Light Relief
My copy of "How to Survive your Viva" by Rowena Murray arrived in the mail today. I decided to order it two weeks ago, after that rather bizarre Albus Dumbledore meets PhD nightmare.
Am off to Vienna for a week tomorrow, so it arrived at just the right time: light relief airplane reading. Perfect. Combines my two worst fears: prepping for public speaking whilst suspended mid air at 30,000feet. Can hardly wait.
Labels: PhD Faff
posted by Dr.Pew @ 12:41 am
6 comments
6 Comments:
Arrgghh! I'm sure I warned you not to buy any books on how to pass your viva - I read them all and it left me a nervous wreck, when the reality was not nearly so bad ;-)
oh great! *big humph* ebay it is then...
I found these tips quite useful:
101 things not to do at your thesis defense
Hope you have a nice time in Vienna.
Your viva shouldn't be too bad. Remember that you know much more about your project than the examiners who have probably spent no more than a day reading it. Just make sure you can:
1) summarise the major findings of your work in 3 mins (this is different from saying what you did).
2) make sure you can defend the weaker chapters
3) have a plan for how you would continue and develop the work if you had another 2-3 years
4) ensure you have read the examiners' recent and not so recent work: they always ask about topics they know most about.
5) finally, be sure you can talk abou the "big picture' -examiners like to look for well rounded candidates.
Good luck with your preparation.
Clearly the purchase of the book was pointless. Consulting fellow blogging scientists has proven to be far more effective! Ta for that piece of wisdom Mad Dog :-)
I hope I speak with some authority: 12 successful PhD students and probadly the same number (or a few more) as an examiner.
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