BitchAboutIT

I spent a lot of time preparing for my viva voce to mark the end of my doctoral research, including reading up on other people’s experiences, and thought I’d make a comment on my own, hopefully this will be helpful to anyone else coming up to their viva, and interesting to everyone to know just what can go on behind the scenes…

For those of you that don’t know, the viva is the oral exam at which they decide whether your thesis is strong enough to support your application to be a Doctor (PhD or DPhil).  So, after literally years of hard work, it boils down to several hours of interrogation - something that can make any of us nervous with the thought “What if all that hard work was for nothing?”

Like most PhD students, my research had been variable and when it came to writing up I felt I hadn’t done enough - what was my contribution?  This was combined with having to rush the write up so that I could submit before my registration with the University expired (as I had been told it wouldn’t be extended again).  As a result, I was never really happy with the final version I handed in.  However, both of my supervisors were happy and this means a lot.  One of the main rasons that students fail at the final hurdle is because they’ve not worked with their supervisor - if they tell you that it needs more work then do it - they know what level is required.  You may be able to submit without their support, but you are far more likely to fail if you do.

If there are any problems after you’ve submitted then your internal examiner will almost certainly be in contact to discuss this with you, so if you just get called to the viva itself then you can be pretty confident.  That doesn’t mean it will be easy, but your chances of not passing are much lower by this stage.

Of course I knew all this yet it didn’t stop me feeling sick to the pit of my stomache when I got out of the car and saw the outside of the building in which my viva was to take place.  Now I’ve always been a bit nervous before interview-like situations, probably because I take it all so seriously, but this was something far more ominous.  Despite being a sucessful IT manager and knowing my thesis inside out, I felt like a timid teenager who knew nothing.  Now, this is not how you need to portray yourself in the viva - you need to show that you can handle difficult discussion about your work in a confident manner.  As I had an hour to go before the viva, this initial feeling did wear off after about 30 minutes, although I did notice I was still a bit shakey.  I guess worrying about worrying is a nasty vicious circle to be in - as long as I wasn’t getting any worse then I’d be okay. My supervisor helped here with a nice cup of tea and some banal chat about what I was up to at work.   The sick feeling never went away.

In terms of preparation, there’s a lot that you can do, and if you’ve not done it all by the day of the viva then don’t worry - it’s too late at that point - concentrate on the positives.  Check whether your universiy has a dress code for the viva - for me it was smart casual, but I went in my interview suit solely to get me into the right frame of mind - it’s important that you are comfortable.  Have your own copy of the thesis with any of your own thoughts annotated on it.  The viva isn’t a memory test, so if you need to refer to your notes then make sure you have them.  In addition to knowing your work (and references), make sure that you are aware of recently published papers in your area and also the work of your examiners - they will have been chosen because they are in a similar field to you and there may well be significant overlap between their work and your own.  Also don’t worry if you spot silly mistakes - almost all students pass “with corrections”.  I mispelt the name of my internal examiner in one of his references, which I’d only noticed the day before the viva (you may want to double check all your references at this point!), but he was fairly good natured about it.  A good examiner will concentrate on the science and not anything trivial.

Now, I’m going to go through my own experience of the viva itself.  If you’ve got one coming up then I’m sure your experience may be different so please don’t worry!  Although if you are nervous, then take heart that despite the following, I passed with minor corrections.

The viva took place in my internal examiner’s cramped office, which was hot and stuffy.  I immediately regretted not having brought a bottle of water with me as I knew I was going to be talking for several hours.  The sight of the soft bound copies of my thesis peppered with post it notes and pads of paper with questions on was not encouraging but at that point I knew it would be a questions of going through them one at a time.  My external started with (what is supposed to be) the “putting you at ease question: “So how did you drop into doing this project?”  The way it was phrased nearly threw me before we’d started, but I gave an outline of why I’d chosen the studentship and what my hopes were, and this led to some general questions.  We then went through my thesis page by page.  Every page seemed to have something on it - a question or typo, parts underlined  or circled.   Questions were leading: “Why did you decide to do it this way?” “Don’t you think you should have considered this?” and designed to get me to defend my choices.  All the advice I’d been given about “taking the initiative” and “leading the discussion” went out of the window.  I was too busy responding to the constant barrage of questions and trying not to trip myself up.  I’m not ashamed to say that I blanked a couple of times and had to say I didn’t know (there was two of them and only one of me after all!).  It was at those points where my brain literally stopped working that I felt at my lowest.  That evil internal voice telling me that I’d let myself down and I’d fail.  I was thirsty and mentally drained and I could feel myself blushing,  but we were still only halfway through.  

As someone who has always passed everything academic with ease, I felt useless and stupid.  I asked if I could have some water, took a deep drink to get my voice back (and mentally reset) and carried on, firmly believing that the best result would be major corrections, but I’d most likely fail.  One of the examiners pointed out that we’d already been going for thre hours (it felt like a lot longer) and still had a lot to go through.  We soared through the second half of my thesis, which didn’t help the feeling that I’d fail - were they just doing this to go through the motions (rather than that there were fewer questions in those chapters?). 

i was just about to ask for a comfort break when they said “Well that’s all the questions from us” and asked for 15 minutes to confer. I grabbed my stuff and headed to the nearest loos, ralising that I’d been talking for 4 hours!  Looking at myself in the mirror, I looked awful - my face was red and blotchy and my eyes looked like I hadn’t slept in weeks.  I washed my face and brushed my hair and instantly felt better - there was nothing more I could do so there was no point in getting het up about it.

I headed back down to the office and paused outside the door - there was that awful Shroedinger’s cat type feeling that once I’d knocked and entered, my future would be sealed one way or the other, which made me feel sick again.  When I went in, they were smiling (always a good sign) and congratulated me.  It was only then I realised how much I’d been holding back and how physically and mentally drained I was, especially as I’d talked myself into believing it was going to be bad news.

My superviser opened a bottle of bubbly and we had a chat for a bit before I headed home, completed exhausted.  After a whole 2 hours of sleep I woke up and just couldn’t relax again - I guess my brain was still processing it all.

I’m really pleased and feel proud that all my hard work has been judged to be “a worthwhile contribution” to science.  But I wouldn’t go though that viva again!