My viva is next week and I am having a bit of a meltdown.

To cut a long story short, my only supervisor has been an absolute waste of time for about the last year (final year), however, she is heavy into stats, written books on the subject and is essentially a statistician so when I came to doing my statistical analysis, I took her word for it that the tests she was advising would be correct.

Only, when I had my mock viva last week they picked up on the fact that not only have I used the wrong tests and explained them wrong, if I had carried out the correct tests, I would have generated a number of significant results and supported ALL of my hypothesis. As it stands, I had to say throughout my entire thesis that my predictions were wrong because the results were not significant.

Fast forward to speaking to my supervisor about this, she said there is only one test that I have done wrong and she did tell me not to do that but I misunderstood her, even though I have the email that says what test she was advising and why. But she swears the rest are correct.

Anyway, after ignoring her advice and carrying out what I now think are the correct tests, I have significant results popping up everywhere, supporting my hypothesis (yey) only I have already submitted and written throughout each chapter how the qualitative findings are the opposite of the statistical findings.

I know that it's better to have picked up this before the viva so that I can go in with the correct results but my worry now is that it is going to be a complete revise and resubmit with a second viva and everything because of the extent of the corrections that will need to be made (i.e. fixing every single findings chapter, there are 5/6). Has anyone had this before??

p.s. any comments about relying on my supervisor for help with the stats are not needed right now.

Honestly, in the first year this is not a big issue. You have plenty of time to sort it, make changes or whatever you need to. Better to have found this out now than at your viva.

Eats up time!! Haha I hadn't considered this before, I have my viva coming up in less than a fortnight and I am bricking it!

My supervisor has been a nightmare too, for different reasons and should be reported but I am so close to the end I can't bring myself to rock the boat further. It's a horrible and lonely situation to be in.

We have all been there and it is a very real and horrible phase of PhD life, my only advice to you is be kind to yourself and try not to focus too far on "post-PhD life" until you really have to.

That's really helpful, thank you. My fear is not being able to answer those tough questions and the whole thing unravelling from there lol.

my job isn't related to my PhD at all but I sacrificed the job and the wages for less hours/stress and I am currently working as a receptionist but I have just submitted my thesis so just do what you feel is right for you.

I can totally relate to this, I have worked full time all the way through my full time PhD and it has really not been easy. I totally knackered my back going from a desk job to my home desk for so long, however

Well done on passing and getting minor corrections, I practically wrote my entire thesis in 6 weeks so the best I can hope for is major corrections I reckon. I just want it over with now.

I have just received my viva date this morning so I'm hoping I will be where you are in a few months lol. It's good to hear a positive story, well done!!!

Hi

I had this exact same issue but I only had one supervisor and she has more or less gone awol for the last year of my Ph.D. I acknowledged her as vaguely as I could, I tried to twist the truth as best as I could by saying that she had provided guidance and support and blah blah, I basically lied but I just kept the whole thing vague, like rewt said above, it's only acknowledgements and you have nothing to gain by pissing them off.

I submitted my thesis a few weeks ago and have totally taken the past few weeks off from anything PhD related, I have just received my viva date and it has brought it all crashing back lol.

Anybody got any tips on how to prepare for the viva and not get so nervous I forget my own name.

I agree with eng77 but I would also suggest adding it into recommendations for future research, that way you have acknowledged the limitation of it within the paper.

Well done on getting minor corrections - this gives me hope!!

I can absolutely relate - my Gran asked me recently "have you finished yet, when can I start telling people I'm proud because we have a Dr in the family?" Apparently it's frowned upon to tell an elderly lady to F off lol.