Podcast – Preparing for your Viva

Voice Over:

Welcome to the Dementia Researcher Podcast, brought to you by dementiaresearcher.nihr.ac.uk, a network for early career researchers.

Anna Volkmer:

Hello, sitting your viva is the culmination of years of work. To say it is a big moment is an understatement. If you’re about to walk into your viva, or you’re at the beginning of your PhD journey, we have a panel of viva survivors to discuss tips, anecdotes and things they would do differently. So, my name is Anna Volkmer, I’m a research fellow at UCL. I’m joined today by James Fletcher, a Teaching Fellow at King’s College London; Robyn Dowlen, a Research Associate at the University of Manchester and Sarah Aldous, a Research Associate at UCL.

I’m particularly interested in this topic. I’m hoping to learn lots from you because I have yet to sit my PhD viva. So, let’s start with a quick round the table. Could you introduce yourselves, your research and how long each of you vivas were, particularly if there are any long ones or any really short ones. So I don’t know, let’s start with Robyn perhaps.

Robyn Dowlen:

So, I’m currently Research Associate on the Neighbourhoods and Dementia study at the University of Manchester. It’s a little bit different from my PhD. My PhD focused on how we understand in the moment benefits of music for people living with dementia. So it’s a really great PhD to do. My PhD viva was 50 minutes.

Anna Volkmer:

Five-zero?

Robyn Dowlen:

Five-zero.

Anna Volkmer:

Wow that’s short, isn’t it?

Robyn Dowlen:

Yeah, that’s really short.

Anna Volkmer:

Wow. And how was it?

Robyn Dowlen:

It was a really positive experience. Yeah. And it was… it didn’t make it any less scary going in because it’s so unpredictable isn’t it, so…

Anna Volkmer:

Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah interesting. So, James how about yourself?

James Fletcher:

Yeah, so I’m James a Teaching Fellow at King’s College. My PhD was on the relationship dynamics of informal dementia care. My viva lasted about one hour, which sounds short, but it was a bit of a convoluted process because they turned up at the appointed time and then spoke to each other for 40 minutes before I went in. Then I went in for an hour, then they spoke to each other for another half an hour and then I was called back in for the decision. So overall it was quite a long process, but the viva itself was an hour long. And as with Robyn, it was a really positive experience. I enjoyed it a lot.

Anna Volkmer:

It’s good, dispelling the myths that it’s something scary. This is great. And Sarah?

Sarah Aldous:

I’m Sarah. I started a postdoc in the ION here at UCL, looking at mechanisms of Huntington’s disease, in January and before that I was doing my PhD also at UCL, looking more at sort of neuronal development and then kind of made the switch into something more clinical. My viva was about two and a half hours and that was just sort of pure discussion with my examiners. And in addition to that I gave a 40-minute talk beforehand which they were also in. It was an okay experience. I wouldn’t have said that I came out enjoying it. I mean it was sort of positive in terms of their reaction to my thesis and my talk, but I wouldn’t have said that I was relaxed or enjoying myself through it, but I got through it.

Anna Volkmer:

Yeah, and who else was in the talk that you gave?

Sarah Aldous:

So the talk was public in as much as to the institute, family and friends were able to come as well but there was no questions.

Anna Volkmer:

And that wasn’t a requirement of your viva as such?

Sarah Aldous:

It was a requirement of the institute where I was doing it, so I was at the LMCB.

Anna Volkmer:

What does that stand for?

Sarah Aldous:

The Laboratory for Molecular Cell Biology.

Anna Volkmer:

Oh yeah.

Sarah Aldous:

I think different places at UCL do it differently. I mean for me, I found it quite helpful to kind of, as a lead into the topic and it was a way to sort of meet your examiners and for them to kind of see a little bit of how you knew your research even before the examination.

Anna Volkmer:

Interesting yeah. I work in a different department at UCL and I certainly haven’t seen anybody doing a presentation. So next question, what excellent advice have you been given, or had you been given prior to your vivas?

