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Tag: viva process

Nathan

Responses At The Viva

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You don’t need perfect answers at your viva. You don’t need perfect responses.

You need to be prepared to respond well to your examiners but that doesn’t mean that you need to have “prepared responses”. Your examiners want to have a good conversation with you about your work, the process that lead to it and your capability as a researcher.

They don’t want you to read from a script and they don’t expect that you will have practised every possible permutation of question that they might ask.

Read your thesis. Write some summaries. Rehearse a bit.

You don’t need to be perfect. You need to be prepared.

Nathan

Hate To Wait?

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If, like me, you find it difficult to wait for things then you need to come up with a few coping strategies for your viva.

If the days leading up to your viva are taking too long what will you do to manage yourself? Can you arrange your prep to pass the hours productively or will you arrange useful distractions?

What can you do to begin your viva day well while you wait for the start time? Decide in advance so that you don’t have to respond in the moment to your feelings.

What will you do after your viva is finished and you’re waiting for your examiners? Again, decide in advance – have a short walk, refill your water bottle, make some notes – so that you are not waiting alone and only feeling nervous.

If you hate to wait then you can also take steps to help yourself as you wait.

Nathan

No Gold Medals

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No silvers either.

No special commendations.

No ribbons or grades.

Probably not even a pat on the back.

You pass. You get a certificate. You likely get some corrections to complete as well.

 

The meaning that comes from your viva success comes from you.

Passing could mean you did it. Passing could mean pride and reputation and your own wellbeing. Passing could mean new opportunities and possibilities. Passing is personal.

You won’t get a gold medal – because you make your PhD worth something.

Nathan

Make Notes

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Make notes as you get ready for your viva to help your thinking.

Do it in a way that helps you. Write summaries. Add details to your thesis pages. Find useful prompts to help you unpick your work and respond to questions. You’ll take your annotated thesis to the viva to be a helpful resource but beyond that all your notes before the viva are to help you think ahead.

 

Make notes at your viva as well if you want to.

When your examiners ask questions or make comments you can write down what they say. You can capture keywords to help you focus. You can add marks and words to your notebook or your thesis if there’s something you might change later. Depending on your research area you might need to make notes in order to think through the consequences of a question or hypothetical.

 

Make notes after your viva.

Capture what your experience was like. Share it with others so that your unique experience can help shape the understanding of future candidates.

Nathan

Assumptions

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Whatever you assume about your viva will have an impact on how you prepare for it, how you feel as you get ready and what you do as you start talking to your examiners.

Before you get to that point it makes sense to check regulations, viva stories and general expectations: do your assumptions line up with what the rules and other people say about the viva?

 

If you assume that your viva is going to be hard questions and unfair criticism then you’re going to make a tough time for yourself.

If you assume that your examiners are there to talk and listen and prompt a discussion then you might still be nervous but you’ll be able to prepare yourself.

And if, after all the work you’ve invested, you assume that you’re ready then you will approach the viva with a more positive outlook than if you assume you are somehow lucky or just getting by.

 

PS:  very quick announcement that The Survival Issue of Viva Survivors Select is out tomorrow! This is the final issue of this volume and joins seven other collections I’ve curated and released over the last seven months or so. Do look out for an announcement email tomorrow 🙂

Nathan

Keeping Score

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You don’t get points for right answers in the viva.

You don’t get marks deducted depending on how long you take to respond.

You don’t get a final mark – there’s no A, B or 7/10.

Your level of corrections aren’t a grade: they are simply a part of the process.

 

You can keep score for yourself before your viva.

Tally the days you showed up. Count the papers and books you’ve read. Add up all the versions of all of the pages you wrote. Consider how many times you’ve done the practical elements of your research (experiments, models, paper, interviews, hypotheses and so on).

When you consider the numbers of all of these things you can see that you’ve built up an impressive score of your own – that corresponds with your capability, your knowledge and the confidence you can feel for meeting with your examiners and succeeding at your viva.

 

PS: If you want more idea on confidence building then take a look at The Confidence Issue – the most recent curated collection of Viva Survivors Select. Twenty posts from the Viva Survivors archive plus new helpful resources. And the final collection of this volume, The Survival Issue, will be released next week on Wednesday 12th November 2025!

Nathan

Right and Wrong Examiners

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Some academics are definitely wrong as examiners for your viva: they don’t know your subject, your discipline or don’t have the requisite experience. They would never be asked.

Some academics are definitely capable to be your examiners: they are subject experts, experienced and have a good combination of knowledge and ability that means they could do the job.

Some academics might feel wrong to you as examiners: you’ve heard rumours or you’ve got a sense from interacting with them that you’d prefer not to engage with them in your viva.

Some academics might feel more right to you as examiner choices: they have a specific research interest you think connects with your work.

And some academics might be selected as your examiners regardless of whether you approve or not: ultimately, your supervisors decide.

What you can do, in advance of your viva, is think, consider and suggest names. You can express preferences and your supervisors can listen and decide what they need to decide.

Whoever your examiners are, they will be experienced, supported and capable. You will know who they are and know what they do. You can help yourself to be ready for meeting them.

Nathan

A Special Day

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Vivas are special days.

Like most special days it’s not the setting or the build-up that makes it really special. There are lots of expectations about what special days need – cost, preparation, traditions and so on – but like any other day what makes your viva special are the people involved.

While your examiners are special and particular to your viva you could also have your viva without them; they could have been busy and someone else would have said yes. Your examiners are like the DJ at a party or a celebrant at a wedding: they’re good but there are other people who could fill that special role.

So let’s be clear: you’re the reason why your viva is a special day. You and your work are what make it matter. Prepare and get ready but remember who the viva is for and how you got there.

Nathan

Zombies & Examiners

Daily Post

Allow me a slightly silly post for Halloween…!

I’ve been thinking about zombies and examiners.

One group can feel quite scary. They just keep coming. They don’t stop until they’re satisfied. If you’re careful, when you encounter them, you can pause to think about how you’ll respond to their approach.

Thankfully they don’t move so fast that you can’t stay ahead of them and they’re very manageable in small numbers. They’re not really something to worry about if you keep your wits about you.

Anyway, that’s how I think about examiners – zombies are pretty scary too!

Nathan

Making Sense Of Expectations

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Viva expectations are the patterns and trends that we find in university regulations, personal experiences and departmental practices. Viva expectations are estimates and ideas of what someone could reasonably experience for themselves.

  • What are they? You can find out. Check regulations and ask others about what it was like for them.
  • How do they apply? Broadly. It’s reasonable to assume if most people get minor corrections you probably will too. If vivas tend to being more than ninety minutes yours is unlikely to be less than an hour.
  • What do expectations mean for you? They mean you have something to prepare for. They mean that vivas aren’t random. They’re unique but not chaotic.
  • What might not apply? You’ll have to explore that for yourself. Your research or needs might lead to a viva that is different from a typical experience. If that’s the case though, it won’t be a surprise and there will be time and support to help you understand.

There’s a wide web of information that underpins vivas. It’s not hard to make sense of it though, either in generally or for a particular situation. Take a little time to ask some questions and make sense of it all for yourself.

 

PS: if you want to explore viva expectations more you could check out September’s edition of Viva Survivors Select. The Expectations Issue is a curated collection from the Viva Survivors archive with twenty helpful posts all about viva expectations plus some original writing to help you get ready.

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