Just found this, it is really good viva prep information from leicester uni:
http://www2.le.ac.uk/departments/gradschool/training/resources/viva
x J
http://www2.le.ac.uk/departments/gradschool/training/resources/viva
x J
Saturday 9 February 2013
Confidence plummeting
Oh there is too big a gap until my viva to dwell!
I can't stop thinking about it and am getting really worked up about it. I am going to have to get out my thesis tomorrow I think and look through it, then if it is that bad at least I know what I am working with... but actually I hope that looking through it will be pleasantly surprising. We shall see.
I had a bitchy email from the uni hub yesterday too saying that I had done the thesis wrong - the pagination was not to uni requirements and the front cover needed to be re-done. I am really sad about this. Gutted actually! They said they would send it to the examiners anyway (wtf?! Only now?! I handed it in over five weeks ago :() but when I hand it in proper I will have to have it done properly. There was a link in the email to a page that said how the uni want the thesis to be done, which I could really have done with before I submitted but no bugger showed it to me. I feel let down and just pissed off. I had info from last year about how to submit which I don't think I was expected to know was all of a sudden out of date. I only had that info because a friend (who submitted last year using these guidelines) sent it to me. I searched the uni website for something like this to no avail. I searched in the research handbook, nothing. I asked the uni admin, nothing. My sup was pretty chilled about how to hand it in and even had me changing the margin and my front cover from the requirements I had, which made me think that it must all be 'guidelines' rather than 'requirements'. In the end I had two front covers, and the one that has been criticised I didn't even design! I have never seen it before!
On the one hand I am berating myself for not knowing this info. Why didn't I find it? I have written a PhD thesis ffs, I should be able to format it properly! how lazy/slack of me not to have done it right :(. But on the other hand I am aware that if I looked for it, but didn't find it, how could I have known it was there? Maybe someone could have pointed it in my direction? I guess this is what happens when you are out of Uni for a long time. I dunno, but I can't help but feel like I have been ticked off and it sets a grim precedent for the viva :(
Generally I am grumpy and stressy at the mo, with moving house etc, and am terrified of the viva and all the work I will have to do afterwards. Hopefully when I am in the new house and mostly unpacked I shall be able to breathe out and focus on the viva stuff for a week or two with a clearer head...
I really really want it over with now so I can get one with the corrections and my life :) Oh that would be marvellous!
x J
I can't stop thinking about it and am getting really worked up about it. I am going to have to get out my thesis tomorrow I think and look through it, then if it is that bad at least I know what I am working with... but actually I hope that looking through it will be pleasantly surprising. We shall see.
I had a bitchy email from the uni hub yesterday too saying that I had done the thesis wrong - the pagination was not to uni requirements and the front cover needed to be re-done. I am really sad about this. Gutted actually! They said they would send it to the examiners anyway (wtf?! Only now?! I handed it in over five weeks ago :() but when I hand it in proper I will have to have it done properly. There was a link in the email to a page that said how the uni want the thesis to be done, which I could really have done with before I submitted but no bugger showed it to me. I feel let down and just pissed off. I had info from last year about how to submit which I don't think I was expected to know was all of a sudden out of date. I only had that info because a friend (who submitted last year using these guidelines) sent it to me. I searched the uni website for something like this to no avail. I searched in the research handbook, nothing. I asked the uni admin, nothing. My sup was pretty chilled about how to hand it in and even had me changing the margin and my front cover from the requirements I had, which made me think that it must all be 'guidelines' rather than 'requirements'. In the end I had two front covers, and the one that has been criticised I didn't even design! I have never seen it before!
On the one hand I am berating myself for not knowing this info. Why didn't I find it? I have written a PhD thesis ffs, I should be able to format it properly! how lazy/slack of me not to have done it right :(. But on the other hand I am aware that if I looked for it, but didn't find it, how could I have known it was there? Maybe someone could have pointed it in my direction? I guess this is what happens when you are out of Uni for a long time. I dunno, but I can't help but feel like I have been ticked off and it sets a grim precedent for the viva :(
Generally I am grumpy and stressy at the mo, with moving house etc, and am terrified of the viva and all the work I will have to do afterwards. Hopefully when I am in the new house and mostly unpacked I shall be able to breathe out and focus on the viva stuff for a week or two with a clearer head...
