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Nathan

New Viva Preparation Workshop!

Update

Two posts in one week! 🙂

Eagle-eyed visitors to the site might have spotted a new addition to the pages; that’s a link to a description of the Viva Survivor workshop that I’ve been delivering at universities since 2010. I thought it would be useful to make that connection on here – some people know me for the podcast, some people know me for the workshop, now everyone will connect me to both.

I love doing Viva Survivor, and I’ve delivered it to almost 2000 PGRs around the UK. For the longest time I’ve wanted to deliver an independent workshop to PGRs. I plan to keep delivering the session in universities for a long time to come, but I’ve been thinking about new challenges for a while. An independent viva prep workshop that was open to PGRs from any university seemed impossible for a long time until I visited Ziferblat, a really great meeting space in Manchester.

As a result of finding that venue, I present Viva Survivor, a three hour viva preparation workshop in Manchester on the afternoon of June 29th 2016. Full details are at the Eventbrite booking page, but here’s the short version: Viva Survivor is a workshop designed to help PGRs effectively prepare for the viva. If you come then by the end of the session you will have

  • identified what examiners are looking for when they examine your thesis;
  • discussed the many ways that others can support your preparation;
  • explored valuable viva preparation methods;
  • established realistic expectations for your viva;
  • discussed common questions about the PhD viva.

I want to make this an amazing experience: I want people to leave knowing that they are set for the viva, that they know what to expect and what to do. I’m going to be providing excellent supporting materials, including ebooks, print books, handouts and more, maybe a few surprises to make people smile! And Ziferblat is going to be providing an excellent venue and refreshments for the day.

Sound good? I hope so. Please come! More details and booking is on the Eventbrite page; places are limited and while I want to run more of these in the future I have no dates or plans at the moment. Please share this with others, let them know that there is an independent workshop happening to help PhD students prepare for the viva. Come along and meet PGRs from other institutions, find out how to prepare and what to expect.

If you want to know more, then get in touch: drop me an email, tweet at me or leave a comment here! I’ll be posting details about the workshop over the coming weeks, announcing things that I’m excited about. If you want to know more now then please contact me.

Thanks for reading, and if you can, please help me share this exciting new opportunity with others.

Nathan (@DrRyder and @VivaSurvivors)

FYVwordle1

Nathan

Shout-Out: The PhD Vlog Video

Update

Today seems like a good day to do a shout-out for the video that I made with Emma Cole earlier this year. Emma produces the PhD Vlog YouTube channel and has made lots of great videos to highlight what the PhD is like. I think that it’s particularly valuable for candidates approaching the final year; it gives good ideas of the kinds of pressure and work that can affect postgraduate researchers.

We chatted over Twitter when Emma was doing a series on the final 30 days of her PhD, and thought that it might be fun to do a video on preparing for the viva for her channel. As I prepare this post it’s had almost a thousand views, which is amazing. If you’ve not seen the video check it out (below). It’s just under 9 minutes, and we talk through common viva topics, as well as ideas for preparing for the viva.

Oh, and why is today a good day to re-share the video? Because today, unless something technical goes wrong, I’ll be interviewing Emma – now Dr Emma Cole – about her viva for a forthcoming episode of the podcast! Stay tuned to Twitter or subscribe to the blog for alerts.

Thanks for reading!

Nathan (@DrRyder and @VivaSurvivors)

Nathan

The Viva: Who? What? How? is out!

Update

"The Viva: Who? What? How?"

The Viva: Who? What? How? is out now!

What is this?

An ebook. Twenty-seven chapters, nearly 20,000 words, and answers to the most frequently asked questions about the PhD viva in the UK. I deliver viva preparation workshops, and over the last five years I’ve got a great understanding about the questions that distract PhD candidates. This book helps eliminate those distractions.

There are more details below, but if all you want are the purchase links, here they are!

  • In the UK, The Viva: Who? What? How? is in the Kindle Store here.
  • In the UK and around the world, The Viva: Who? What? How? is available from Payhip here.

(more…)

Nathan

Episode 32: Ask an Examiner 1

Episode, Podcast

I’ve had a lot of requests over the past few years to interview someone who has experience as a thesis examiner. It’s not difficult to see why: there are a lot of mysteries around examiners in the viva. Who are they? Why them? How do they approach reading a thesis and examining a PhD candidate?

In the first of a new specials series, I’m very happy to welcome back Dr Katy Shaw, who previously came on the podcast in Episode 10 and Episode 14. Katy has lots of experience as a PhD examiner, so we had plenty to talk about – including lots of useful information for PhD candidates.

Let me know what you think of this episode; I hope to interview more examiners in 2015, so if there are more questions you want me to raise then get in touch: leave comments on this post, tweet @VivaSurvivors or email me!

Thanks for listening! (and reading!)

Nathan (@DrRyder and @VivaSurvivors)

Podcast: Play in new window | Download

Nathan

Fail Your Viva ebook!

Update

As you can see on this page, I have released an ebook about viva preparation!

Fail Your Viva is my first ebook, and something that I have been working on for some time, along with a few other writing projects. Recently I was offered the chance to be a participant in an online course about self-publishing via the Kindle Store. I realised very quickly that there was not much stopping me from publishing.

I’m very excited to have a book out there, and if you’ve read it and have comments do let me know. If you have the time to rate it and write a review on the Kindle Store that would be great!

The cover of my ebook!
The cover of my ebook!
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