Tag: PhDlife

Preparing for your viva

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It’ been almost a year since my viva, I can hardly believe it! For me, it was a pleasant experience and I enjoyed the opportunity to discuss my work for about 90 minutes with two experts in my field. I came away with a lot of useful suggestions and only minor corrections. 

Regardless of the outcome, we all prepare for our viva and in this blog post I wanted to share how I prepared for mine. Of course, this will not work for everyone, but I hope it might help some of you. 

I submitted my PhD on 10 December and had my viva on 1 March, so quite a bit of time in between. I put the PhD to one side and didn’t really look at it until mid Feb (about 2 weeks before the viva). I really needed a break and to look after my mental health. 

Once I started the prep these are the steps I took:

1.Read your thesis from start to finish.

I did this at home, sitting on my sofa with a cup of coffee to make it more enjoyable. In this first stage, I identified all the typos I came across (and yes there were many despite my best efforts). I also identified any parts of my writing that were no longer clear to me and had to be revised. 

2. I checked out my external examiner, their publications and theoretical approaches. 

This is especially relevant if, like in my case, your external subscribes to different theories/explanations than you. This helped me identify any potential points of disagreement between us in the viva regarding how I decided to explain my results. Then I thought about how I would explain to them why I chose the theories I chose and why I think they explain my data better than what they would maybe propose. The aim of this was not to show them they are wrong, but to be able to engage in a fruitful discussion. 

3. I had a mock viva with a couple of friends/colleagues.

This was very useful, especially since both of them had had their vivas recently. One of my friends knew quite a bit about my topic while the other one had expertise in a similar but different area. I sent them my abstract and conclusion chapter in advance to read and make notes on. In the mock viva they asked me questions ranging from general to asking for clarification. Some of the useful general questions to prepare are:

  • What are the main findings of your thesis? 
  • What are the main contributions of your thesis to your field? 
  • If you had to explain your thesis to your hairdresser what would you say?
  • What are the main strengths and weaknesses of your thesis? 

You can find other questions here (or on other similar websites).

4. Print out main info/graphs

I printed out all of my graphs (with main results) separately to have them to hand if I needed a quick reminder (sometimes my memory is not the best under pressure). I did not need to refer to this in the end, but it made me feel more relaxed.

5. Declaring a condition

This will not apply to everyone, but I have Bipolar Disorder that I take medication for. The medication does affect my memory and it especially makes it difficult for me to recall factual information (under pressure), like names of people or numbers. I had the option of declaring this via the student support service but I chose not to go through the formal route. My department was aware of my illness as it affected my PhD quite a bit and I had taken a leave of absence on several occasions, but this time I did not want to make it official. Instead, I contacted my internal examiner (my TAP member) who knew me well and explained the situation to her. She was very sympathetic and supportive. In the end, I had no memory issues in the viva but having taken this step made me feel a lot more relaxed and supported in the viva. 

6. Before the viva

The day/night before the viva is extremely stressful, and I felt nauseated all day. The two main things that helped were listening to music and reminding myself that I got this! Your PhD is you work, no one knows it better than you. 

I wish all the best to anyone having their viva in the future, you’ll do great! 🙂

Now that it’s over, was it worth it?

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I resubmitted my corrected thesis on 12 December (2019) and the corrections were approved about a week later. The resubmission did not feel like anything special anymore, especially knowing that the corrections still needed to be approved. 

Once the corrections were approved, I felt something akin to joy, but was mostly deflated like I had been feeling towards my PhD ever since the viva. 

Surprisingly, over the next couple of weeks, I started to feel more and more relieved. Relived that it was finally all over, and relieved that I can finally start working on something else other than my PhD. For the first time in a while, I started looking forward to doing work. 

Finishing your PhD, especially the journey (from hell) that I had, will undoubtedly make you reflect on the past (in my case) six years. If I had to do it all over again, would I do it? The answer is a definite no. Now that I did it, was it worth it? Definitely yes. 

  • Here are some of the reasons that made the PhD journey worth it for me: The PhD gave me the academic skills I was promised. Cognitively and academically I feel like I have been reborn. I think about my field, but also the world, in a completely different way. I have become more critical, which sounds like a negative thing, but it has actually allowed me to reflect deeper on the world around me and become more socially aware. 
    In addition, the things that were so difficult for me at the start (writing, reading papers, coming up with study design, etc.) have become a lot easier and I actually now enjoy doing most of the things related to research and academia. It is a great feeling when you realise that all of those tedious tasks and moments of your PhD have actually paid off and the things that were once super difficult are now a lot easier. 
  • The PhD journey made it clear to me that despite all the negative aspects of academia and my illness within it, I would like to pursue an academic career. The teaching experience I gained during my PhD made me more sure than ever that I love teaching and am good at it. There were so many times during the PhD when I hated research, but now that I have got a bit better at it, it is actually enjoyable. And I really believe in research and its importance. Not to mention, I’m still very passionate about my research subject, and new research areas that I discovered during the PhD. This brings me to the next point.
  • Doing a PhD did not only expand my knowledge of my filed, but it also introduced me to many new areas of interest. Although doing a PhD with a mental illness was incredibly difficult most of the time, it also made me learn more about the effects the PhD has on peoples’ mental health, connect with other people, give talks on this topic and start a blog. All of the extra work I did on mental health during my PhD inspired me so much that I’m planning on combining my two favourite research topics – language and mental health – in future work. 

So if you are thinking about starting a PhD or are doing a PhD but thinking what’s the point of it all, hopefully this blog post will give you some ideas as to what kind of gains you have to look forward to.