Want to know how to prepare for PhD viva? We’ve collected advice and tips from successful researchers from around the world! Succeed in your PhD viva!
Each PhD is a distinctive journey in the fascinating world of yet-to-be-discovered knowledge. And as most of the journeys we take in our lives, it has a very specific destination – the PhD viva exam!
I’ve discussed what PhD viva is, what are the requirements and what you should expect in my last article – make sure you read it if you haven’t done so yet!
The key to a success in a PhD viva is thorough preparation. We cannot just “wing it”!
The viva exam not only aims to verify whether you’ve done your research yourself, and I bet this isn’t the issue, and whether it is novel. It also aims to test whether you understand the work presented in your PhD thesis and the broader discussions in your field of study. The examiners also aim to verify if you’re ready to undertake a career as an independent academic.
But how do you prepare for PhD viva and pass it with a flying colours?
As I said at the the very beginning of this article, each PhD is unique and depends on the context of your doctorate, your examiners, your project and so on. Therefore, the viva preparation and viva experience is different.
That is why I asked my friends who successfully passed their vivas in the recent years to share their tips and advice on viva preparation. Please meet Dr María Erans, Dr Ahmed Saleh and Dr Sinemobong Essien with whom I had a pleasure to work with in various capacities during the past decade.
I asked them three simple questions:
– what advice would you give yourself before viva?
– how did you prepare for PhD viva?
– what did you find most useful in your preparation?
If your main goal for this year is to pass your PhD viva, you can find their recommendations below. I will build on their advice and share the tools and reflections from my PhD viva preparation in the webinar.
Dr María Erans, Marie Curie Fellow at Universidad Rey Juan Carlos
Graduated with PhD at Cranfield University
For preparing a viva, in my opinion, the most important thing is to be proactive. The weeks leading to my viva, I read my thesis a couple of times putting different coloured post-its with a colour scheme. Green post-its were for possible questions, yellow for minor errors and pink for the most important points/findings. This allowed me to prepare for any possible questions that I might be asked, and not that surprisingly the examiners asked questions in the locations of my green post-its, so I was ready for them. At the end of the day, you know your thesis better than anyone and you are aware of its strengths and weaknesses.
Another important point is to not psyche yourself out; you have been preparing for this for around three years and if your supervisors think you are ready, trust them! Also, relax the day before your viva, go for a walk, watch a movie you like or read a book. I always tell this to any soon to be Dr. the days prior to their viva, and not many believe: a viva is a conversation between scientist peers that are actually interested in your work, so above everything ENJOY IT! It will only happen once!
Viva is a conversation between scientist peers that are actually interested in your work, so above everything ENJOY IT! It will only happen once! | Dr María Erans
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Dr Sinemobong Essien, Graduate Teaching Assistant at the University of Auckland
Graduated with PhD at the University of Auckland
What advice would you give yourself before viva?
Relax and Prepare early. Remember, the planning and execution of this research project was done by you. Agreed, you might have had some help here and there. But the bulk of the work was done by you. So, get confident in that fact, plan, prepare early, practice, repeat. The viva is just a discussion session with other experts, who only want to know if it was you who did the work.<