight sections to make things stand out; don’t seek to find problems or more to add to your thesis.

Read recent papers or your examiners’ publications to build your competence, not to expand your bibliography.

Have a mock viva to rehearse for your own, not to predict or perfect your approach.

Preparation is not about perfection at all. It’s about finding confidence in what you’ve done already; being sure that you’ve already reached a point where you are good enough.

Lots of work, a little prep and you are ready for the viva.

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