You Are Here

Tag: viva survivors

Nathan

3 Out Of 3000

Daily Post

If my records are correct then today is the 3000th Viva Survivors daily blog post!

As it’s special I decided to do something a little different. I’ve taken a little time to look for three helpful posts. Each of these has a generally good and helpful reminder for the viva; rather than only link to them I’ve presented them in full.

 

The Magic Numbers (from October 2022)

Some numbers are magical for the viva, and some can only cause you to worry.

Don’t think about how long your viva might be. It’s not worth obsessing over how many pages of references you have in your bibliography. And don’t check your word count to try to boost your confidence.

Instead of counting little details or wondering about things you have no control over, focus on how long you’ve been doing the work.

Several years – which can be properly understood as thousands of hours. Consider the time and effort you will have spent in getting ready for the viva itself. Remember the time invested in becoming a better researcher – and your many achievements along the way.

What other magic numbers could help you feel good for your viva?

 

Trust (from April 2018)

Trust that the process is fair and tested.

Trust your supervisors to have helped you well over the years.

Trust the work you put into your thesis.

Trust your examiners to be excellent and treat you with respect.

Trust yourself.

You have the knowledge and the talent to succeed in the viva or you wouldn’t have got this far.

 

A Part Of You (from March 2025)

Yes, your viva matters. Yes, you need to pass.

But it is only one thing in your life.

  • Read your thesis – but make time for rest.
  • Create summaries – but create space to do other things as well.
  • Have a mock viva with your supervisor – and have a good catch up with a friend.

The viva, your thesis and your research all matter.

You matter more. Take care of yourself.

 

These three posts were written during very different periods since the blog’s beginning. They’re all about different things on the surface but there’s a common thread underneath: a general and gentle encouragement, a belief that with the right support and ideas any PhD candidate can do what they need to do and succeed at the viva.

The 3000 posts on this blog are very different in general. I have some very short posts and some very long ones; I have lists and questions, reflections on the PhD journey in general and stories from my own life. I’ve written haiku and fiction and adapted classic Christmas poems!

And all through the 3000 posts is my encouragement, more than anything: keep going.

If you’re working towards your viva you have not got this far through luck. This is no accident, happy or otherwise: this is your talent, your work, developed over a long period of time. Keep going.

That’s my plan. Onwards and upwards for the next 1000.

 

PS: as this blog keeps developing I have produced other resources too! The latest is the fifth issue of Viva Survivors Select: The Sparks Issue was released yesterday and is available at my Payhip store along with the previous issues and other resources. There is a lot of freely  available help on this site but if you’re looking for more then please take a look at Viva Survivors Select! Thanks for reading.

Nathan

Viva Survivors Select 05

Update

In 2012 a little spark came to me: “I wonder if people would be interested in hearing viva stories from PhD graduates?”

Eight years ago I realised I couldn’t continue the podcast but wanted to use this space to still do something helpful. A spark: “I wonder if people would be interested in daily viva help?”

Sometimes before you have a concrete idea you have a spark, a what-if, an “I wonder…” that prompts action and leads to something good.

This kind of little notion is what lead to Viva Survivors Select 05, The Sparks Issue, which is out today. In over eight years I’ve written some very long posts and also quite a few short ones as well. For this issue I just wanted to look at those short posts with big helpful ideas.

Cover for Viva Survivors Select 05, The Sparks Issue. Shows two textboxes in the foreground with the title and author (Nathan Ryder) and the publication month, August 2025. Background is black with yellow-orange sparks stirred by a breeze.

The Sparks Issue contains twenty-five posts from the Viva Survivors archive covering a range of topics: viva prep, the PhD journey, building confidence and a lot more. As with previous issues of Viva Survivors Select I’ve also written two new pages: a helpful reflection on how the little things in your PhD journey can have an impact and an original reflective writing game to explore how you’re feeling as you get ready for your viva.

