Hi all, finally i am about to have my viva in a two weeks time. So I am in the process of preparing for my defence. I do some reading and try to organize my presentation. and I basically would like to have some piece of advice from people who have gone through this. How did you prepare for your defence? Also how did you cope with stress during this awaiting time? For me it´s pretty daunting the fact that in a couple of hours I have to defend a four years work. sometimes i cannot even concentrate on preparing because strange thoughts of me messing up on the viva day come up. i think i should enjoy this time and do my best to prepare to finish strong this PhD journey but it seems i cannot stop myself from spending time worrying instead. What are your thoughts?

Hi,

I think the lead up to the viva is really stressful. What I imagined the viva to be and the way it was were completely different. My experience was that the viva was an interesting discussion.

I had a mock viva from a friend (I know people sometimes ask their supervisor). I wonder if that would help?

I read through my thesis and used post it notes to highlight key sections. I prepared a list of possible questions and my answers. I also took in a list of typos/corrections.

I hope this helps.

Good luck!

Hi, thanks for the reply. yes i will do a mock viva i think it´s a good idea. preparing a list of questions also sounds good. even if they are not the same as the ones will be asked it will likely sharpen my arguing skills and hopefully give me some more confidence. i hope my viva is like yours an interesting discussion although in our department is mostly like an examination. but again it is how one feels about it that matters i guess.

Hi Joanna,

my advice is: try not to overdo. As for Buffy, also my viva experience was very different from what I expected. I had no mock viva, and didn't prepare much of anything if I'm honest. Somehow just opening the thesis in the weeks prior the viva made me feel tired and unwilling, I could not make myself re-read the thesis, let alone prepare notes or read literature! So I did (almost) nothing.

The good message is: it wasn't necessary to do more. The viva was a one and a half relaxed discussion between peers. All questions are supposed to be about your thesis, and believe me, there is nobody around who knows your thesis better than you do!

So the feeling during the viva was 'so easy! is that all?' :-) The only thing I tried to prepare in the last days was a list of possible questions I would get, and I brain stormed in my head about possible answers. Well, it was useless. The questions I got were completely different!!

So: if it makes you feel better, than you can have the mock viva, re-read the thesis, prepare notes, etc. But if you feel like you don't want/can't prepare further, then don't. And do not worry, you know your work inside out already, and it is about your work that you'll discuss there. :-)

Here is a link from a colleague of mine with tips on viva preparation. I found her tips helped me a great deal to avoid unnecessary stress prior to and during the viva:

Hi Wanderingbit,

you made me feel a bit better now. thank you for describing your own experience. i actually don´t feel like preparing. i am so tired of my thesis. and on the other hand i feel guilty not to try my best before the viva. but at some times I feel like i cannot see my thesis anymore. i had a mock viva 3 days ago and it didn´t go that well. i was again feeling i didn´t give it my best self. i don´t know what´s wrong with me and i don´t manage to finish strong this thing. although according to publications, writtesn thesis etc i seem to have done a pretty good job. and this is another reason i don´t want to mess up now. well at least for the moment i am busy with correcting my presentation.

hi joanna
for me, having a coffee with other viva-friends helped because we asked each other questions, we laughed etc. it was helpful for me not to be alone all the time during viva preparation.

All the best :-) love satchi

I'm not sure what subject you are in, but this video might help.

Yeah, me too. Can't even re-read the thesis without a panic attack, and also forgot half of it as I submitted 6 months ago. I can't guess whta the examiners might ask me. The mock viva didn't go well either.

Hi. satchi thanks for ur sweet advice and into the spiral thanks for the link. there are a lot of nice info in there. . somehow hearing from people who have gone through this is really relieving. Dr. Jeckyll I am in the same situation with you at the moment. i have published, written the thesis, read a whole lot of things and somehow i feel i don´t remember any of them. i am also getting paranoid thinking they will ask me a really simple question and i will say something really stupid making everyone die laughing and embarrassing myself during my exam.hopefully nothing like this happens though.when such things come to my mind i take satchi´s advice and take a break to drink coffee with friends just to relax a bit. suffice it to say i drink twice as much coffee as i used to before...but hey afterwards after some friends encouragement i feel i can do it again. so Dr. Jeckyll i wish u all the best with ur preparation and the viva in the end.

Yeah, same here published the cr@p out of my thesis, made a systematic literature review, somehow all slipped out of my mind.

I feel I can't even answer basic questions, like "what is your contribution to the knowledge", I somehow cannot think a coherent thought, I get stressed and start stuttering, unable to make sentences.

Also, my mind is fully on the new project I am working on, the PhD seems SO OLD-boring-out of fashion now.

All the best to you too. Let us know how it goes :)

Hi, i have good news. i passed my viva. everything went well in the end. the questions were pretty tough and i was feeling some of them i could have answered in a better way but for most of them i could show I have done a lot of work reading papers and preparing.I thought I have forgotten all these papers I read during my preparation but somehow during the defence I could recall parts of them and manage to give some nice answers. The examiners were also very nice to me. Although their questions were very critical and demanding their whole attitude was very friendy and they made me feel they are on my side. I cannot say I enjoyed the defence as such because I was too stressed during the whole time. But I definitely enjoyed the after defence time when everyone (including me of course) were happy and congratulated me.
Thank you all for the support and advices. It was good to feel I was not alone. And Dr. Jeckyll let us know how it goes for you too. I sincereky hope we hear one more viva success story from you.

Well done Joanna, drinks are on you then!

Now for the tricky bit... ;)