Hi all,

I thought I'd pop back after a break from the forum for a few months to give the outcome of my viva. After a 4 and a half hour viva just before Christmas, I passed with minor corrections!!! I hope everyone is having a lovely holiday period and I will pop back soon to give the full story of the viva in case it will be helpful to anyone!

All the best,
Tulip

Congratulations Dr Tulip! It would be interesting to hear about your viva!

Congratulations Tulip!

Congratulations Tulip!

love satchi

Well done!

Congrats Dr Tulip!

Congrats!

Congrats, Dr Tulip!

Thanks for the congratulations guys! I'm having a quiet night in working on thesis corrections so figured what better time would there be to give the full story of my viva...

So the viva was an afternoon one, which meant I spent the whole morning getting nervous and reading over notes I'd made during viva prep. The viva started at 1pm and I was introduced to my examiners by the lab's secretary and then left to start the viva. It started with some general questions and I was asked to explain how the project came about, why I was interested in that field, etc. Then both examiners decided to get down to business and began going through my thesis literally page by page and asking for clarification on why certain things were written, what each graph meant etc. My PhD was lab based so there were lots of questions about negative controls, why positive controls hadn't been carried in out certain cases, what alternative assays could I have used and what did I know about the background literature.

I'll be honest though - on the whole, it really felt like a grilling. There was no mention of anything being done in a good way or the data being useful. Instead, they made it clear that they disagreed with a lot of the approaches I used. They also disagreed with a lot of my formatting of graphs and the way references and methods were written, even though I stuck to the university regulations and chose a very standard format used by every other student that was supervised in my department. So in the end I was awarded a pass with corrections (they worded it as a combination of minor and more major, but I was given three months for corrections, in line with the minor corrections timeframe given at my university). So although I'm very pleased to have passed, it felt like a real grilling and I was very relieved to come away with a pass! (to be continued)

The reality of the corrections is that they have ended up being a lot more substantial than they sounded during the viva. The report came through with a number of corrections, e.g. change all stats and text associated with stats, change formatting of all graphs, which sound fairly trivial but in reality are very time consuming. I'm about halfway through the corrections list and hope to be finished very soon.

I'd like to thank everyone on the forum that have helped me through the past four years or so, either with advice or just sheer moral support from others that were writing up around the same time as me (TreeofLife, glowworm, Caro, lemonjuice... and anyone I have forgotten I am very sorry!) This forum truly has been a god send at times, especially since I will be honest in saying that I did not love my PhD and merely saw it as a path to a career in science, and this forum was an amazing place for solace and honest advice from likeminded people. I'm sure I will continue lurking and try to help out where I can, and in particular I will be around while I finish off my corrections! Best of luck to everyone who is still plodding along with their PhD - I promise it can and will end well and the long slog will be worth it!

Thanks for posting this Tulip - it always amazes me the different corrections that people get at the whim of an examiner. Who really cares about the format of graphs!? Like that makes any difference to the science! Anyway, good luck with finishing your corrections. I'm graduating next week and I can't wait :)

Thanks for sharing your experiences, Tulip. I think it's very helpful to know that even if you come away with a brilliant result, the viva itself may not offer much of a feelgood factor! As I am inclined to hear criticism much more loudly than praise, it is very helpful to know these things in advance. Good luck with your corrections!

Congratulations! and Good luck with your corrections! It is surprising how nitty picky examiners can be, and the experience can vary so much, with some experiencing it more like an overall chat, and others being taken through the thesis page by page.