Viva Survivors Select 05 is out now for £3 and joins the first four issues in this ongoing project of monthly viva help. If you like the blog, want more help and want to support what I do then please take a look at and consider buying The Sparks Issue.

Please do pass on details of this issue and Viva Survivors Select to anyone you know who is looking for viva help.

Thanks for reading!

Nathan

Nathan

Viva Survivors Select 02

Update

It’s really lovely to announce the second issue of Viva Survivors Select!

The Uncertainty Issue is the second curated collection taken from the Viva Survivors daily blog archives. I’m really happy to be working on this new ongoing project. I hope that it might be a great resource for candidates who need some really considered viva support.

Background: a wooden tabletop has a series of dominoes in the shape of a question mark. The dominoes are captured mid-fall. Foreground, two text-boxes, middle and bottom. Middle: "Viva Survivors Select 02, The Uncertainty Issue, May 2025" Bottom: "Nathan Ryder"

In this second issue I wanted to explore where the most frequently asked questions about the viva come from. As someone who has been supporting PhD candidates with their viva for fifteen years now, it’s my belief that a lot of questions and worries stem from the uncertainty about the viva – whether that’s real or only perceived by the candidate.

So The Uncertainty Issue collects twenty posts to help with common concerns: practical advice, encouragement and reflections to support getting ready despite uncertainty.

I like the post on the page below, which was originally published on the blog in January 2019. People often ask about what to wear out of a desire to fit in I think, but really it’s an opportunity to boost one’s confidence.

Page 7 of Viva Survivors Select 02; top half of the page has the text of a blog post entitled "What To Wear". Lower half has a black and white line drawing of a figure in armour.

Plus I really like that piece of art I found on the public domain image site Pixabay! You’ll find nineteen more posts, more fun public domain art and two new pages of original writing in Viva Survivors Select 02.

If you like the blog, want more help and want to support what I do then please take a look and consider buying The Uncertainty Issue – you might also want to take a look at last month’s issue too!

Thank you for reading, do pass this on to anyone who you think will find Viva Survivors Select 02 helpful – and look out for news about Viva Survivors Select 03, coming in mid-June! I’m already hard at work and there’s a sneak peek on the back cover of this month’s issue.

Nathan

Eight Years

Daily Post

April 18th 2017: I published the first daily Viva Survivors post.

April 18th 2025: today!

What’s in-between? A lot of words.

 

It’s been one of the best decisions I’ve made to do this daily blog. It helps me to think through what I need to say at work, finds new ways of exploring the viva, unpack questions that people ask and also just help me think.

I’ve had almost 3000 attempts to say something helpful. I’ve been writing Viva Survivors for over twice the length of my PhD journey.

After eight years a few things occur to me:

  • Writing a daily blog isn’t a lot of work so much as it is a lot of practice.
  • Writing a daily blog is a great way to develop ideas.
  • Writing a daily blog is not a fool-proof plan for fame and fortune!

And writing a daily blog for eight years is a lot like a PhD in many ways: the amount of work required is enormous but spread out over a long period of time. It can be easy to tell yourself at the beginning that it’s impossible because the scale is vast – but it’s also easy to tell yourself at the end that you just kind of bumbled your way to success because you can’t remember so much of what you’ve done.

In both cases you can only do it by doing it. It only exists because someone did the work.

I’m very happy to be eight years in on this ongoing project and looking forward to many more. I hope the same is true for you dear reader, whoever you are and whatever your project.

Thanks for reading!

 

PS: On this eighth anniversary post I have to mention the first issue of Viva Survivors Select – my curated zine series drawing from the daily blog archive! Issue 01 shares twenty posts from 2017 on viva prep, confidence and the viva process. It feels great to start an exciting project like this but it’s made doubly exciting by doing it around the anniversary of the blog. Check out the issue here – and again, thank you for reading 🙂

Nathan

Summer Sabbatical

Daily Post

I didn’t mark the seventh anniversary of the Viva Survivors daily blog back in April. It completely slipped my mind. I wrote about something else instead and the date only registered weeks later.

