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Nathan

Episode 31: Dr Katy Vigurs

Episode

In this episode I’m talking to Dr Katy Vigurs about her experiences as a postgraduate researcher and her viva. Katy’s research was in Partnership Working, and at times she researched for it both full and part time, as well as lecturing and being a parent. Katy completed her PhD at Staffordshire University, and continues to lecture there now, as well as supervise PhD and EdD students.

Please leave comments or questions on this post, drop me an email or just tweet @VivaSurvivors. The next episode, the first in a new specials series, debuts this Thursday, 4th December 2014.

Thanks for listening!

Nathan (@DrRyder and @VivaSurvivors)

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Nathan

Episode 30: Dr Murphy McCaleb

Episode

In this episode I talk with Dr Murphy McCaleb, PhD graduate of the Birmingham Conservatoire. Murphy’s research area is Performance Studies, and his research focussed on ensemble performances. His viva was in February 2012, and he’s currently a lecturer at York St John University. He has also turned his thesis into a book and published it with Ashgate, and we had an interesting chat about that process.

As ever, please leave comments or questions on this post, tweet @VivaSurvivors or email me! If you’d like to support the Viva Survivors Podcast, then why not check out my ebooks?

Thanks for reading!

Nathan (@DrRyder and @VivaSurvivors)

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Nathan

Viva Survivors Podcast: Patreon Campaign

Podcast, Update

I love making this podcast

I really do. This project grew out of a desire to help PhD candidates close to finishing their PhDs. I want them (you!) to realise that the viva is going to be OK – it’s not a mystery, there are real expectations to the viva, and consequently things that can be done to prepare. I hoped that by interviewing people from a variety of backgrounds this would come through.

After a while, I also began to think that it was an opportunity to share stories about what it is like to do research as a postgraduate researcher. Perhaps someone starting a PhD might listen to the podcast and find out what doing research is like – as well as hear about fascinating research. I love being able to hear about what people did for their PhD. There are currently 28 episodes in the archive, Episode 29 will be published on Monday 3rd November. I’m on track to hit my target of 32 episodes by the end of the year.

I want to do more: can you help?

In the last year I had to take time off from the podcast in order to adjust to becoming a dad! Now that I’ve stepped back up to it I’m enjoying it more than ever, and realising that I want to provide more. To help that process, I’ve created a Patreon campaign for the podcast. Patreon is a bit like Kickstarter, but whereas the latter is for a project that isn’t finished yet, Patreon is crowdfunding for ongoing efforts.

I’ve just started the campaign, but as support grows I’ll be able to spend more time on producing episodes, creating new content and expanding the output of the podcast. I have a couple of initial goals (like covering the cost of hosting, creating several pieces of writing each month and producing some focused tips-based episodes), but I also have big dreams. And I need your help to achieve both my goals and my dreams: providing a useful resource to postgraduate researchers in the UK and around the world.

So, can you help me?

If you can, great! The podcast will always be 100% free for everyone, and if you are able to become a Patron for the Viva Survivors Podcast then I can do some things to say thank you in return. I have a variety of things to begin with, like a “Thank You!” page of backers on the podcast, a pre-release notification that new content is coming to the site – and even early access to future episodes!

Patreon is straight-forward to set up, and it seems like a really useful way to support people creating things. Even if you don’t think that you can support the Viva Survivors Podcast at the moment, then have a look around and see what other amazing things people are doing.

Thanks for reading! I’ve really enjoyed the last two and a half years of producing the podcast, sharing the episodes and seeing it become a valuable resource. With your help I hope to continue this and do a lot more. Any help you can offer to support the Viva Survivors Podcast – by sharing the episodes, volunteering to share your story or becoming a Patron – is really appreciated.

Nathan (@DrRyder and @VivaSurvivors)

Nathan

Hello!

Update

How are things? You may have noticed that things have been a bit quiet around here for a while. Summertime is busy in my house – there’s a brief flurry as I work on various summer schools and end-of-year programmes at universities, and then holidays, work being done on the house (plastering, painting, decorating, bits of DIY and home improvements), spending time with my daughter (who is almost 1! I don’t know where the last year went) and then –

BAM! September.