Robyn Dowlen:

I think it’s… I was just told to talk to everybody about your topic area before the Viva. So just… So in my head if I could explain why my PhD to my dad, who didn’t know what qualitative research was, then I had a good chance of being able to explain myself well within the viva with people who actually knew about the topic area. So I think I remember quite clearly having a conversation with an Uber driver at one point in the lead up to my viva because he wasn’t… he didn’t quite know what dementia was. And so it was just grasping every opportunity to talk about your research.

Anna Volkmer:

And articulate it and explain it. Was that the main advice you got or was there anything else, any other?

Robyn Dowlen:

I think so and I think it was really helpful to have a mock viva as well, just to get yourself used to that anxiety state, I think. Just being in a room with two people asking you quite intense questions, even if it’s not reflective of how your actual viva will play out. I think it’s just having that moment to sit beforehand with someone, to go into a room you are unfamiliar with and then to have… because my mock viva was two and a half hours.

Anna Volkmer:

Wow. Who was it with?

Robyn Dowlen:

It was with two of my supervisors, one of whom was my Leeds supervisor and then someone else who was at a different university. We went to the different university to do the mock viva to really put me on edge.

Anna Volkmer:

Was that purposeful to get you out you out of your comfort zone? Okay. Yeah, I’m almost interested what kind of questions you got there but perhaps we could come on to that in a bit. So perhaps we could ask James or Sarah, any of the advice that you’d been given.

James Fletcher:

I was well somewhat helpfully told to relax, which you know if you tell somebody to relax, the last thing they do is relax.

Anna Volkmer:

Just like before this podcast?

James Fletcher:

Exactly. But something I didn’t really appreciate beforehand was that it was more of a discussion than a test. I think that people probably think that it’s a bit of an interview scenario where you’re simply grilled and it’s much more of a conversation and a back and forth.

Anna Volkmer:

A bit like an upgrade viva as well.

James Fletcher:

Yeah. More like that. I think this idea that you will be asked a series of very difficult questions is not necessarily how it will be. There were moments when I perhaps didn’t speak in my viva for several minutes because my two examiners would discourse and then I’d say something. So it was much more of a normal conversation than two people asking questions and one person responding to questions.

Anna Volkmer:

Right. So kind of intellectual debate?

James Fletcher:

Yeah.

Anna Volkmer:

Great. So, any…Sarah, any tips and hints, any advice you were given beforehand?

Sarah Aldous:

I mean I guess it’s similar to what James was saying, but it’s to remember that when you do go into that room that you are with people who are so interested in your research, they wouldn’t have accepted to be examiners if they weren’t interested. And it is your opportunity to talk about it with an engaged and interested audience. Again similar to what Robyn was saying, you’re never going to have this opportunity to talk about your work with people so interested. You might be able to bore your friends with it, but these people actually are interested in what you’re going to say. And I think I was also told, you know, to remember all the positive aspects that you’ve done and accomplished and found during the PhD because my viva was quite close to writing my thesis. So I sort of got in a bit of a writing… I guess tunnel where you just sort of… It’s hard to step back and see actually what an achievement it is and to remember that going into the viva I think is quite useful.

Anna Volkmer:

That’s a really good tip, to remember how far you’ve come before you head into the final viva. So did you, you said you bored friends with it also.

Sarah Aldous:

Yeah I mean I was fortunate enough that when I was doing my PhD, my flatmates we were all doing PhDs, so we practiced each other’s talks, talked about each other’s research, read bits of the thesis. So yeah it was a lot of support and teamwork.

Anna Volkmer:

Yeah fantastic resource actually isn’t it. I was going to ask you how you each prepared for your vivas, is there anything we haven’t kind of covered?

Robyn Dowlen:

Well I’d come across viva cards. I didn’t buy them myself, but I know a lot of people sort of circulate them. One person tends to buy them and then lends them out to people. I didn’t buy them but I kind of created my own. So the University of Manchester had some pretty standardised questions, sort of, because you know you’re going to get a question about summarise your thesis, you know you’re going to get one along the lines of, what’s your contribution to knowledge. And so just having those written down on a card and then whoever you’re with, I would just carry them with me everywhere and just say, “pick a card, any card” and just have that sort of on the spot and I sort of split them into the different sort of introduction, lit review, methods, findings, discussion sort of questions. I might have a day where I really didn’t want to talk about analysis, so I chose literature review questions and things like that. So yeah, they were really helpful and helped me to talk about my research when people maybe didn’t know what questions to ask.