Seven years.

Over 2500 daily posts.

More than 400,000 words about the viva, viva prep, expectations, examiners, confidence, nervousness, worry, getting ready and more. Serious and silly posts, lists, essays, highlights, resources and lots of things that are neither one thing nor another.

I’ve no intention of stopping Viva Survivors, but I think I need a break 🙂

 

From next Monday, July 1st 2024, I’ll be taking my first ever Viva Survivors Summer Sabbatical: instead of a new daily post there will be an old daily post from the archives, every day through to September 30th.

I’ve already arranged so the site will run without my intervention over the coming months. I’ll be contactable but otherwise investing the time I would have spent on Viva Survivors every week on other creative projects.

If you don’t already, subscribe to Viva Survivors for a daily piece of viva help! 🙂

Nathan

Hitting A Milestone

Daily Post

Today is the 2500th daily post of Viva Survivors. I take a few days off each year for Christmas and with sharing the occasional webinar and my Kickstarter last year there’s been more than two-and-a-half thousand blog posts, but today is “officially” Post Number 2500.

 

When I decided to start a daily blog I didn’t have an endpoint in mind. I only wanted to share a post every day to provide some help. In that regard: mission accomplished!

I see every day as another chance to try something. Every day is another little reminder that I am the person I want to be, that I choose to be. 2500 is a big number, but every day is a milestone.

I do the work and pay attention and remind myself that I did it.

 

You can do that too. Do the work – whatever your research is – pay attention to the fact that you showed up and got things done and take time to remind yourself. The foundations of confidence in your capability rest on being aware of what you do and what that means. This helps with your viva and with your everyday life.

So show up. Do the work. Treat every day as a chance to do good work. Treat every day as a milestone towards your goal.

 

And whether this is your first Viva Survivors post you’ve read, or your twentieth or even your 2500th, thank you for reading!

Nathan

The Viva Help Parcel

Update

Viva Survivors has almost 2500 posts of viva help. There’s also the old podcast archive, resources and more. If you need viva help there is a lot of it freely available on this site! I’ve created a few publications too:

  • Keep Going – A Viva Survivors Anthology was first published in May 2022 and is my first big collection of Viva Survivors posts, the best of five years of the daily blog.
  • 101 Steps To A Great Viva is the zine that I Kickstarted last summer. Surprisingly it has 101 steps to a great viva! 101 practical steps any candidate can take to help get ready for their viva.

Following a few recent requests I’ve made my last print copies of both Keep Going – A Viva Survivors Anthology and 101 Steps To A Great Viva available for sale as a bundle that I’ll send to your letterbox 🙂

Front cover of "Keep Going - A Viva Survivors Anthology" by Nathan Ryder. Shows five postgraduate researchers sat around a table doing various research-related tasks. Cover by Maria Stoian

If you want print copies of these two helpful viva publications then go to this link – Viva Help Parcel – and look at the images and description to see if they might be for you. I suppose the questions to consider are:

  • Do you want a book of 150+ blog posts from the Viva Survivors blog?
  • Do you want a zine with 101 practical actions to help your viva?
  • And do you want both of these sent to you through the post?

If you answer yes to any of these then please check out the Viva Help Parcel, available with UK shipping included for £20. There are very limited quantities available and I have no current plans to produce more. Thank you for reading!

Cover of 101 Steps To A Great Viva

And PS: If you’re looking for ebooks or pdfs then you can find those here! 🙂

Nathan

A Little Help

Update

I’ve been publishing Viva Survivors for over six years. In writing more than 2300 posts I’ve shared why candidates succeed, what they can expect, what they can do to prepare and how they can find the confidence to believe that it will all be OK on the day. If you need a little help for your viva, you can probably find it in the archives of this blog

If you need a little extra help then remember the community you have around you: you know people who have examined vivas, who have prepared recently or who have succeeded in the past. There’s a lot of help close at hand if you look for it.

