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Tag: viva process

Nathan

The Many Ends

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Submitting your thesis can feel like a finish line has been crossed.

Passing your viva could be the end – but for most PhD candidates there is another step of submitting corrections, then having them approved.

Then there’s the final thesis submission.

And still there’s more because a PhD journey isn’t really over until a candidate has graduated. They have to have the opportunity to go across a stage and shake someone important’s hand while dressed in their academic finery!

 

For some candidates this still isn’t the end because they continue the work. Or perhaps they continue thinking about it. For some, there’s also an aspect of being a postgraduate researcher that they need to unpack afterwards. What did all of that mean? What have I done? And what now?

There are lots of ending points of the PhD. The finish line isn’t submission or the viva. It helps to know what the practical process is, but that’s easy to find out from regulations and asking others.

It may help even more to think ahead and consider what the end of your PhD really means to you.

Nathan

If Things Go Wrong

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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

Not That Different

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A lot of viva prep – and the viva itself – is not that dissimilar to many things that you will have done during your PhD.

Many prep tasks draw on the same skills and knowledge you have used throughout your research. They are focussed on something different perhaps, but you already have everything you need to read your thesis, annotate it and get ready for your viva.

Success in the viva depends on you continuing to do what you have done all through your PhD journey. Talking to examiners is not that different from talking to your supervisor. Or from responding to questions in a conference or seminar. You have knowledge, talent and experience. You can bring everything to the challenge you’ll find in your viva and succeed.

The viva is different, of course, but not that different from everything else you’ve already done.

Nathan

Spoiler Alert!

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You’ll most likely pass your viva!

It really is the most likely outcome.

Which doesn’t mean you shouldn’t be nervous. It doesn’t mean that there’s nothing to prepare for or you can just take time off until you meet your examiners. And it doesn’t mean that you won’t be challenged by your viva, the preparation, the corrections or anything connected with it.

You’ll most likely pass your viva. Do the work to fulfil that. Be nervous, but work to get ready and be confident. You’ll be challenged, so work to meet that challenge and respond to your examiners’ questions.

Spoiler alert: you’ve got this.

Nathan

Good Practice

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Academics have a sense of what is right when they come to examine a thesis. This is underpinned by regulations but also informed by what they believe is the right way to do things. These beliefs are a mix of their previous experiences and those of friends and colleagues. This then leads to common situations like:

  • Vivas beginning with simple opening questions;
  • Vivas structured around the flow of information in the thesis;
  • The length of a viva being typically in the two to three hour range.

Good practice builds in communities. Colleagues in a department talk now and then about the vivas they have been part of and this also produces “ways of doing things”. This leads to departments that regularly ask for prepared presentations to begin a viva or let a candidate know to expect a certain length.

Good practice isn’t good as opposed to bad! It helps to know that there is a history, a process and a way of doing things that helps the viva – and helps the candidate.

The viva is not a great unknown and so can be prepared for.

Nathan

Not Exclusive

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Your thesis is not written only to pass the viva, or only to live up to your examiners’ expectations. That’s worth keeping in mind as you write it, but also as you prepare for your viva.

To share your contribution you have to write it for whatever audience you imagine will be interested and receptive to your research. To share that with your examiners in the viva, you might have to know a little about them and what they do. You might need to prepare and think about the language you would use to explain something in a discussion – as compared to how you might express it on a page.

Remember that most candidates are asked to complete corrections of some kind: while that request will come from your examiners it is never simply to satisfy them. They are asking either because they have found simple mistakes that can be amended simply, or because they think a change is needed to help your thesis be the best it can be now that it is going to be finished.

Your thesis will be studied, examined, questioned and probably changed by your examiners. But it’s not for them – at least, not exclusively.

Nathan

A Simple Introduction To The Viva

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The viva is an oral exam at the end of your PhD. Typically two examiners study your thesis and prepare for a discussion with you centred on your work and ability as a researcher.

You’ll have plenty of time to prepare. Vivas happen to others all the time, so there’s lots you can learn about the process. This helps you prepare too.

Through all of this you can be ready for the time you’ll spend talking with your examiners. Viva candidates most commonly pass their viva.

You will too.

Nathan

The Last Time

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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

That’s Just What Happens

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If you open a cafe then you can expect occasional customers who want to make changes to what’s on the menu. They’ll ask for toast instead of bread, or wonder if you can take the tomatoes out of the salad.

That’s just what happens.

If you live near a primary school then you’ll come to expect that twice a day a lot of children and their adults will be moving through the area. Twice a day there will be more street noise and the roads will be more difficult to cross.

That’s just what happens.

And if you pursue a PhD, stay determined through years of work and produce a thesis, then you can expect that a couple of academics are going to want to talk about.

You could reasonably expect that, at your viva, you will get questions about what you did. Questions on anything and everything because your work is important. Your research makes a difference and that – among many other things – is interesting to the two people who will take on the role of your examiners.

More than anything, questions and discussion are what you can expect from your viva. That’s just what happens.

Nathan

Doing More

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At the viva you’re doing more to tell your examiners about what you’ve done, how you did it and who you are. You’ve set that out in your thesis but now they need more from you.

They need you to do more to clarify what you did.

They need you to do more to explain what it means.

They might need you to do more to convince them of an opinion you hold.

They can ask you to do more to tell the story of why your research makes a contribution.

Whatever they need you to do, however, it’s more of what you’ve already done. Doing more is showing your knowledge, your ability, your thinking and all-round capability as a researcher.

It’s only a little more though. That’s all you need and all your examiners need for this final challenge.

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