I can only echo much of what has been said below. I completed my PhD earlier this year, have since addressed my first "international" conference and have another one coming up in a couple of weeks. It never ceases to amaze me how experienced, highly qualified and fully tenured academics can be so utterly awful at communicating, and at keeping to time.

My own presentation skills leave much to be desired (nerves take over every time, though this is improving each time I do it), but I always keep to time and always try to consider the audience's prior level of knowledge to bring them "on side" quickly. This, I find, makes them far more forgiving of the odd stumble and my feedback has always been so positive that I start to think "were you listening to the same talk - the one where I stuttered and went red and spoke too quickly?"

I think the most valuable advice I have received is to forget yourself while you deliver your talk and play a role: that of "successful, confident academic". Everyone else is!

My supervisor was very helpful and instinctively understanding. He was at the venue of the viva to greet the examiners, then to greet me as the examiners conferred in private. He took me to one side and reassured me that it would be OK, then left me alone to collect my thoughts. He was then on hand to hear the verdict, but never once expressed an interest in being present.

If he had asked, I'd have politely refused. Enough pressure to perform already, but at least the examiners are strangers so you can put up your academic persona. The supervisor knows you so well this would be very hard.

I wore shirt and tie, smart trousers and smart leather shoes. I hate wearing ties, and the shoes were uncomfortable, BUT I found that the whole dressing-up thing helped me to focus on the importance of the viva. As my supervisor advised me just before it, the viva is your formal point of entry into the community of professional scholars. Best to dress as a professional scholar then (minus the elbow patches).

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I haven't posted on here that often, but have read this forum a lot over the past few months to get invaluable advice. The least I can do, therefore, is to share my viva experience in the hope that it may calm some nerves.

I had my viva yesterday, and passed with minor typos. I was confident I knew my stuff and could argue my points well, but was worried because academia can be so subjective (especially in arts and humanities): what if my examiners were to reject my methodologies / outlook?

In the end, the viva was little more than a very genial chat and the time flew by. It was more like a high-level conversation amongst experts, and I think the most encouraging thing about my experience was that all three of us (me, and my 2 examiners) disagreed with each other on various points of my thesis, but this did not result in major revisions being forced upon me. Their verdict was that though they each had points of disagreement with me, the thesis itself was fundamentally a sound piece of work that warranted a PhD. Instead of making me revise the arguments in the thesis itself, they gave me a list of issues I should consider before future publications emerge from my findings.

Basically, all the cliches I was told before but refused to believe were true: a thesis is "an answer" not "the answer", the viva is not an interrogation but the formal point of entry into the community of professional scholars, nor did the viva call for me to prove that I was right and they were wrong.

So, if you have faith in your thesis and your external examiner is well selected (mine was a very eminent, bordering on "celebrity", prof whose academic obsessions are very close to mine) then you really shouldn't worry too much. Having said that, if I'd read this from someone a week ago I would not have believed a word of it.

Lots of kindred spirits on here. I submitted just before Xmas, and am still waiting to hear when my viva will be. Shouldn't they have told me this by now?

I, too, am really struggling to force myself to pick the thesis back up. The thought of focussing on it again is not an attractive one. It took me the whole of last week just to put a conference abstract together, so I suspect I may have broken my brain with all the effort over the last 4 years.

When I first approached my supervisor it was in the form of a short, informal email with a proposal attached. His research interests had clear cross-overs with mine, which I outlined in the email, so my reasons for choosing him were obvious.

I'm not suggesting this method will work with everyone: some established academics do have a rather inflated sense of their own status, but then I wouldn't have wanted to work with someone like that for 4 years anyway.

Thank you. This all sounds like very good advice to me. I don't really have any advanced ideas for a postdoc project yet (I should probably make sure I get the PhD first!), so this is all looking into a crystal ball really. I'm just paranoid that I'll find myself out of academia for a long time and struggle to get back into it.

As you say, applying for teaching posts would be good idea as much for the networking opportunities as for the experience. Such vacancies are, however, few and far between in my discipline.

Ho hum. Who'd be a postgrad eh.

Thanks for the reply. This certainly gives me food for thought. My PhD is in Film Studies, with a bit of Cultural Studies, History, Politics and Italian thrown in for good measure. Both the Leverhulme Trust and the British Academy ring bells in my head, since I think they do fund Arts projects.

Wow, the whole process sounds dauntingly (yet potentially excitingly) open-ended, like a second PhD but with better money. I'm beginning to see why such posts are so craved.

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Hi all, I have just found this site. What a relief it is to read so many threads from people with similar neuroses to mine! I hope this is the correct section for the following enquiry:

I submitted my thesis in late December, and now await the dreaded viva with what I hope is a healthy mixture of trepidation and excitement. I haven't been told the date yet, so my mind has been mostly occupied by thoughts concerning my future employment. I regularly scour university jobs websites, and have spotted a couple of potential vacancies, for which I shall apply. So far so simple.

What I haven't quite grasped yet is the mystical world of the "post-doc". I am slightly embarrassed to admit it, at this rahter advanced stage, but I haven't really got a clue what this much-sought-after role entails (other than more research, which is what I'd ideally love to do, on a fixed contract), let alone how one applies for said vacancies. What is the "done thing" in this area? Speculative applications to every suitable department with proposals for 3-year research projects perhaps? (sounds rather familiar).

Any advice will be very gratefully received.