Anna Volkmer:

That’s really interesting and I can imagine that actually. I was just thinking you could come up with lots of categories, couldn’t you, like what are the implications categories and pick apart your methods categories, which I’m assuming kind of happened in some of your vivas?

Sarah Aldous:

Yeah definitely. I mean I think there are lots of resources by unis and just sort of websites that give you the kind of typical viva questions and they’re useful to go through. They might not all be exactly pertinent to your research but it’s good. And it gets your brain thinking about it in that way. I mean I definitely prepared for questions about stats because I knew that that was an area I wasn’t so confident with and things like that.

James Fletcher:

So I didn’t use cards or prepare questions because I thought it was quite difficult to envisage what questions they were going to ask. Obviously a PhD is such an individual thing that there’s a general overview of what the questions will be like. I’ve heard there’s a general format whereby you get the easy broad intro question. The methods is particularly difficult, but in terms of specifics, I think that’s quite challenging. One thing I did do to prepare which was a bit sneaky was to speak to people who I knew who worked with my examiners about what they would think about certain ideas and the kind of questions that they were likely to ask.

Anna Volkmer:

Absolutely. You all did that?

Sarah Aldous:

I contacted… I knew someone who had my examiner as an external examiner as well. So she sent me her thesis, told me about her viva experience and that was really helpful. You just kind of get to know that person sort of indirectly, but also I went to see my examiner speak as well and I think that was really great because you could see what their interests were and how that related to my thesis.

Anna Volkmer:

Is that what led you to then choose that person as an examiner? How did you choose your examiners?

Robyn Dowlen:

So I had a list of potential people and it took a good few months to decide who would be most appropriate. I think it was about choosing someone who would be really interested in the work but also someone who wasn’t too close to it, that they might pick it apart to an extent that would be… would add a lot of pressure. And so yeah, it was picking someone who was in the area of arts and dementia but wasn’t necessarily in the area of music and dementia.

Anna Volkmer:

So, an empathic interested listener or examiner?

Robyn Dowlen:

Yeah definitely. I think you find out who these people are by seeing them talk or finding out through other people and people who were supervised by her and things like that, so yeah.

Anna Volkmer:

And you didn’t just blind approach, as in did you email them or how did that go?

Robyn Dowlen:

My main supervisor emailed them and sent a copy of my literature review that I’d published. So we’d met before informally, but it was sort of like a formal introduction.

James Fletcher:

I think that’s a really important decision. I don’t know if people always think about that enough but picking your examiners is very important. It will obviously have a big impact and also certain examiners have reputations. So I knew in my field people who had worse reputations than the people I chose but also for me the decision wasn’t that difficult because I think I simply picked the people who I referenced most who were alive. So those two criteria sort of covered it.

Anna Volkmer:

Yes, alive helps. I can see that.

James Fletcher:

Although dead might be a bit easier!

Anna Volkmer:

Brilliant.

Sarah Aldous:

I had quite a niche field. I was looking at a particular post translation modification and the field of that was quite niche, especially in the UK, so I sort of had a limited choice for one examiner and then for the other one, who was actually my internal UCL examiner, yeah it was just sort of people I’d come across at conferences or that my boss knew and sort of recommended, but I also think some universities do it slightly differently, because with UCL, it’s sort of, in theory, is meant to be your boss’s decision. Obviously, they discuss it with you and they’re the ones that contact the examiners, you’re not actually meant to have sort of formal contact with them during that process, but I think you know informal meetings at conferences, no one’s going to call you up on that.

Anna Volkmer:

Yeah it’s tricky if you’re in a niche area though isn’t it, I can see that. I think there’s only a finite number of people and thus the likelihood of you being known to them or them known to you maybe…

Sarah Aldous:

I mean I think it’s fine to be known to each other during the process of ‘you are now our examiner’, you’re not meant to like discuss stuff.

Anna Volkmer:

Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Is there anything you would have done differently during your viva? Before your viva? After your viva?

