Any advice?

I’ve got mine tomorrow afternoon – currently bricking it as I’ve just spent all day reading my thesis and circling all the (many) mistakes (both spelling and more worryingly, scientific)…

In case anyone cares my title is:

A novel mechanism linking hypothalamic nutrient sensing with the regulation of gene expression and energy homeostasis

(it’s about what happens when you stuff your greedy face with delicious food)

Remember, your Ph.D. is a story, tell that story

and try not to lock yourself in your own house just before you leave for the viva – I did that, and arrived at my viva with seconds to spare, hot and sweaty from running, very flustered and with hands covered in blood from breaking out of the house. Ahem. Examiners were very understanding, and I passed, but I don’t recommend it as a way to break the ice.

Remember its not in the examiners interests to fail you. You just need to explain what you did ( so they can check you didn’t just copy the text from somewhere) and why you did it ( showing a logical enquiring mind) . Good luck!

And they’ll ask a question on the easy stuff you’ve just taken as read. I was asked about the basic mechanism and completely blanked. Could draw out all the complex ones and explain why mine was more valid than the standard accepted one but the easy basic mech ………blank.

Oh and time is irrelevant. Mine took 45minutes mates took 4 hours.

You’ll sleep tonight. It’s actually quite hard work physically I found. Make sure you’ve eaten something and stay hydrated as two and a half hours (mine) of cross examination is quite tiring….

Good luck. Stay calm. Take your time. If you don’t have a good response straight away, ask them to rephrase the question while you think of something.

I’d better sleep tonight because I just got about 2 hours last night…

I’m not so worried about my data, which I know by heart, but more about getting grilled on a certain topic that my external examiner is an expert in (and I’m not) – I’ve had it on good authority that he’s rejected papers for doing exactly what I’ve done!

Cheers for the advice, all.

The build up to mine was incredibly stressful.

One week before viva – external examiner breaks leg and can’t travel. Frantic discussions about reorganising it, not what I want. We decide to do it with external on the phone.

Four days to go – admin staff still can’t located a phone with a speaker. “Jon, do you just want to use a handset?”
Me: “you want me to have a phone pressed to my ear for two hours while I try to flick through my thesis? No!”

Three days to go: phone with speaker is located.

Two days to go: interal examiner damages a ligament in her jaw (reoccurring condition) is signed off sick and can’t speak – literally can’t open her mouth. Me: “ummmm what do we do now?!” internal examiner says (emails) she’s happy to continue even without a voice.

At this stage I’ve been through a roller coaster of stress trying to prepare for the viva, plus the week leading up to it has involved at least two points when we thought the examination was off.

Viva itself: some challenging questions but I bat them away like an opener on 200. After an hour the examiners ask me to step out so they can talk… An hour!? What? Five minutes later I’m called back in. “congratulations Dr Jon, you have passed subject to…” I reach for my pen and note pad, “…correcting your typos…” Fair enough, what else? “That’s it.” what!? “a month long enough?”

Good luck today. Remember the examiners will likely be very interested in your work, and they aren’t there to try and trip you up. They just want to know the worknis yours, and that you understand it.

I had a Viva for my MSc because it was Research based. The best advice I got after my supervisors did a mock viva with me was: Whenever they ask a question, no matter how sure you are about your answer, stop for 2 seconds and then speak. Its amazing how much calmer and well thought out the answers sound. Even if you still say that first thought that popped into your head. You start to feel a lot more relaxed after that.

Don’t try and second guess what ??s they’ll ask – you’re always wrong. prepare a 2-3 minute overview/summary of the thesis which they usually ask for at the start. don’t be afraid to challenge them if you disagree with something. good luck!!

Good luck. And if the examiner asks you about the touchy subject on which they have rejected papers acknolwedge the fact, but explain why you did it.

“Yes, iknow you are not a fan of…however in terms of this work….

Be prepared for at least one spell where you’ll hope for the ground to open up for you – the whole idea is to put you under some pressure. Take a few breaths, ask for a moment to re-read the ‘offending’ paragraph, then answer calmly.

Other than that, take it as a rare opportunity where you get to spend 2-3 hours with two very eminent scientists talking solely about your work. I’m now in a permanent position with a great salary as a direct result of impressing my external.

You’ll sleep tonight

Damn straight he will – most probably in the bar!

Good luck – I am just a humble MSc and been told the results are in the post.

