The Viva Experience: Part 1 Preparation

The good news, I passed. Well not really news as you are likely following a link from my Twitter page and so you have already seen that I passed. But 3 days on and I am still buzzing from the experience. But lets back up a little bit so that I can share the whole experience with you.

From day one as a CRDF (Clinical Research Doctoral Fellow) at the University of Southampton (UoS) in the Faulty of Health Sciences they start to talk about "the viva". At that point it sounds like this enormous looming event at the end of the PhD journey that sounds as much fun as torture. The thought of an oral examination where leading experts (internal and external examiners) along with your supervisors can ask you any and multiple questions about your entire PhD, is intimidating and on this early on very nerve wracking. Then we discover that for our cohort to be more "supportive" we are to face 4 of them! But the first isn't until at least a year away so I put my worries on a shelf and didn't think about it again.

Then all of a sudden I'm in month 9 and my supervisors say, "you're ready, lets book in your first progression viva". My panic fell off the shelf and hit me square in the head. But thankfully the viva process is a long one and so I had time to come round. First there was the finalization of my 5000 word report, which needed to be submitted 4 weeks before the actual viva.

My report was a combination of what I've been thinking and learning together with a justification of my research question. I also needed to include a plan for my project, demonstrate my thinking around the methods (how I'm going to answer my question) and ethical concerns that my project might raise. Once that was in then I had 4 weeks to wait and have nerves build, with the advice of my supervisors ringing in my ears; "you're ready, don't over prepare."

What does that mean!?! The advice online was more geared towards the final viva not a viva this early in the process. However I focused on two things: 1) reacquaint myself with my project and 2) look for areas that they will be most likely to ask questions on and figure out an answer. For me my preparation looked like: me re-reading my 5000 word report (more times than I care to share) and re-reading key articles that I built my question on. The second thing I did to prepare was to keep my project moving. What this meant is I learned more about the methods I was thinking about using and by working on my planned qualitative systematic literature review.

On the day. My viva wasn't planned to start until 15.15 so I had all morning to work my self up into a state. However, I knew that if I allowed myself to do this I would trip over my own feet walking in the room so I made a plan. That would keep me calm yet make the time pass. My plan was personal to me and was a combination of one last read through, admin tasks, distraction, and ensuring I was there on time yet had something to do other than sit and get more nervous. At least that was the plan.

I still got nervous...what an understatement. It would come at me like waves! some little and easy to handle and some large that would crash over me. Threatening to drag me down. There is a meme out there somewhere that says something along the lines, "nervousness isn't bad, it just means something important is about to happen." So I tried to use a similar technique to when I windsurf, I breathe and remind myself of the work that I put in to get to be able to stand on the beach ready to launch. This was the same, I had prepared, I knew my question, how I formed it, and why I think it is justified. I was ready and I was facing something important. But I was ready.

Then my supervisor, came and said "Do you want to start a little early? I'm free now and so is the internal examiner." I agreed and then she said "Are you nervous? You shouldn't be, you are ready." And crash, another wave of nerves hit. My heart was racing and I started to sweat. This was it, the moment I have spend the last 11 months working towards.

To read about how it went. You'll have to wait for part two, "Resfeber".