As I mentioned in my last post I successfully defended my PhD viva (thesis defence) just over three weeks ago. As I was preparing to defend my thesis I found it helpful and often reassuring to read the experiences of other PhD students to get some idea of what I could expect. Of course, every viva will be different but below are some of my thoughts post-viva which I hope my be useful to others.
Preparation
In the weeks leading up to my viva I tried to prepare as best I could by re-reading my thesis and refreshing my memory of the major papers which I had cited often or based my own work upon. Apart from this I didn’t feel like I could really do much to prepare as I had no idea what questions I would be asked. At the time I found this quite stressful because I felt like I should have been working harder and doing more to prepare. Now with the benefit of hindsight I can see that I did the right things.
What my reviewers most wanted to know was that I understood and could explain my own work. Since I had spent the last 3+ years working on it this was not a problem! What I now know is that the preparation for my viva began on the very first day of my PhD. While it was helpful (and definitely recommended) to refresh my memory of the key points of my work in the weeks leading up to my viva, the real hard work had already been done over the past years.
The warm-up
On the day of my viva I got up early and read a few notes one last time over breakfast. I then headed into my university for a pre-viva chat and coffee with my supervisor. This really helped calm any nerves I had as he seemed quite confident that I would have no problems.
In the hour before my viva began I had to go and register with the secretary before being shown to the room where I would meet my reviewers. Here I had to wait outside for quite a few minutes and it was at this point that I first started to get really nervous. I think because the time waiting gave me the time to think of all the possible worst case scenarios!
Eventually, I was shown into the room where my reviewers introduced themselves and explained what the viva was and what would happen over the next few hours. I was offered drinks which had been prepared for us (tea/coffee/water) before the viva really began. These first few minutes felt like a warm-up before the real questioning began.
Full-speed
The first thing I was asked to do was to explain in broad terms what my thesis was about, why I did it and what I had discovered. This was possibly the easiest question of the whole day as I had spent so long working on my PhD that I could explain it in my sleep. The only difficulty I had was condensing more than three years of results into fifteen minutes of explanation. This meant leaving out everything but the biggest and most important elements of my work.
On a couple of occasions I found myself spending too much time explaining minor details and had to force myself to move on to more important aspects of my work. Nevertheless, this question really helped me to get into the flow of explaining my research and after a few minutes I really felt like I was firing on all cylinders.
After this warm-up question things got a lot more detailed. My reviewers went through each chapter one by one and stopped wherever they had a question about something I had written or wanted some more detail about a particular point I had raised. In almost all cases these questions were not too difficult, and in most cases they were relatively easy to answer.
However, I don’t want to suggest that there were no difficult questions. On a couple of occasions a question was put to me that I couldn’t answer very well or a criticism of my work was made which I could only agree with. During the viva this made me quite uncomfortable, but now, with the benefit of hindsight, I can see that my reviewers pushed me to look at my work from a different perspective and consider new possibilities. This is probably one of the best things to come out of my viva and will really help me as I write-up some of my chapters for publication.
Towards the end
My viva was just under three hours long. It sounds like a really long time but it really didn’t feel like it. After the first few questions it felt more like a friendly discussion that an exam and I relaxed a little bit and started to feel slightly more confident. This, along with the stress and adrenaline really helped the time to fly by.
Once both my reviewers were satisfied that they had no more questions to ask me I was asked to leave the room for a few minutes while they discussed how I did and what the outcome should be. This was probably the most nerve-wracking moment for me as I really had no idea how well I’d done or what outcome to expect. After maybe five minutes I was asked back into the room where my reviewers both seemed happy and congratulated me on passing with minor corrections. This means I have up to six months to make a few changes to my thesis which in reality should take no more than a week or two.
And relax!
The feeling of relief on being given the news that I had passed was overwhelming and I didn’t really know how to react. The corrections I need to make are only very small and my reviewers really seemed to like my work.
Once the viva was over I had a celebratory pint in the local pub with my supervisor, a reviewer and some friends. At this point I was still dazed, relieved, tired and hadn’t really full absorbed had what just happened. I think it took a full 24 hours before it really sank in that all of my work over the past years had been worth it. Often it was fun, at times it was hard, stressful and I felt like I couldn’t do it. But now it has paid off and I am happy!
If you are a PhD student about to defend your thesis and have any questions about the process please feel free to email me or leave a comment. And most of all, good luck!
Ecologica 