Daily viva help for PhDs
That’s one way to think of the viva if you’ve submitted your thesis. It’s just the next challenge.
You’ve faced, figured out and overcome many more on the way to submission. You can rise to this one too.
And then on to the next challenge – because for all of the importance you might give your viva, your thesis and your PhD, there’s another challenge coming along for you.
A full-time PhD could take about a thousand days from when you start work on your research to when you submit your thesis.
Getting ready for your viva is a modest chunk of work that could take twenty or thirty hours spread out over two to four weeks.
The viva itself might go by so fast that you’ll blink and miss it! Two, three, four hours? Maybe less, certainly not much more even for a “long” viva.
Thousands and thousands of hours of work to get to submission.
Twenty or thirty more to get ready.
Two or three to finally get the job done.
Those final hours matter, but rather than stress about what will, won’t or might happen in those few hours, it’s probably better to focus on the work you will have done in the thousands of hours before then.
Listening to horror stories, half-truths or suggestions by people with no direct understanding of vivas can skew your expectations drastically and negatively.
Only hearing about the viva from happy people who say you have nothing to worry about can mean you don’t have a full picture of the variety of viva experiences.
Healthy viva expectations give you knowledge, understanding and general awareness of the processes involved.
Healthy viva expectations are like the components of a healthy diet: they probably involve variety, they definitely require some tailoring to circumstances – and it’s always helpful to consider the source!
It’s not length of the viva or asking for breaks.
It’s not the opening questions or depth of discussion.
It’s not the number of corrections or when you know the result.
Knowing about all of these things help, but the expectations that really matter are knowing that you are good enough. Knowing that your examiners have prepared. Knowing that you have prepared. Knowing that you’re overwhelmingly likely to succeed.
There are lots of expectations for the viva. There are ranges for many of them and having a sense of what to expect from that variety can give you a sense of what to expect. While you wonder about viva lengths and questions though, pay attention to expectations for you, your examiners, your preparations and your success.
Focus on the expectations that matter.
Viva Survivors Summer Sabbatical: I’m taking July, August and September off from new writing to concentrate on other creative projects, so will be sharing a post from the archives every day throughout those months. Today’s post was originally published on July 16th 2022.
Maybe they’re nice. Maybe they’re a bit unknown to you. Maybe they have a special interest in your research area.
Your examiners might be experts. They could be among the many people you’ve cited in your thesis. Maybe they know your supervisors; they’re friends, more than professional colleagues.
There are lots of possibilities for examiners – and lots of certainties too.
They will have prepared. They will be ready. They will have questions. They will have expectations for you, the viva and themselves.
They will not have been randomly selected – supervisor friends or not, experts or otherwise – they will have been asked for a reason. They will have been selected as a good choice.
Best choice? Perhaps. Capable? Certainly.
Find out who they are and you can help yourself as you prepare for your viva.
Viva Survivors Summer Sabbatical: I’m taking July, August and September off from new writing to concentrate on other creative projects, so will be sharing a post from the archives every day throughout those months. Today’s post was originally published on November 26th 2021.
There’s no viva menu. You can’t sit down at your table and order it exactly as you like…
I’ll have a two-hour viva, plenty of praise, skip the bad stuff and go easy on the methodology questions. I don’t need a side-order of corrections, thanks!
Your examiners are not there to serve you what you want, but what the situation needs. Some of that might be unclear until the viva starts. Remember that you know what the raw ingredients are for the viva: you, your thesis, your talent, who your examiners are. You know what the process is trying to achieve, even if it’s not an à la carte experience.
Viva Survivors Summer Sabbatical: I’m taking July, August and September off from new writing to concentrate on other creative projects, so will be sharing a post from the archives every day throughout those months. Today’s post was originally published on December 17th 2020.
Idea by idea. Paper by paper. Day by day.
There’s no other way to put your PhD together than keep showing up, good days and bad, and work your way through. Learn more, do more, achieve more and find your way to becoming a good and capable researcher in your field.
When the time comes, this approach is what helps you prepare for your viva too. There’s no single activity that flips the switch to “ready”.
And, really, it’s how you get through the viva too.
Question by question.
Chapter by chapter.
Response by response.
Minute by minute you demonstrate the capable researcher that you became bit by bit.
And that’s enough.
Viva Survivors Summer Sabbatical: I’m taking July, August and September off from new writing to concentrate on other creative projects, so will be sharing a post from the archives every day throughout those months. Today’s post was originally published on May 23rd 2023.
I love hearing stories about vivas that were transformatively awesome for the candidate. Not only did they pass, not only did it go well, not only was it enjoyable – it was AMAZING!!!
I love hearing them, but occasionally there is still that little twinge of sadness thinking about my own. I passed, it went well, it wasn’t unenjoyable, but it wasn’t awesome. It wasn’t amazing. If anything it was an anticlimax.
I remember thinking afterwards, “Was that it?”
I think now, particularly if your viva is over video and you’re without a peer community around you to help you celebrate, there’s a chance that your viva could lean towards being an anticlimax rather than totally awesome. By comparison to 2020, the viva – this thing that gets hyped so much for so many reasons and in so many ways – might seem to drop in terms of significance.
Maybe. On the day, or the day after, or the week that follows, however long, there might be a time where your viva feels like an anticlimactic end to your PhD.
But pride will follow eventually.
You’ll recognise the achievement. You’ll realise, as you finally take a breath after it all, that this is something amazing.
I hope your viva is awesome, but if on the day it doesn’t quite hit the heights you were hoping for, I hope that the anticlimax is short-lived, and the awesomeness finds you soon.
Viva Survivors Summer Sabbatical: I’m taking July, August and September off from new writing to concentrate on other creative projects, so will be sharing a post from the archives every day throughout those months. Today’s post was originally published on August 1st 2020.
“I don’t know” is not the end of the viva. It’s not a stain against your name. It doesn’t mean that you automatically lose.
It means you didn’t know something.
If you don’t have information, what do you have? I can think of a few possibilities:
I don’t know is not the end of the viva. It could be the end of a strand of conversation. Or it could be an opportunity to show how you can think, and engage, discuss and decide. You can give an opinion. YOU can reason things out. I’ll say it again: You’re not here by accident.
Viva Survivors Summer Sabbatical: I’m taking July, August and September off from new writing to concentrate on other creative projects, so will be sharing a post from the archives every day throughout those months. Today’s post was originally published on May 19th 2017.
In some cases, you won’t be able to.
The viva is not a question and answer session or a quiz. Some questions won’t have memorisable facts that you can serve up to your examiners; instead, you will have to offer another contribution, a response – a detail, an opinion, an argument, a feeling, a hunch, a question – in order to keep the discussion moving forward.
Your response may not be the entirety of everything you want to say. It may be that you have to pause and reflect first, make notes, stand up and draw something, or ask for clarification.
You may not be able to answer a question, but after a little thought you will always be able to respond.
If the question is difficult, then you owe it to yourself to think a little more, pause a little longer, take a little more care, even ask for a little more, so that you can respond as best as you possibly can. That response could be an answer (truth, or an argument with a lot of evidence), but it could be something else that is just as much what your examiners could be looking for.
Every question, not just the difficult ones, deserves a little time, a little space, a little thought in order for you to give your best response.
Viva Survivors Summer Sabbatical: I’m taking July, August and September off from new writing to concentrate on other creative projects, so will be sharing a post from the archives every day throughout those months. Today’s post was originally published on January 5th 2021.