Bricking it about my viva
Discussion
I'm a laid back kind of fellow. Not much ruffles my feathers. I've gone through school, college, uni just taking things as they come and doing the best I could. At sport I rarely get nervous before races, in fact I went completely the opposite for a while (which is bad) but have since arrived at the happy medium that isn't so much nerves but more getting into the fight/flight mode to get that all important adrenalin.
So in short, exams don't phase me and I am good at controlling nerves.
However, my PhD viva is on Wednesday (1st of April so open to Fools jokes about failing) and I am quietly terrified!
I've never had a high opinion of my work; its just work, a bunch of experiments, some analysis, some conclusions drawn, nothing special. That is just my mindset. I've been told off before in mock viva's for being way too modest about what I have been doing. But I am sorry, I just don't see it.
I am worried that this mindset is going to do me in on the viva.
I am currently preparing too. I have so far:
1) half page summary of each chapter with salient points bulleted
2) gone through and marked out repetition, grammar, spelling,dodgy or unclear sentences
3) marked out items that might be contentious - though I do have comebacks for them all yet
4) investigated my examiners backgrounds
5) summarized the whole thesis in a few lines
6) began to address some anticipated points: i.e. added in some new extra literature review to cover stuff I might not have thought about and come up with an alternative, improved experimental method for one experiment which I would use if I had to do it all again
7) beginning to put together and list of possible Q's and A's
8) realised that a good chunk of graphs should probably have some kind of error estimation/error bars. Simple fix for most though.
I have a meeting with my supervisors tomorrow so hopefully this will put a few more fears to rest (or it might create more!). I am also yet to come up with a list of "fundamental" questions. Apparently in engineering vivas it is common for them to test your basic engineering knowledge to get the ball rolling.
My supervisors (I had 2) are very good, however they were very busy during the writing up phase and as far as I am aware only one of them has read it through fully and even that sounded like it was kinda rushed. So I don't feel like I have that safety blanket of "supervisor thinks its good enough". I would assume they wouldn't even let me get to the final year if it wasn't worthy, but the seemingly not-so-thorough final read through may not have picked up on major issues. I don't know.
I just have a bad gut feeling about the whole thing. My work encompassed a good breadth of subjects including HV electronics and plasmas, but thankfully my examiners do not have backgrounds there. Theirs are diesel exhaust aftertreatment systems and alternative fuels and optical diagnostics and combustion.
Is there anything else I should be doing?/Should have done?
So in short, exams don't phase me and I am good at controlling nerves.
However, my PhD viva is on Wednesday (1st of April so open to Fools jokes about failing) and I am quietly terrified!
I've never had a high opinion of my work; its just work, a bunch of experiments, some analysis, some conclusions drawn, nothing special. That is just my mindset. I've been told off before in mock viva's for being way too modest about what I have been doing. But I am sorry, I just don't see it.
I am worried that this mindset is going to do me in on the viva.
I am currently preparing too. I have so far:
1) half page summary of each chapter with salient points bulleted
2) gone through and marked out repetition, grammar, spelling,dodgy or unclear sentences
3) marked out items that might be contentious - though I do have comebacks for them all yet
4) investigated my examiners backgrounds
5) summarized the whole thesis in a few lines
6) began to address some anticipated points: i.e. added in some new extra literature review to cover stuff I might not have thought about and come up with an alternative, improved experimental method for one experiment which I would use if I had to do it all again
7) beginning to put together and list of possible Q's and A's
8) realised that a good chunk of graphs should probably have some kind of error estimation/error bars. Simple fix for most though.
I have a meeting with my supervisors tomorrow so hopefully this will put a few more fears to rest (or it might create more!). I am also yet to come up with a list of "fundamental" questions. Apparently in engineering vivas it is common for them to test your basic engineering knowledge to get the ball rolling.
My supervisors (I had 2) are very good, however they were very busy during the writing up phase and as far as I am aware only one of them has read it through fully and even that sounded like it was kinda rushed. So I don't feel like I have that safety blanket of "supervisor thinks its good enough". I would assume they wouldn't even let me get to the final year if it wasn't worthy, but the seemingly not-so-thorough final read through may not have picked up on major issues. I don't know.
I just have a bad gut feeling about the whole thing. My work encompassed a good breadth of subjects including HV electronics and plasmas, but thankfully my examiners do not have backgrounds there. Theirs are diesel exhaust aftertreatment systems and alternative fuels and optical diagnostics and combustion.
Is there anything else I should be doing?/Should have done?
I had to revise and resubmit my thesis so I'm in the rare position of having had two vivas.
It probably won't be as bad as you think. As long as you've got plenty of solid data you'll be fine. I would recommend reading up a fair bit of your examiners published work. You might get one who is very keen on questioning you about his own area of expertise, even if it seems fairly tenuously linked to your thesis.
Do you have any publications yet? Easier if you've got a couple of papers you can talk about.
It probably won't be as bad as you think. As long as you've got plenty of solid data you'll be fine. I would recommend reading up a fair bit of your examiners published work. You might get one who is very keen on questioning you about his own area of expertise, even if it seems fairly tenuously linked to your thesis.