(more…)

Nathan

The Podcast is 2 and my Ebook is 99p!

Update

Viva Survivors Podcast turns 2!

Two things happened last Friday – the podcast turned two (Happy Birthday Viva Survivors Podcast!) – and the Twitter account for the podcast picked up its 1000th follower, which is kind of neat. So… What to do to celebrate this?

A special edition of the podcast where I invite everyone back to give updates? I wish I’d thought of that sooner.

A series of Google Hangouts where I look at various parts of the viva or preparation process? Not yet, but I’m thinking about that for August (message me if you’re interested!).

A bottle of champagne? A cup of tea?

For Four Days Only!

How about… Until midnight on Friday I drop the price of Fail Your Viva to 99p (and $2.99 in the US)?

This will run from 8am Tuesday 10th June 2014 (GMT in the UK and PST in the US) until  Friday 13th June 2014 at midnight in the appropriate time zones. If your viva is coming up and you’re looking for something concentrated to give you some idea of what to expect and what you can do to prepare, then give it a go. Ben Libberton of Literature Review HQ described it as “a great book to read cover to cover if you’re anxious about your viva.”

Thank You

Thanks for coming and listening to the podcast over the last few years, for all your help in helping me to share the stories of PhD graduates – and more recently for all your help with my research into the UK PhD viva experience. The results of that will  come out over the summer, and I’ll keep looking for an appropriate way to present things as I compile the results.

Many, many thanks to the Viva Survivors who have shared their stories for the podcast – you can see all of their names on the Archive page. They’re awesome and amazing for giving their time and being so willing to help others in this way. Thanks guys.

Now, all of you 1000+ Twitter followers: go and buy a copy of my ebook for 99p (or $2.99 in the US) and tell all your PhD friends to do the same! 😉

Until next time, thanks for reading – and thank you again for all of your support over the last two years.

Nathan (@DrRyder and @VivaSurvivors)

Nathan

Episode 26: Dr George Julian

Episode, Podcast

In this episode I’m talking to Dr George Julian, who completed a PhD in the Psychology of Special Education in 2003 at Cardiff University. George is the creator of VivaCards, a great little innovation in viva prep. As well as talking about her PhD and viva, we also had a chat about where these cards came from, how they might be used and what the reaction to them has been like. I bought myself a set last month and think they’re really cool: they’re great for either self-directed preparation or for helping others to ask you helpful questions.

If you’ve got any comments or questions about this or any episode, please get in touch! You can leave comments on all of the episode posts, drop me an email or tweet. I’m always looking for more people who would like to share their experiences – it would be great to hear from you.

Nathan (@DrRyder and @VivaSurvivors)

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Nathan

Episode 24: Dr Pooky Knightsmith

Episode

In this episode I’m talking with Dr Pooky Knightsmith, who recently completed her PhD at the Institute of Psychiatry at King’s College London. Pooky was working in child and adolescent mental health for several years before her PhD, and continued to work in that area during the seven years that she did her research. It was really interesting to hear about Pooky’s journey, and to hear about what she has planned next. She is a speaker, trainer and author in her field, and you can find out more about what she does at In Our Hands. She’s also on Twitter as @PookyH.

The next episode is scheduled to be up on May 1st! As it is Episode 25 there will be something a little different… If you have any questions or comments then please get in touch, either via the site, by email or by tweeting at me. It would be really great to hear from people who are interested in coming on the podcast: if we’ve corresponded before and for one reason or another not arranged something then please get in touch again and we’ll set something up!

Thanks for listening!

Nathan (@DrRyder and @VivaSurvivors)

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Nathan

Episode 23: Dr Peter Rowlett

Podcast

In this episode I’m talking to Dr Peter Rowlett, who recently completed his PhD at Nottingham Trent University.  Peter’s research was multidisciplinary and was in the areas of computing and maths education; he did his PhD part time as well, and so we had a lot to talk about for this episode! You can find Peter on Twitter at @peterrowlett.

We’re heading towards twenty-five episodes… I wonder if we’ll have something a bit different to mark the 25th? Maybe!