Robyn Dowlen:

I think one thing was I got quite worked up about my viva. I was quite scared about it and actually it wasn’t until I let go on the actual day where I was just like well I can’t run away from it. It’s here and I actually relaxed before it that it kind of it put into perspective again what we were saying earlier about that achievement. It’s kind of like a celebration at the end of it.

It’s being able to discuss an area that you are an expert in and so I think I was told so many horror stories and I think that just… It’s not great to tell someone who’s approaching a viva about how badly someone you know’s viva went and how there was someone that you heard had a viva that went over two days and it’s just like, don’t tell people that. It’s not helpful.

Anna Volkmer:

Do you not think that’s an urban legend, surely?

Robyn Dowlen:

Well I don’t.. I have heard it of a few people. It started in the afternoon, they had to like to take a break and start again the next morning but…

Anna Volkmer:

Go nap in the kitchen.

Robyn Dowlen:

The examiners must have had a hotel booked or something.

Sarah Aldous:

Most examiners need to catch trains.

Robyn Dowlen:

Well yeah that’s something, is if you’re getting an examiner come in from quite a way away, is to make sure they’ve got a train booked so that can’t happen.

Anna Volkmer:

So, key point: don’t listen to bad advice or urban legends. Let’s hope they’re urban legends. Essentially you’re saying you just would try not to get as worked up.

Robyn Dowlen:

I think so and I think it was… But I don’t think that was just me. I think that was everyone around me. So I think you have to kind of… Just block it all out really. Unless someone is actually giving you practical hands on helpful advice.

Anna Volkmer:

Easier said than done sometimes isn’t it.

James Fletcher:

I think, sort of related to that, was I probably wouldn’t have gone into the office two days before. Because not in terms of people telling you horror stories, but people were very sincere and sympathetic, but they almost treat you like you are sort of recently bereaved. So you get all of these, you know, hand on shoulder, “how are you feeling?” “It’s going to be fine.” I was like, I know it’s going to be fine but when you keep telling me it’s going to be fine it implies that it might not. So that was quite a surreal experience because you definitely get treated in a different way in the run up.

Anna Volkmer:

And you’re almost managing their feelings not your own.

James Fletcher:

Yeah, so that was quite bizarre. I almost felt like I had to act a little bit more het up in a way to justify their well-meaning concern.

Anna Volkmer:

Interesting, being the person they want you to be, the worried, anxious…

James Fletcher:

So it is worth considering who you want to be around in the days leading up to it.

Anna Volkmer:

Yeah, yeah, go for a run or something. Yeah, I hear you.

Sarah Aldous:

I mean, yeah, I think similar to what Robyn was saying, I did get very nervous and sort of het up about it and sort of reading my thesis over and over again until it did get to the point where I just had to say, I’ve done enough. What happens tomorrow, I’ve got myself to this point, it will be okay no matter what, even if it doesn’t go fantastically, it still will have happened. I’ll be over the other side. And just kind of face it like that.

Anna Volkmer:

Yeah. One piece of advice I’ve already been given is that actually they really just want to check that it’s you who wrote the thesis and not somebody else. And that’s one of the most important components rather than that they’re going to drill you about anything. So, I’ve come to the most important, THE most important question of the podcast. It sounds a bit silly but important to me.  What did you wear?

Robyn Dowlen:

I don’t think it sounds silly. It’s something that I spent quite a long time trying to figure out. I had to have something that I completely comfortable wearing and it was the 20th….Mine was the 20th of December. So it’s like the middle of winter but also the building I work in is really hot. So I had a colleague who did her viva in October and it was really, really hot and that made her viva experience miserable because she just felt hot and sweaty the whole time. So luckily I didn’t have that, but yeah I just wore a black and white spotty dress that was very comfortable and weirdly my colleague who had a viva recently wore exactly the same outfit, like the same dress from the same place.

Anna Volkmer:

From the same shop? Heels or no heels? Flats?

Robyn Dowlen:

Flats.

Anna Volkmer:

Right, okay.

Robyn Dowlen:

I wore brogues I think.

Anna Volkmer:

Okay. Good to know. James? Flats?

James Fletcher:

I’m the worst possible person to ask about this. I wore the normal jeans and a shirt and the things I would wear to the office really.

Anna Volkmer:

Yeah, okay. So you didn’t need to… So, I often think about this because I feel that I need to put something on to help me play a role when I go into something like this. But I don’t think that everyone needs that.

