Hi all.

I have just been informed the name of my external examiner. Unfortunately, he is a very reputable professional in my research area. This makes me extremely panic :(

My thesis is weak, from my point of view. I only have three publications (one short paper, one refered as first aurthor, one refered as second aurthor). All of them are published in small conferences. My supervisor does not have any experience of supervising PhD student before. Thus, I think his permission of my submission does not actually mean I am at the pass standard. Now, I will face the famous person who can easily find holes in my thesis... I think I am half way towards fail now :(

Does anyone think the famous person will be more strict than normal?

Well, I think its rather worrying too. Do you know of anybody who would read your thesis and give you comments on it? Also, make sure you have a mock viva before the real thing. Good luck

hi silentray,
i think, first thing, you need to de-panic. fails in viva's are very rare. there would have to be a huge, substantial problem. at worst, they will make you make changes/additions, but they won't straight off fail you.

second, see the positive side: this famous person is actually going to read your thesis. in normal circumstances, who ever reads a PhD thesis? so it's a great chance and perhaps that person won't just spot the holes, but also the good parts, which you might have lost sight of...

third, i think everybody thinks their thesis is weak. because you have spent such a lot of time on it... BUT you know your work better than anybody, including the famous person, will by just reading it. because you wrote it. YOU are the real expert on the topic.

fourth, that famous person will not be examining his/her first thesis. they will know what a PhD is supposed to be (a reasonable piece of work) and what is NOT expected (a world-changing piece of genius). so relax!
i know it's easier said than done. perhaps the nice weather on the weekend will help?

Hi silentray, i agree with hairui that you should get someone more experience to read your thesis. Contary to popular belief people DO fail their vivas, in fact my own supervisor failed a couple of people outright already this year. However, it wasnt the thesis itself he said it was the fact that the students didnt have a clue what they were talking about and didnt have a grasp on basic knowledge which would be expected. So try not to get too stressed with the thesis as im sure your supervisor wouldnt let you submit if he thought it was poor. Remember his reputation is on the line as well. Good luck

Hi Hairui, Shani and Heather,

Thanks for your advices. I will get someone to read my thesis and get feedback. A mock viva has been scheduled in two weeks with my supervisor. I will try my best to prepare it. It has been 6 months since I submitted. And it has been 1.5 year since I left the university where I was having my PhD.

It sounds like people do get failed straight away

Hi'

I would take heart from the fact that this person is experienced in PhD examining. He has nothing to prove and knows what you are going through. It is not unusual to think your thesis is bad. I did, and my external was pretty well known - he was great, put me at ease, knew what he was looking for etc. Don't worry.

Do your best

It sounds like nerves and the papers are a very good sign.
A prominant researcher will probably be really busy, may not read it too carefully and will have to rush off after 2 hours, if like some examiners I've met.
Maybe your supervisor thinks you are good if they have chosen that examiner, as weaker people often get weaker examiners. It would reflect badly on your supervisor if you did badly with a prominant researcher, so they must have confidence in you.I've not known anyone fail as the supervisor reads the thesis and decides if it is ready or not. It may depend on university rules, some allow major corrections, some only have minor corrections or fail.
It sounds like nerves, so good luck.

Hi

I had a very prominent person in my field and I don't think it wasany harder than a possibly less experienced person. Actually, they were lovely and really tried to put me at my ease, I am not sure that would have happened if they had not conducted so many vivas. I truly don't think it will matter at all. In fact, at the viva preparation workshop I went to, we were told it is better to go for more estabished people rather than newer researchers, as they don't have things to prove. I am not saying that all newer researchers are like that though, we all have to start somewhere!

Good luck. The mock viva will really help.

Thanks for all your ideas. I feel more confident now. I think the external has hundreds of reasons to fail a person if he really wants. I can understand that famous persons are not normally aggressive because they are on the top. It's quite common for them to see poor ideas from their point of view.

I had been working in a field that totally irrelevant with my PhD project for 1.5 year. The thesis is finished in my spare time. Neither me nor my supervisor think my PhD project can be useful in the future.

God knows what will happen. I really hope the coming holiday summer makes the external happier and passing me easily

"My thesis is weak, from my point of view" == maybe it would be worth to try to make it better before you submit and also to double check for grammar, spelling and punctuation. Some examiners can be very annoyed about the latter.

Hi otto,

Thanks. I think the grammar, spelling and punctuation are the only parts I am confident with. Both my supervisors checked it for me word by word. The real problem is the contents of the thesis, research contribution and novel ideas.

I agree with fluffy brains- the more experienced the examiner, the better. First time examiners are more likely to fail you, because they are just as unshure as you are about wether you have enough data or not. A more seasoned examiner will know that PhD don't always work out the way they should ..... if you know your thesis, know your field and know the waeknesses of your thesis you should be fine.

Can you talk to the internal examiner- i.e. do you know him/her? Mine contacted me beforhand with the date and also wrote that I should pop by his office if I had any questins- I did and he did his best to calm me down.

The only viva I know of where someone failed was a case of fraud- made up data. And you haven't done that now??

Some one in my lab had a terrible viva- the external asked him for two hours about the externals field- not the field of the thesis. The internal didn't change the topic either because he was not experienced enough.

They came out saying he'd failed. In the end the examiners and my supervisor agreed that they'd let him pass and he'd have to resit a viva about the background of the externals field. This never happend- and he is now a PostDoc.