At the time of writing my research into the viva experiences of PhD graduates in the UK is ongoing, and if you’re able to share your experiences (by answering seven quick questions) or if you’re able to share the survey with others you would be helping me a lot. The survey is here: tinyurl.com/VivaSurvivorsSurvey. Thanks!

As ever, if you have questions or comments then please get in touch, it would be great to hear from you. Leave a comment on any of the posts, email me or tweet me.

More posts coming soon!

Nathan (@DrRyder and @VivaSurvivors)

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Nathan

Survey Update 4: Outcomes

Research
The outcome I'm aiming for!
The outcome I’m aiming for!

On Tuesday I was fortunate to be asked to deliver a Creative Thinking and Problem Solving workshop at LJMU. I love helping people explore creative thinking, and as part of the activities that we looked at I mentioned the survey and the outcomes I’m aiming at.

Looking towards outcomes can be a really helpful part of the creative process. After using a series of questions to explore some of the facts and feelings that people had about the outcome they wanted for their challenge, I encouraged the participants to create a picture or some images that represent the outcome they want. To illustrate this I doodled the image at the top of this post to show the outcomes that I’m aiming at for the research from this survey.

First of all, I’m hoping that I’ll be able to get some meaningful results from the questions and the answers – and be able to analyse the data to get something which I will be able to present to others sensibly. (I’ve also got ideas about how I could represent the data really visually; I’m a closet data visualisation fan!)

Second, I’m excited about the possibility of presenting the outcomes of the research to others. I’ve accepted one invitation already, and am happy to be contacted about other opportunities.

The bottom row of images show the ultimate aims: I’m hoping that this research will allow me to write and share more on the viva, to help PhD candidates and those who support them. And I’m really hoping that this will inform my own best practice in the viva preparation workshops that I deliver.

So if you haven’t responded to my survey yet and would be eligible to – looking for PhD graduates of UK institutions since the year 2000 – please click on this link: tinyurl.com/VivaSurvivorsSurvey. And if you are able to share this with friends, colleagues or your Twitter followers that would be a massive help!

Further posts on the research coming soon… Thanks for reading!

Nathan (@DrRyder and @VivaSurvivors)

 

Nathan

Survey Update 1

Research, Update

My survey “UK PhD Viva Survivors (2000-2013)” has been running for a week now, and in that time with the very helpful assistance and generosity of people on Twitter and Facebook I have managed to get 138 responses! This is fantastic news, as it gives me hope that I can obtain enough data to produce something with statistical significance.

I’ve mentioned before that my first data collecting goal is to obtain 400 responses. This will provide a minimum in producing a picture of “the average viva” if such a thing could be said to exist. One problem with this minimal size is that when one considers subsets, say, of the arts and humanities and the STEM subjects, it may be that those subsets do not have enough respondents for the results to be meaningful. That’s why 400 responses is my bare minimum: and after that point I will take a first look at the data coming in, and see what the makeup is like. It may be that more targeted recruitment will allow for individual pictures of subjects or fields to be painted. If that goal of 400 responses is met, then I’ll take a look at the statistics again to see what the next goal might be, and what confidence one could have in those results.

(As an interesting side note, I’ve been amazed at how quickly I’ve got responses. After tweeting yesterday morning, someone sent out their own tweet about it, and this tweet was RTed over 20 times, which meant that I almost doubled my number of responses in under 24 hours. It’s these sorts of network effects that I am hoping will really produce great quantities of data for my analysis.)

Today is the 12th of March, and so we have good deal of time until the 30th of April, when I’ll end data collection. I won’t be resting on my laurels and just waiting for data to come in. When I get a chance my next targets/thoughts are to email and tweet some university alumni accounts, as well as keep tweeting and linking and hashtagging to get as many responses as possible. If you know someone who might be happy to answer seven quick questions about their viva, then please share tinyurl.com/VivaSurvivorsSurvey with them – or if you have the means to share the link more widely then please do so. You’ll be helping to create a picture of the PhD viva in the UK.

If you have any thoughts about what else I can do to share this survey – or interesting thoughts on questions to ask the data set when the responses are in, then please get in touch, either in the comments or by email.

Thanks for reading,

Nathan (you can email me here, or tweet at @DrRyder or @VivaSurvivors)

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