James Fletcher:

I appreciate that. Certainly if I’m giving a big talk, then I might put on a jacket, but I don’t know if I almost wanted to make it more formal than it needed to be. So there’s also that side of it. There’s probably a trade off in which you want to look legitimate, but you also don’t want to make things overly cold and formal.

Anna Volkmer:

Yeah. No I completely understand.

Sarah Aldous:

Yeah I think you just have to have that balance of something you feel comfortable but also something that makes you feel like, okay maybe either it’s just another day, or no, I can take this a bit more seriously. I mean I just upgraded my jeans to slightly fancier trousers. So I felt a bit like, okay it’s a slightly special day but I’m still comfortable in my clothes, I still feel like I’m wearing stuff that I would wear. I didn’t want to sort of wear something that made me feel odd.

Anna Volkmer:

Yeah, I spoke to a girl recently. She was saying that she bought herself a pair of sequinned super high stilettos for her viva and I just couldn’t…. That’s what I envisaged, the absolute pain. Yeah. I’m really pleased to hear that as a summary, is going with something that is comfortable, but you know, makes you feel like you’re conveying the right image. And so last of all, and probably most important really, did you all enjoy your viva, and if you have any final kind of top tips for listeners that’d really helpful.

Robyn Dowlen:

So I would say that my viva was a really, really positive experience. I was very lucky to have the examiners I had and they… It was all about building me up and giving me the opportunity to really showcase my work within that 50 minutes which I thought was halfway through, actually it was just like, yeah we’re done. We’re done here. The only thing that would have make my experience more positive would have been the setup of the room. I think it’s small things like that, that you really need to think about before you go into your viva. It’s about having the most comfortable space you can have. So, what I had was a long conference table and I was sat at the head of the table and my two examiners were sat to my right and to my left and my supervisor was sat at the other end of the table. And so it was really bad because I had to keep looking left, right, I couldn’t just talk. So I’d say get to know the space that you’re going to be doing your viva in and make sure if you have any requests, like you can ask to sit in a certain place, you can ask for your main supervisor to be in there, you can ask for them not to be in there. It’s just about creating a space for you to shine and to showcase your research in a really positive light.

Anna Volkmer:

It sounds like a legal hearing. One side of the table, the other side of the table. Gosh, yeah, okay.

James Fletcher:

I’d just reiterate really that you should at least try to enjoy it. Maybe you can’t. But at least go in with that mentality because when’s the next time that two experts in your field are going to engage so deeply with all of your work. And that is a bit of a privilege and it should be quite an intellectually stimulating experience. So you’ll inevitably be a little bit nervous but also if you try and think of it in those terms then it might help you to enjoy it.

Anna Volkmer:

That’s lovely. That’s good. I’m feeling more confident already.

Sarah Aldous:

Yeah I mean, I think I enjoyed it much more than I was expecting, and I think I stopped myself from really enjoying it. Like the others have said, it was a really interesting discussion, my examiners were really positive, and I really did enjoy talking about my work. But there was a sort of voice in the back my head that was like, oh well they’ll get to this bit and then it will change. Oh they’ll get to this bit and then it will change. So I think I was the main barrier to just sort of relaxing and enjoying it and then, yeah, when it came to the end, they were like, okay fine just step outside for 10 minutes. I was sort of a bit like, oh okay, that went well. So yeah I mean it was alright in the end. And yeah like the others said, this is an opportunity to talk about what you’ve done for the past however many years and no matter what, you’ll have put a lot of effort and a lot of work in so it’s nice to take that time to be like, you know what, this is what I’ve done.

Anna Volkmer:

Fantastic. Thank you. Thank you all for your tips and hints. I think this has been really useful for me for next March I think, when I have to do mine. So it’s time to end today’s podcast recording. I would like to thank our panellists, James, Robyn and Sarah. You can visit our website to look at profiles on all of our panellists. And if you have anything to add on this topic please do post your comments in the forum or on our website or drop us a line on Twitter using #ECRdementia. And finally, please remember to subscribe to this podcast through SoundCloud and iTunes and Spotify. Please also share and post your review.

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END