Hi All,

I realise this question has probably been asked many times before so I apologise for being repetitive.... I am a year into my PhD and have my transfer viva coming up soon and, as someone who has never had a viva before, I was hoping for any tips or advice on the types of questions that are likely to be asked. Although my supervisor doesn't seem concerned about progression to the next stage, naturally I'm quite nervous about how this will go and I'd like to be as prepared as possible. Any advice or comments would be very much appreciated!

Thanks in advance! :)

Hi - I dont know about your uni but at mine the confirmation viva (as we call it) was actually quite informal. It was basically a powerpoint presentation with some questions from lecturers at the end of it. Every single person in my year passed without a problem.

As far as questions go I can only speculate - but for mine they were pretty regular questions on what my topic was about, how I was going about the primary/secondary research and what I was going to do next. There were no nasty or awkward questions, and they had a few helpful suggestions for future work. The panel is not trying to fail you at this stage - you are 1 year in and not expected to have done or know everything! Basically they are checking that you are capable of doing the work and actually are doing it, i.e. not slacking off. If your supervisor isn't worried you should be ok!