I really really want it over with now so I can get one with the corrections and my life :) Oh that would be marvellous!
x J
Tuesday 5 February 2013
Viva Chat with Sup in March
Righty, I am meeting Sup on the 1 March at the uni he works at for a viva pep talk.
This will be a Very Important Meeting and am convinced I will come out near tears with worry. I don't think my PhD is that good, (is good enough but not wow! Great! and I don't like less than great tbh) and think there will be holes to fill during the defence. I am dreading a face to face meeting where sup tells me it is a bit crap :( Ach well.
In the meantime I am packing to move house which we will do in less than three weeks... we will have moved in for less than a week when I meet with Sup and then I shall have just over two weeks to use his advices to prep for the viva. Then I shall do the viva and have about 3 weeks- 1 month to sort out corrections before I go into labour. Eek!
Bean has had terrible tonsilitus and altho it has gone he is so wiped out he can only do half a day of active anything then zonks on the settee all aft. I am sad for the poor mite but cannot tell you how happy I am that I can look after him completely and utterly, without any feelings of guilt or insane stress about how I shall miss a work deadline. My stress levels are immeasurably improved! Am so very lucky :)
However in my normal life I am now reaching a point where I am thinking or dreaming about moving or viva meetings/prep/nerves/imaginings too much and can't really concentrate on anything else. I have a great book I am trying to read but keep drifting off to be worried!
Other than that I can honestly say that I am still very happy to have finished it!
x J
This will be a Very Important Meeting and am convinced I will come out near tears with worry. I don't think my PhD is that good, (is good enough but not wow! Great! and I don't like less than great tbh) and think there will be holes to fill during the defence. I am dreading a face to face meeting where sup tells me it is a bit crap :( Ach well.
In the meantime I am packing to move house which we will do in less than three weeks... we will have moved in for less than a week when I meet with Sup and then I shall have just over two weeks to use his advices to prep for the viva. Then I shall do the viva and have about 3 weeks- 1 month to sort out corrections before I go into labour. Eek!
Bean has had terrible tonsilitus and altho it has gone he is so wiped out he can only do half a day of active anything then zonks on the settee all aft. I am sad for the poor mite but cannot tell you how happy I am that I can look after him completely and utterly, without any feelings of guilt or insane stress about how I shall miss a work deadline. My stress levels are immeasurably improved! Am so very lucky :)
However in my normal life I am now reaching a point where I am thinking or dreaming about moving or viva meetings/prep/nerves/imaginings too much and can't really concentrate on anything else. I have a great book I am trying to read but keep drifting off to be worried!
Other than that I can honestly say that I am still very happy to have finished it!
x J
Monday 4 February 2013
Doing a PhD Viva
18 March it is then. Hurray! What a great date.
Will be from 10am - 12pm... So not too long and should whizz by. I am sure going into the room will be the worst possible bit, then once we get talking it will be ok, even if I don't like the questions.
I am starting to worry about it a lot now so have emailed Sup to see if he has any tips for preparing. As far as I know I will need to:
Doing all this should take about a week of proper work (ie if Bean is in childcare) or 10 days of bits of evenings and weekends here and there. we shall have to see how moving and nursery works out! I don't want to get into it too much but enough so I feel like I have prepared myself in some way. From what I read it seems that this is how everyone prepares but afterwards people tend to say that you couldn't have prepared really and to expect the unexpected!
Passing and awards etc are generally as thus:
1 - Straight pass, perfect thesis, no corrrections necessary.
2 - Pass but with minor corrections (grammar, spelling, refs) to be done within three months.
3 - Pass but with more corrections, bit of re-writing, to be done within six months.
4 - Pass but on condition of serious rewriting to be done within a year.
5 - MPhil-worthy but not-PhD worthy (my greatest fear as my thesis was quite short and now feels very simplistic!)
6 - Fail, fail, fail. Extremely unlikely, your sup would probably be in Big Trouble if you submitted and failed!
You go in, have the chat, they tell you to leave and chat about what to do with you and then most likely you will be congratulated and said you are a Dr BUT need to do some corrections. You would be told what these corrections are and then go off and do them. I am dreading this so much! I cannot face re-visiting the thesis to do anything serious. I see shoddy refs and that is fine. But rewriting. I am still paranoid about my crap lit review, intro and conclusion chapters. I suppose tho, if I re-write it will be to a template of sorts as they would have told me what to do, which would be ok (no it won't!). I will have a month before getting too preggo/popping to think so that is a good amount of time.
Unless you fail-fail you don't have another viva and one or both examiners will just check the corrections to make sure you addressed the issues ok. Then you get it bound proper and leave the begger forever!
Am worried about it but not as worried now I have resigned myself to having to work again soon, then again afterwards. It was a nasty shock to think I will have to go back to PhD-land to be honest but is not for long now. The viva itself I am feeling quite sorted about in a 'just let's get it over with' kind of way. Is not like a presentation or anything awful, I really have no idea what will happen.
I must be prepared:
So there we are for now.
x J
Will be from 10am - 12pm... So not too long and should whizz by. I am sure going into the room will be the worst possible bit, then once we get talking it will be ok, even if I don't like the questions.
I am starting to worry about it a lot now so have emailed Sup to see if he has any tips for preparing. As far as I know I will need to:
- re-read the thesis
- note weak points
- summarise the thesis and each chapter
- remember why I did the thesis: what my motivation was, where it fits into scholarship, how it is er, good and useful
- re-visit (possibly) major texts
- catch up on latest lit
- read up about examiners and latest papers
Doing all this should take about a week of proper work (ie if Bean is in childcare) or 10 days of bits of evenings and weekends here and there. we shall have to see how moving and nursery works out! I don't want to get into it too much but enough so I feel like I have prepared myself in some way. From what I read it seems that this is how everyone prepares but afterwards people tend to say that you couldn't have prepared really and to expect the unexpected!
Passing and awards etc are generally as thus:
1 - Straight pass, perfect thesis, no corrrections necessary.
2 - Pass but with minor corrections (grammar, spelling, refs) to be done within three months.
3 - Pass but with more corrections, bit of re-writing, to be done within six months.
4 - Pass but on condition of serious rewriting to be done within a year.
5 - MPhil-worthy but not-PhD worthy (my greatest fear as my thesis was quite short and now feels very simplistic!)
6 - Fail, fail, fail. Extremely unlikely, your sup would probably be in Big Trouble if you submitted and failed!
You go in, have the chat, they tell you to leave and chat about what to do with you and then most likely you will be congratulated and said you are a Dr BUT need to do some corrections. You would be told what these corrections are and then go off and do them. I am dreading this so much! I cannot face re-visiting the thesis to do anything serious. I see shoddy refs and that is fine. But rewriting. I am still paranoid about my crap lit review, intro and conclusion chapters. I suppose tho, if I re-write it will be to a template of sorts as they would have told me what to do, which would be ok (no it won't!). I will have a month before getting too preggo/popping to think so that is a good amount of time.
Unless you fail-fail you don't have another viva and one or both examiners will just check the corrections to make sure you addressed the issues ok. Then you get it bound proper and leave the begger forever!
Am worried about it but not as worried now I have resigned myself to having to work again soon, then again afterwards. It was a nasty shock to think I will have to go back to PhD-land to be honest but is not for long now. The viva itself I am feeling quite sorted about in a 'just let's get it over with' kind of way. Is not like a presentation or anything awful, I really have no idea what will happen.
I must be prepared:
- To be blindsided by questions I hadn't thought of and to take my time answering these! NO BLUFFING!
- For the examiners to come accross as unfriendly even if this is just an act (I had a job interview like this once - the interviewers were very rude but I got the job and apparently they loved me?!)
- For the examiners to want a good debate (I do not want a debate. I hate debating, it is too confrontational for me!)
- To be confident. I MUST act confidently.
- To be loyal to my thesis even if I do think it is a bag of shite. I am there to defend it not hang my head and say it is shite.
- To have a lunch thing afterwards :( I am truly more concerned about this shebang than I am the viva. I HATE lunch things. I cannot do small talk and will just want to run off to nandos with DB and relax!
So there we are for now.
x J
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