I had mine 5 years ago now, and have been an internal examiner several times. My own experience is that, unless your supervisor has chosen badly, your examiners will be there to make sure that you have the space to persuade and impress them. That said, they are not there for a whitewash either, and I did quite respect my external for saying this up front. That doesn’t mean that they are going to make your life a misery at all, but they will put you under some pressure. Just remember; you worked extremely hard to get where you are today and you really do know your subject, most likely more about it that they do. So, lots of deep breaths, don’t be rushed into answers and enjoy it. At zokes said, it is unlikely that your work will ever be looked at in such depth by such eminent people again. Best of luck

All really good advice up there – that I would just echo. Remember even though they will have read it – they won’t know your thesis as well as you do. Also, I remember actually quite enjoying mine as this is your chance to really go on about the stuff that you’ve been slaving over for X years to two people who can’t leave the room and have to listen to you!!!

I chose my external very carefully to make sure I didn’t have someone with a big ego or something to prove. He was brilliant in putting me at my ease at the beginning and emphasised that they weren’t there to catch me out, but that I should expect to be challenged. Which I was – but in a good way – as it allowed me to demonstrate that I really knew my subject. … not that I remember much about it now 10 years later….!!!

I passed with minor corrections (including a couple of extra points/references IIRC) – result!

Good luck.

And remember – they will pursue a line of inquiry until you can’t answer any more. This doesn’t mean you have done badly, they just want to see where your limits are. I felt bad about this in mine until I realised that I had answered all of the preceding questions fine and they just changed topic when I was stumped. Perked up a lot after that.

Find out the train / flight time for your external’s return journey.
Will give you a clue as to how much suffering you are in for.
Ask to go for a pee every so often – gives them a chance to chat among themselves and wind everything up.

Enjoy & Good luck!

dont try and defend the undefendable, be up front and honest about the crap bits (always assuming they are the main focus of your conclusions).

I think the best thing is to be very young and preferably slightly ignorant. This was you wont be aware of how much more the external may possibly know than you and how negative he might be.

I was 25 when I took mine was nt nervous at all, but I probably should of been. Would be much more nervous now at 31.

Best advice is to relax and enjoy it! I prepped a summary of my thesis (aim, why important, method, key results) so that I could explain everything clearly.

Dont worry about spelling mistakes etc. – they’re not a big deal and are easy to fix.

You are pretty much bound to get some corrections so don’t sweat it.

In the end, my viva was just an enjoyable/interesting discussion with interested people. We all had fun, no stress at all. I got minor corrections which took me 0.5 days to complete.

Good luck + enjoy it…

STS

It’s nowhere near as stressful as you expect, just make sure you know what you’ve done and why. IF you have got to the stage of a viva you’re only going to fail if you’ve hidden some massive cockup or they haven’t read it at all. If you’d done something so bad they’d fail you from teh start, it would never get to a viva.

I do a lot of PhD vivas – by and large I’ll only start stretching someone if they’re good. It’s not really possible to take weaker students into deep waters – You start out with a line of questioning and just get bogged down with the basics.

So if you’re getting a hard time – think to yourself that it’s because you and your work are strong enough to run the rule over.

It’s when the external examiner starts talking about the football that you need to start worrying.

Did mine with a broken elbow, a consequential plaster cast from wrist to shoulder and was not entirely lucid due to the cocktail of pain killers inside me.

Really enjoyed it though, as Zokes said, it was a chance to have a chat about 3 (and a half) years of work with people who understood it and, for those 4 hours at least, cared about it enough to ask detailed questions that, for the most part, I could answer.

A mate had a Viva, it went really badly :

I thank you! 😎

I take it no news is good news and roblerner if face down in a cocktail of dubious colour celebrating?
Hope so 🙂

Sorry, just read this too late to offer any advice. How did it go, roblerner? Can STW members open a bottle tonight? 😀

Passed with minor corrections (mostly spelling, and cut a bit out of my intro).

Thanks for all the advice and anecdotes! It was all a lot more fun and less stressful than I’d expected, and went pretty smoothly…!

How did it go, roblerner

Actually it’s Dr. Roblerner, thanks.

😉

Well done Doc. Told you it wasn’t ‘ard 🙂

Well done man! I’ll be in this position in a year, was great to read peoples ideas on it. Put me to ease already…sorta

Whey hey!! Take the time to celebrate, I remember there being a bit of an anticlimax after all the tension, so savour the moment – oh and sort those corrections, however small prompto – then you really are done. Actually the nicest thing for me was picking the final library copy up from the Uni binder. Proof in my hands!

Another STW Dr!

the real issue is what colour to have it bound….

blue looks good

green looks serious

but then red….

oh the nature of original thinking.

I saw yellow with black writing at my binders, and was almost tempted, except I was afraid it would look like this ( 8) ) on my bookshelf and decided on blue with gold instead.

Congratulations Dr Roblerner!

Well done. Congratulation.

You are a doctor now … okay I have this chest infection …

to this day I wish I had shown the balls to say OK and walk straight out of my viva when I walked in and they told me I had passed!!

Well done Dr R. Now get on to the bank and get your cards changed!

Congrats Dr!