I had my viva yesterday was which an exhausting experience. It's taken me 4 years to write up my thesis and I finally felt that I was at the stage of closure. I'd had 7 practice viva's with various academics in my department and all were very happy with my performance. My thesis had been approved by both my supervisors and - the impression I got - was that I would pass with minor corrections.

As the title of this thread states, I ended up getting major corrections. My viva lasted an hour and a half (this is the maximum amount of time allowed as per the new school rules) and then they kept me waiting over an hour for their decision. I sensed that there must have been a disagreement between my internal and external examiners for the decision to take this long. Also, at the risk of sounding melodramatic, I really felt like my internal examiner had it in for me (or my research should I say) from the start. It was very demotivating.

I'm feeling really low now. I wanted yesterday to celebrate the end of a very long journey but instead it has prolonged it. I've recently been offered a research assistant job alongside increasing my lecturing hours but am going to have to turn both of these down in order to work on my thesis...again. I feel like I'm putting my career on hold and all the exciting things I wanted to move onto after my PhD have to stay where they are - static.

The thought of going back to writing chapters again seems unbearable at the moment. The last time I was actually in PhD writing mode was 8 months ago so I don't even feel capable of writing chapters any more. Also, the chair in my viva said the examiners would decide whether there would be another viva later down the line. That thought alone is soul destroying.

Any similar experiences or advice would be greatly appreciated.

Hi Anz07

I sympathise with your predicament.

I had my viva 3 months ago and was given an RnR verdict. I've been given 12 months to resubmit, and I am struggling at the moment due to personal reasons. I suppose I will have to start my corrections next month.

To be honest, I feel like vomiting when I see my thesis. But I have to persevere because my future depends on the completion of the revised work.

I hope you will stay strong throughout this ordeal of re-writing. It's not easy, but it is something that needs to be done sooner or later.

Sending you lots of virtual hugs !

Did they say exactly what they wanted you to change? Sometimes major corrections are given for relatively minor things. I'm not quite at your stage yet, but talking to people who have been there a lot of my friends got major corrections because of university rules where you could only have a short amount of time to do minor corrections (such as a month) and they were working full time so they gave them the longer time period. So major corrections may not be as bad as you think? I wouldn't turn down your jobs as you need to eat and pay bills! I don't know anyone who hasn't worked at the same time as corrections so you should be ok. You should be given very specific instructions on what needs changing so once you have that perhaps it won't look as bad as you're imagining. Perhaps it will help to give yourself a little break and then start after Christmas. Oh and 1.5 hours is the max for your viva? I've never heard anything like that before, I don't know anyone who hasn't taken at least 3 hours! Universities differ so much in their rules it's confusing!

Anz07, my heart goes out to you. I could have written your post a while back. If you leaf through older threads you'll see that I got given 6 months major corrections a few months ago. I have now been given my PhD. Here's my tip: I kicked and screamed as did my supervisor. I, like you, had nothing but positive feedback from every quarter right throughout and I know the thesis did not deserve the outcome it got. I have no doubt if I didn't get angry and upset I would've been sitting working on corrections for much longer.
CharlieB, I also felt like vomiting every single day over the last while working on it. My heart goes out to you. Try take solace from our very own Marasp who got her award recently after a long fight. You will both get there but, yeah, I'm sorry to say it but kicking and screaming... I know you might be concerned that this strategy might be tantamount to shooting yourself in the foot but I don't know. This has made me think a lot about how these things work. I can only share my experience.
You both deserve better. I wish you both the very best with this.

Wait until you get your examiners written report. It should specify exactly what you need to change. And to be honest major corrections isn't unusual or necessarily as bad as it sounds. The key thing is do you want this PhD? If so knuckle down and get on with the changes. You've put in years already, it would be daft IMHO to walk away now. It would also look awful on your CV. Just do the corrections! They are very unlikely to take very long, and certainly nowhere near the amount of time you have been allowed to do them.

And I don't see why it should stop you taking on a job, unless that job requires a fully signed off PhD before you start. Why can't you work on your corrections in evenings and weekends? As someone who did their PhD part-time I had to fit mine in all over the place. Corrections definitely need not be so time consuming or take your every waking moment to complete.

I'm also rather shocked by you having 7 practice vivas beforehand. They could not be any reasonable prediction of how your viva would go, since that depends on the examiners you have, and I think that was a total waste of time! So stop feeling a sense of entitlement here. And stop dwelling on emotional issues like whether your internal had it in for you - unlikely tbh. You have a result, now accept it and move on to do the corrections as specified in the report you will get, and get your PhD.

And for the record, to the other poster, my viva was just 1 hour long, though that was partly for disability reasons. I have a severely disabling progressive neurological illness which means I wilt after an hour, and would be too brain confused and slurred speech to do more. So the examiners agreed to keep my viva succinct.

Please, if you have been given R&R don't give up! It is possible to submit successfully. It will just take you a bit of extra time. It takes practice to learn to approach resubmission with a positive spirit. But when you get back into your thesis, you will gradually regain enthusiasm about your work (been there, done that, got the t-shirt).

Ok I stand corrected on the Viva length =) I'm at an institute where everyone has different universities so I see all the different rules each one has, and hadn't heard of anyone here having a Viva shorter than 2.5-3 hours, but of course that's not representative of everywhere!

Viva time limits depend on the institution. My viva was just under 2 hours, but my mate had a viva that lasted 4 hours! I have heard of people having second vivas (after R&R) that lasted under 40 minutes.

Forgot to say: another friend, in biomedical side of things, said his viva was *7* hours long!

I know of a couple of people who had ones which were about 6 hours long - so they have a lunchbreak in the middle...really hoping when it comes to mine it won't be quite that long!

I got majors back in May, resubmitted and passed in November. It isn't the end of the world. Remember you passed..... With majors. Get the report, write a list, take a deep breath and just get on with it. You will get there.

Keep strong all of you!

I found these links quite inspirational: