Viva Prep at Birmingham

Today I went to see my supervisor at Birmingham for a Viva Preparation session. He offered me one when I submitted my thesis and I took him up on it. However the only date that we both could make was today. Today's session was more relaxed than a normal one

In the weeks since the last blog I have been working through my thesis. The process has focused on annotating the text with post-it notes and pencil. There are three different sorts of annotations. Simple textual correction are corrected in pencil. l will produce a list of these corrections for the examiners, but they can then be put to one side. Then there are the explanations and more in depth corrections that cover actual substantive errors. These are put on yellow post it notes. When I really need to make sure these are mentioned I have also put a yellow tab mark at the top. Finally, there are the key points of the thesis. These are on pink post it notes. However, these are divided into major and minor with pink tabs for the major ones. There are far more pink tabs than yellow, but I suspect about an equal number of post it notes in each colour. I am also doing mindmaps of each chapter. I will also do a diagrammatic picture of the thesis and produce an index for my own use.

Anyway the reason for me writing this is that today I went to see my supervisor to do viva prep.l needed two things from him. First was local information on how vivas work at Birmingham. I know the general stuff, but each university has its own idiosyncracies and thus I needed to know what these were for Birmingham. There is nothing off the wall, but the detail was important. Indeed we got at one stage into a discussion over the affiliated colleges to Sheffield University. The second was to get me talking around my thesis. It actually seems to come quite easily in that I can put things into words. My main difficulty, as Martin spotted, is referencing my thesis. I am going to have to do some thinking. Up today l have assumed that page number was the sensible way to do this but I am realising that there maybe a more natural way. I suspect that the full thesis diagram might produce this and therefore becomes more important than the indexes.

The day was as sunny as it usually is when I go to Birmingham. Many students were out on the grass and few were in the computer rooms. I suspect that it is a pre-exam week although some exams were in progress. It is now less than a fortnight to my viva and as l walked back to the train station it just might be my last time as a student. Birmingham New Street is still a mess and I am not sure whether I should be glad that I will not have to deal with it regularly over the next few months or sorry that after putting up with it in this state I will not automatically see the new look when finished.

Starting preparing for Viva

All right I realise I should have posted here when I heard, but I forgot in the long list of places to post. My viva is on Tuesday 3rd June. That is relatively quick, the University of Birmingham gives two months to arrange for dates and actually my viva is within those two months. In fact it is so soon that my supervisor had advised me to only start chasing my internal the week before if I had not heard.

For those not familiar with the viva process, there is no reason why outside academia should be, it is an oral examination that is the final part of the examining process.  It is based on the thesis that is submitted and it also an assessment of your ability as an academic in the discipline your thesis is in. There is a description of  the precise procedure on the University of Birmingham website so if you want more detail.

I took a fortnight off, well except for agreeing to the examination date, the examiners and sending an electronic copy for my external examiner. It is daft, I have printed and bound two copies at around fifteen pounds each and then the examiner wants it electronically. I actually did that twice as the first time I did it the old fashioned way by printing the Word file to pdf (No I am not going to send my examiner a Word file, as sure as eggs are eggs, if I did when she opened it on her computer it would muck up the layout on several pages immediately).

Before I submitted I wondered how submitting would hit me. I have a friend who submitted in November and she took to cleaning the house completely. I thought if I did that it might be a good thing. However it has not. What has happened is I suddenly have been wanting lots of exercise. The major desire is for walking, but lots of walking and working do not mix. I find if I mix fairly frequent walks with other exercise I just about have it under control. I have therefore been on two long walks in the last month (and have another planned for tomorrow), been swimming thrice and joined a gym and got a routine to help me get fit. I just hope I can keep it going through viva preparation and revisions. Actually in the run up to viva there is a good incentive to keep me going as exercise lowers anxiety levels. There were signs that anxiety was getting to silly levels prior to submission so I did need to do something and the choice was between seeing the doctor or taking exercise and exercise won.

However this last week I have started the viva preparation. It has been fairly relaxed to date, I have set a date with my supervisor to do Viva preparation. I have also started a bit of examiner stalking and went to training at the University of Sheffield (my employer) on Viva Preparation. The training was Viva Survivor led by Nathan Ryder. I was the only part timer in my session (he led two sessions at Sheffield on Friday).  I was attending in my own time as Friday is my day off. The session was good in that it gave us some idea what a Viva might be like. Let me explain, despite the information above, there is very little information given to students on what the viva is actually like. This left me in a state of anxiety/excitedness that is not dissimilar to the state when you are hauled up in a cart on a big dipper before a big drop. You know the drop is coming but have little how deep or how twisted it is. Now it is as if someone has offered you a rough sketch map of what is ahead.

I am also reading Rowena Murray's book How to Survive your Viva which is good and gives very different information. The two do not really overlap, at least as far as I can see, except when discussing what you should take into your viva. Then the lists are identical.  Also, I have been doing some gentle examiner stalking. This has been purchasing some books by them. Several times during my thesis I hunted for books involving Peter Collins. There was good reason for this, from the book chapters of his, I knew that his PhD thesis was probably the closest to mine of any researcher. So I am slightly miffed to find a book published in 2008 that seems relevant, and to only find it when I am stalking one of my examiners. A hint that came up at Viva Survivor, but not from Nathan, was to actually search for podcasts from you examiners. I have found that both of mine have done podcasts and there is a sense in which listening to the podcasts you get a feel for their thought that going through books does not give.

I also have been out to buy paper supplies to start annotating my thesis. I hope to get that started this week and buying clothes for it. Nothing special really but I have not bought summer clothes this year for work and last years are beginning to look tatty. Actually I am aiming at the top end of Sunday-go-to-meeting clothes but not party stuff or highly formal. Being dressed well and comfortably is for me, as for many females, a way to boost our morale.

Oh the other thing I had not realised is how much talking there is to be done in a viva by the candidate (I am glad I am in Humanities as two hours sounds quite long enough). I am going to have to check out techniques to deal with a loss of voice; as one of my anxiety symptoms is that I loose my voice. I have techniques which I have developed over the years; slowing down, deliberately projecting (so treating a small room as if it is a lecture room with hundred of people there) and making sure my face can be clearly seen.

I will add the picture tomorrow after my walk.