Do you have any publications yet? Easier if you've got a couple of papers you can talk about.
well i hope i have good data! lol
I have read around my examiners backgrounds so much as I know what they're researching, but I haven't read any papers in depth yet. I may summarise a few of their more recent ones. My internal is quite easy to do as he is mostly all about laser particle image velocimetry and and straight laser illumination imaging.
But yes, I should summarise some recent work so I have it in my head.
I don't know the internal on a personal level but has taught me for numerous undergrad courses. He is of course extremely clever and in my opinion doesn't seem to be the type of person who is approachable. But maybe that is just his way of making sure undergrads dont bug him all the time!!
In a cruel twist, my internal actually has done plenty of work for the company I now work for. Unfortunately we went into administration the day after his spin off company put in a PO for £20k worth of analysis work! I'm guessing he hasn't seen a penny of that yet.
Never even heard of the external, though I have worked with someone who knows him and assures me that his a very nice chap. He isn't involved with anything we do at work, however he has actually got a few research papers covering duel-fuelling diesel engines and also mixing in hydrogen to help combustion.
So happily, we three do have a common line around dual-fuel technology and perhaps this will be a nice way to get the talk flowing and calm me down.
oh i have 3 publications; 1 author, 2 co-author and there is another in the works...
I have read around my examiners backgrounds so much as I know what they're researching, but I haven't read any papers in depth yet. I may summarise a few of their more recent ones. My internal is quite easy to do as he is mostly all about laser particle image velocimetry and and straight laser illumination imaging.
But yes, I should summarise some recent work so I have it in my head.
I don't know the internal on a personal level but has taught me for numerous undergrad courses. He is of course extremely clever and in my opinion doesn't seem to be the type of person who is approachable. But maybe that is just his way of making sure undergrads dont bug him all the time!!
In a cruel twist, my internal actually has done plenty of work for the company I now work for. Unfortunately we went into administration the day after his spin off company put in a PO for £20k worth of analysis work! I'm guessing he hasn't seen a penny of that yet.
Never even heard of the external, though I have worked with someone who knows him and assures me that his a very nice chap. He isn't involved with anything we do at work, however he has actually got a few research papers covering duel-fuelling diesel engines and also mixing in hydrogen to help combustion.
So happily, we three do have a common line around dual-fuel technology and perhaps this will be a nice way to get the talk flowing and calm me down.
oh i have 3 publications; 1 author, 2 co-author and there is another in the works...
With three publications you have little to worry about in my opinion. I was told that the main purpose of the viva is to ensure that you have done the work yourself, i.e. you know it and understand it. The external will have likely made his mind up on the content before the viva, that was the case in mine. I heard afterwards that he had made his mind up after my initial presentation, as he was then satisfied that the work was mine. Didn't stop him grilling me for another two and a half hours!
However all vivas are different. Very dependent upon the examiner. One thing I was glad to have done was to skim through all the papers I had referenced again. It took a long time but the examiner had read my lit review very throughly and asked me questions on a few papers.
At the end of the day your supervisor wouldnt have let you submit your thesis if he didn't think it was up to scratch. As long as the work is novel, there are no glaring mistakes and the examiner is satisfied you have done it and you understand it and it then you're ok. this won't stop you s
tting your pants for the next week, but I predict you'll agree with me in hindsight!
However all vivas are different. Very dependent upon the examiner. One thing I was glad to have done was to skim through all the papers I had referenced again. It took a long time but the examiner had read my lit review very throughly and asked me questions on a few papers.
At the end of the day your supervisor wouldnt have let you submit your thesis if he didn't think it was up to scratch. As long as the work is novel, there are no glaring mistakes and the examiner is satisfied you have done it and you understand it and it then you're ok. this won't stop you s
tting your pants for the next week, but I predict you'll agree with me in hindsight!I worried like hell over Viva and in the end it was over in a flash. I don't know how long yours is but ours was 15min or something stupid for 15% of the grade! Only a handful of slides and a page of notes (I gave them a handout too which wasn't asked for but it didn't say you couldn't, so figured it might deflect some questions as had a few more pictures I couldn't fit in the slides time wise)
I had recently completed my SCUBA Instructor training for diving so was confident about standing up and speaking- just gave it some authority knowing I possibly knew as much if not more about my topic than the examiners, afterall they can't know everyones topic can they?
Just have your facts and figures, its not Dragons den! If you don't know say it was outside the scope of your work or something. If the work was good in the first place you should be ok, pretend you are presenting someone elses facts rather than your own guesswork :-)
I had recently completed my SCUBA Instructor training for diving so was confident about standing up and speaking- just gave it some authority knowing I possibly knew as much if not more about my topic than the examiners, afterall they can't know everyones topic can they?
Just have your facts and figures, its not Dragons den! If you don't know say it was outside the scope of your work or something. If the work was good in the first place you should be ok, pretend you are presenting someone elses facts rather than your own guesswork :-)
Simpo Two said:
Know your stuff, keep calm, take a moment to order your thoughts before each reply. I think state of mind is important too - if you go in thinking you'll fail, you probably will.
Combined with good preparation I'd agree completely with the advice above for any interview/presentation. I'm sure you'll be fine Alex - good luck!
