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Tag: viva preparation

Nathan

Once & Many

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There are valuable viva prep tasks that only need to be done once…

  • Sticking tabs in place to find the starts of chapters in your thesis;
  • Underlining typos;
  • Taking part in a mock viva;
  • Reading your thesis – although it’s fine to re-read it, of course!

…there are valuable viva prep tasks that help you by doing them many times…

  • Reflecting on how you’ve got so far;
  • Exploring your research in conversation with friends;
  • Finding useful ways to remind yourself of your talent;
  • Raising your confidence!

…there’s a limit for how much viva prep work you can really do, and a balance to find with everything you’ve done before and everything else you need to do now.

Find a balance that works for you.

Nathan

The Power of Prep

Daily Post

It won’t make you perfect.

It won’t mean you’ll get no corrections.

It won’t mean you’ll be blank-free in the viva, or that it’s impossible you’ll be stumped.

It doesn’t come with anything like a guarantee.

But it means that, for a small investment of time, you are as ready as you can possibly be to meet your examiners and talk about your work with them. You’ve taken the time to boost yourself, not better yourself. You already know everything you need to know, you can already do everything you need to do.

This is the stretch before the race, or checking your lines just before you walk on stage.

The little extra that helps you get the viva done.

Nathan

Out Of Your Comfort Zone?

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I know what makes me feel uncomfortable. Sometimes it’s possible to avoid things outside of my comfort zone; I’m self-employed so I have a certain degree of control about the kind of work I do, or the conditions I work in. Sometimes stepping out of my comfort zone is necessary though. For those situations I’ve had to figure out how I can best proceed; I’ve figured out how I can make the most of those situations even thought they’re not comfortable.

In some cases, like public speaking, I’ve even come to like something that was previously way out of my comfort zone!

It’s useful to figure out your comfort zones so you can work well, and especially useful for PGRs nearing the end of the PhD process. If the thought of the viva makes you feel uncomfortable then I think the best thing you can do is stretch yourself in advance. Stretch by presenting, by discussing, by working to build your confidence. Find more ways to practise, even small ways to get more experience and learn what you can do to make the situation better, more comfortable. Like me, you might even find a way to make the process more enjoyable for you.

Perhaps your viva will be closer to your comfort zone than you expect.

Nathan

Ready!

Daily Post

Not just prepared for your viva.

Not just OK.

And not “not too nervous…”

Ready!

How would that really feel? What would you have done to be ready, do you think? How long would it take? When would you start before your viva?

What do you need to do to get ready?

Nathan

Needing A Mock

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You don’t need a mock viva. You need practice for the viva, a rehearsal space to think and respond like you might do in the viva. You don’t need a mock viva, it’s just one of the ways that you could rehearse.

You don’t need a mock viva, it’s just supposed to be like a real viva, with substitute examiners who will be well-placed to ask you relevant, helpful questions to give you a sense of kind of discussion that arises in the viva. You don’t need a mock viva, there are lots of ways to get help, but given that it’s supposed to be like the viva it could be a really useful opportunity if you have the chance.

You don’t need a mock viva, you need to be ready: a mock is a means to an end, not the end itself. There are other things you could do that would help.

But if you have the chance, a mock viva could be exactly what you need. A small, self-contained piece of preparation. A boost to confidence, to awareness, to expectations. A chance to rehearse and build. A chance to get ready.

You don’t need it. But it might help a lot if you have it.

Nathan

Do Less

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Viva prep is less.

Less reading than when you were researching.

Less writing than when you were writing up.

Less thinking than when you were figuring things out.

The viva is a fraction of the time you’ll spend on getting ready, and viva prep is a vanishingly small period compared to the months you’ll put into your PhD. Perspective matters. You need to get ready for the viva, but the real work that helps you pass has already been done.

Nathan

Move Past Mistakes

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Typos catch the eye. Muddled words bring distraction. Mistakes do matter, but for the most part only because they’ll be one more thing on the list of corrections.

When you see them during your prep – because it is when rather than if for the majority of candidates – make a note in a useful way for you, then move past them. Focus on what matters more. Focus on the stuff that your examiners will really want to talk about: your contribution, your choices, your knowledge and what makes you a capable researcher.

Contribution matters more than corrections.

Nathan

Ten 5-Minute Viva Prep Tasks

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A half-hour or hour of viva prep doesn’t have to be spent with your eyes glued to the pages of your thesis. Yes, you need to read, and yes you need to spend time on slightly longer, considered tasks – but short activities can be useful too. A few five-minute tasks spread between longer pieces of work can add to your sense of being ready.

Small things add up. Here are ten ideas for five-minute viva prep tasks:

  1. Reflect on a key reference for your thesis and write a paragraph about why it helped your work.
  2. Think and write down three questions you’d like to ask your examiners (and make a note of why for each).
  3. Record yourself (either audio or video) responding to the question, “What are you most proud of in your research?”
  4. Write about a tricky challenge you overcame. Why was it tricky? How did you resolve the situation? What did that help you to do?
  5. Search through your thesis for five pages/points that are great; put a Post-it Note or bookmark with all of them so you can find them again with ease.
  6. Record yourself responding to the question, “What do you not know about the viva process that you think would help?”
  7. Click the random Viva Survivors post link five times to get five random pieces of advice/help/perspective!
  8. Record yourself responding to the question, “What do you hope your examiners ask you about?”
  9. Make a list of five things you could do on the days leading up to your viva to help you feel confident.
  10. Take five minutes to listen to or watch one of the recording tasks from above.

More time-intensive tasks are required to build up your preparation for the viva. Smaller tasks help too. Think about how you can use your time well to increase your readiness for your viva.

(and contrast with 1-minute viva prep tasks!)

Nathan

Viva Prep & Focus

Daily Post

Viva preparation helps you to change focus from the kind of work needed to get you to submission to the work needed to get you through the viva.

Is it ready, how much more, did I tweak that change that get it right…

Rush and overtime, a few more days, got to get it done get it done get it done done done

Prep, and the viva, require a slower pace. Nerves or anxiety come from the viva being important: rushing, continuing to try and get everything “right” is only going to compound nerves.

Use your viva prep time to change your focus. Slow down. Take your time. Read your thesis, make some notes, practise a little, remind yourself of your accomplishments and abilities.

Change your focus from rush to ready.

Nathan

More More More

Daily Post

I don’t remember a lot of the day-to-day life of my pure maths PhD now. I remember little sparks, breakthroughs, and the feeling of being “in the zone” while trying to figure something out.

I also remember, as my PhD went on, the growing feeling that there was always more I could do.

There were more ways to apply the ideas I had developed.

There were more papers to read to find more methods for exploring my field.

There were more questions to ask, and more answers to be found – more to explore.

Even though of course there was a limit to how much I could accomplish throughout my PhD, there would always be more things I could do. And in preparation for my viva, while I invested a lot of time, I could have done even more. I could have spent thirty minutes more each day, an extra day of reading papers or an afternoon checking over the details of a chapter.

I think this generalises further: even with time pressures, life pressures and so on, candidates have to recognise that there will be more things they could explore or do than they have done; however much time they spend getting ready there will be more that they could do which would help them.

And we all have to take a deep breath at some point and say “No. This is enough.” You have to find a way to do that for your research and your thesis. For your viva prep, making a list in advance of what needs to be done could be helpful. Break down what will be enough for getting ready, then work towards it.

There is always going to be more, and there also has to be enough.

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