Hey everyone!

After my rather traumatic viva last week (albeit with a great outcome), I thought I would post a positive viva experience to reassure people facing their vivas that the process can be very different for different people. I didn't want to scare people by saying how difficult my experience was, but I didn't want to patronise anyone either by saying it had been a really easy couple of hours etc.

My best mate (from the same team as me) passed her viva this morning with minor corrections. The viva took just 40 minutes and was a very different experience than mine- the external asked all of the questions, with virtually no input from the internal, and was actually a reasonably pleasant experience for her. The questions were all pretty predictable and there were no questions that she hadn't been able to prepare for. It was pretty much by the book!

Just wanted to share that! We did a similar topic with a similar population, and had quite different questions and different corrections. Even though my viva appeared to be a lot rougher than hers, we have the same outcome- the experience really does seem to be created to a great extent by the examiners. For the record, she only spent a few days preparing for the viva, as she is now on a practitioner doctorate course so is pretty busy. And I'm delighted than my best mate and I can now celebrate together!

Best, KB

Thank you for sharing.

KB havent been here in ages but it seems you passed your viva as we all expected!! CONGRATULATIONS!!

I have mine in under 2 weeks, and have a conference right before it, where my examiners will also be present yikes.

Lets see, fingers crossed!!

Bug

Hey Phdbug- yeah, I passed with minor corrections last week (did them this morning!). Was a really tough viva but was chuffed with the result- just 4 sentences to add to my thesis in total. Just added this post because whilst my best mate and I were working on similar topics, our vivas were very different in terms of length, content, attitude of examiners etc. Best of luck with yours. My examiner has also seen me present at a conference, but that was before I knew she would be my examiner, so there wasn't so much pressure! Hope the prep goes okay- both myself and my mate found that a week doing prep was plenty, so take your time and don't panic! Best, KB