Gary
You sound very prepared!
I read through my thesis a few times and read a couple of dozen of the newest and most relevant papers. It was not pleasant and the viva itself seemed to spend quite a while on peripheral background knowledge and then the nuances of my interpretation (which my supervisor disagreed with anyway).
As has been mentioned your examiners will have made up their mind before you go in and really need to make sure you understand what you have written and that you have written it.
Even if your supervisors only have had a cursory glance at your thesis they know you well enough to know if you are ready to defend your work. They would not have put you forward unless they were confident in your abilities and they are going to be far better judges of your ability than you are!
I read through my thesis a few times and read a couple of dozen of the newest and most relevant papers. It was not pleasant and the viva itself seemed to spend quite a while on peripheral background knowledge and then the nuances of my interpretation (which my supervisor disagreed with anyway).
As has been mentioned your examiners will have made up their mind before you go in and really need to make sure you understand what you have written and that you have written it.
Even if your supervisors only have had a cursory glance at your thesis they know you well enough to know if you are ready to defend your work. They would not have put you forward unless they were confident in your abilities and they are going to be far better judges of your ability than you are!
Had a meeting with a supervisor and feel a bit better.
I hadn't actually even prepared for the meeting because I didn't know what he wanted to go through. I thought he was going to give advice and general "what you should be doing...". However, I am quite glad he had prepared a list of questions and pretty much sat there and asked me them.
I managed to answer all of them fairly well I thought. He did like that I took time to consider the answer before blurting stuff out. It does take some time though because some of my work is quite long and involved and trying to rearrange thoughts into a logical or chronological order is tricky!
Stumbled on a few but I took them away, thought about them and prepared better answers. I do feel quite happy that I have been able to type out some good detailed answers to various questions off the top of my head without much referral to the thesis. Hopefully this bodes well because the examiners are really there to check that you did the work and that its not a copy or fabrication. He said that is really the only way you will fail; if they think the work is not yours.
Additionally the PhD is actually very varied. Lots of different experiments, lots of different subject matter so it is likely that they won't have the background to have much of an opinion either way on large portions of the work. Thats not to say I haven't prepared for them though!
I hadn't actually even prepared for the meeting because I didn't know what he wanted to go through. I thought he was going to give advice and general "what you should be doing...". However, I am quite glad he had prepared a list of questions and pretty much sat there and asked me them.
I managed to answer all of them fairly well I thought. He did like that I took time to consider the answer before blurting stuff out. It does take some time though because some of my work is quite long and involved and trying to rearrange thoughts into a logical or chronological order is tricky!
Stumbled on a few but I took them away, thought about them and prepared better answers. I do feel quite happy that I have been able to type out some good detailed answers to various questions off the top of my head without much referral to the thesis. Hopefully this bodes well because the examiners are really there to check that you did the work and that its not a copy or fabrication. He said that is really the only way you will fail; if they think the work is not yours.
Additionally the PhD is actually very varied. Lots of different experiments, lots of different subject matter so it is likely that they won't have the background to have much of an opinion either way on large portions of the work. Thats not to say I haven't prepared for them though!
Otispunkmeyer said:
He did like that I took time to consider the answer before blurting stuff out.
I had someone make a similar comment about my performance in a meeting years ago. My poker face must be better than I thought 'cos most of the time I was thinking "crap, how do I answer that?" 
I'm sure you'll be fine.
You'll be fine. Just remember two things:
1. If you don't know the answer to a question, just say so and don't guess. The objective of the external examiner is to explore the depth of your understanding. When you get to the bottom of your knowledge, just say "sorry, I don't know the answer to that, but it is an interesting question. What is more relevant to my area of research is that I've been exploring the...." and talk about something you do know.
2. There will never be silence. Either you will be talking, or your external will be asking questions. I know which I would prefer.
1. If you don't know the answer to a question, just say so and don't guess. The objective of the external examiner is to explore the depth of your understanding. When you get to the bottom of your knowledge, just say "sorry, I don't know the answer to that, but it is an interesting question. What is more relevant to my area of research is that I've been exploring the...." and talk about something you do know.
2. There will never be silence. Either you will be talking, or your external will be asking questions. I know which I would prefer.
It'll all go swimmingly. My viva lasted 2.5 hours and was actually enjoyable, the questions were interesting and he seemed genuinlly curious about the work I had done.
Just be aware if the external is seeming to try and catch you out. I've heard about nasty externals before and it's not on.
You've had publications, so some of your work has been peer-reviewed. That's a good thing.
Like others have said, it's a formaility at this stage.
Good luck
Just be aware if the external is seeming to try and catch you out. I've heard about nasty externals before and it's not on.
You've had publications, so some of your work has been peer-reviewed. That's a good thing.
Like others have said, it's a formaility at this stage.
Good luck
Well was in there nearly 3 hours but passed, and with (very) minor corrections. Internal was especially kind about the way I wrote and the way I tied all my findings into current literature. He was very complimentary about my middle chapter as well so... Its done, I am happy, I can relax and I can get the correctikns done by the end of the month hopefully!
Cheers all!
Cheers all!
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