And finally if you have your viva coming up and you still feel like you need a little more help, then please take a look at the Viva Help Bundle of ebooks – which is on a very special sale until the end of November.

The Viva Help Bundle contains:

  1. Keep Going, my collection of 150+ posts from the first five years of the Viva Survivors daily blog.
  2. 101 Steps To A Great Viva, my guide to practical steps that every viva candidate can take to help themselves.
  3. How You Got Here, a short reflective writing game to look back over the PhD journey and find confidence.

Actually, there’s a lot of help packed into the Viva Help Bundle – and it is available for £6 until Thursday 30th November 2023. If you think it might be the help you’re looking for, please take a look. And if you want to know more, please get in touch 🙂

Nathan

Six Thoughts On Six Years

Daily Post

Six years of the Viva Survivors daily blog.

Wow. Time flies when you’re planning, writing and publishing an original and helpful blog post every day!

What stands out to me from the last six years?

  1. As time goes by I see this resource I’ve made as valuable for PGRs, but it’s also incredibly valuable to me as a way to practice, refine and explore ideas. I’d recommend a regular writing practice to anyone.
  2. For all the changes of the last few years, the viva – preparation, expectations, worries and problems – doesn’t seem to have changed. Not really.
  3. The mini-vivas resource I made remains one of my favourite viva prep ideas!
  4. For all the prep someone can do before the viva, perhaps the most valuable thing they can do is build their confidence – centred on the work they have done and the success they’ve found along the way.
  5. Publishing a daily blog isn’t “hard” but it is work. It doesn’t get easier, it evolves and stays challenging.
  6. I want to encourage more people to subscribe than currently do. I’ve been told many times that receiving an email every day with a little viva help or encouragement has been great. I want to find helpful ways to encourage PGRs to sign-up!

Onwards and upwards. No plan to stop, no need to pause. Thank you for reading, if this is your first post or your five-hundredth. There’s a lot of help here, if you need it.

Thank you!

 

And as a little bonus for today, links to the first and anniversary posts from the last six years!

  1. No Accident – April 18th 2017
  2. One Year Later – April 18th 2018
  3. The Culture Around Vivas – April 18th 2019
  4. Three Years On – April 18th 2020
  5. Four Years – April 18th 2021
  6. A Happy Accident – April 18th 2022

I wonder what I’ll share next year?

Nathan

The Best Of The Best Of Viva Survivors 2022

Daily Post

At the end of December I shared five days of posts recapping my favourite writing from 2022. In case you missed that or you’re looking for some helpful highlights, here’s the best of those five days, with links to each round-up post!

Best of Viva Survivors 2022: Viva Prep – I was very happy to reshare lots of help connected with viva prep, but especially A Helpful Acronym, one of the best little ideas related to viva help I’ve had!

Best of Viva Survivors 2022: Reflections – I like having the space with this blog to do things a little different sometimes. The Red Button is certainly different, but hopefully contains a point well worth considering before the viva.

Best of Viva Survivors 2022: Short Posts – Making A Difference is a helpful reminder!

Best of Viva Survivors 2022: Confidence – Last year I worked with almost 1000 postgraduate researchers in viva-related sessions. Daily Confidence was inspired by something written in the chat at one of those sessions, a point that I’ve been thinking about a lot.

Best of Viva Survivors 2022: Surviving – The definition of survive is manage to keep going in difficult circumstances. It’s only natural then that at some point I would write a post called Keep Going, so that I could dig into that idea a little more.

Following that last theme, in May 2022 I published a book containing the best of the first five years of the Viva Survivors daily blog: Keep Going: A Viva Survivors Anthology.

There are many posts I could highlight from the last year of Viva Survivors, but if you’re more future-focussed then subscribe and get a new piece of viva help in your inbox every day 🙂

1 2 3 … 8