Fuddland

As I mentioned, on Friday I successfully defended my PhD thesis during a two-and-a-half-hour-long viva. During the lead-up to this occasion, besides being asked if I was feeling ready [no] or if I was nervous [yes], the most common query from friends and family was: what the hell is a viva?

Before my own, I was only able to give the dictionary-definition answer: a viva—short for viva voce, a Latin phrase literally translating as “by living voice” which has come to mean “by word of mouth”—is an oral examination, conducted by two examiners [one from the student’s university, one from another institute, both somewhat expert in the relevant field], in order to ascertain just how well the student understands the body of work that they have researched and submitted in their thesis. It lasts for as long as the examiners decree and focusses on whichever aspects of the student’s work that they decide are important. Those last two points are why it was hard to say precisely what occurs during the viva, because I really didn’t know exactly what I was going to be asked, and every one must by its very nature be different, but now I’ve been through it myself, I can provide a little more detail on my own experience.

I don’t know how other people prepare themselves for a viva; I know with “normal” exams, some people are better with last-minute cramming, but for me, the night before an exam it’s always about relaxing and making sure I’m not stressing-out about things I might not yet fully understand, etc., so I went to the cinema and later, in a bid to completely numb my brain of all intellectual activity, read half of Jordan’s autobiography. The next morning I got up in plenty of time for the ten o’clock start, donned my suit, ate four mince pies for breakfast, and headed off to University.

It turned out that question one was the longest to answer: “Give an overview of the contents of your thesis.” This took me an hour and a quarter, with tangents springing from questions the examiners thought of during my answer, and I became extremely conscious that I say “obviously” every second word [once I’d realised this, I obviously tried to stop myself, obviously]. The effort I’d put into making the contents of my thesis flow in a logical and easy-to-follow [for me, at least] order made it relatively simple for me to waffle on about each chapter and section in turn, and the only time I stood up to write on the whiteboard was to draw one quick diagram.

After question one I relaxed quite a fair bit, as the remainder of the viva consisted of going through the thesis page-by-page, with the examiners pointing out typos or asking me to clarify certain statements I’d made. This too lasted an hour and a quarter, and on reaching the last page I was asked, as a summing-up question, which aspect of my work I’d found the most interesting, and of which I was most proud. I was then asked to leave the room for ten minutes whilst the examiners conferred to decide the outcome, and, well, you know the rest.

Interestingly, one comment that was made regarding my performance was that I came across as knowing more about the subject than my thesis suggests, which is just a big fat not true! And I’m indescribably relieved that it wasn’t until after my viva was complete that I learnt that the external examiner had failed the last two students he’d examined—I’m fairly sure I’d have gone completely to pieces had I been furnished with this little tidbit beforehand.

#1

Jann | 2005 / 12 / 20 – 09:54

I bet Tom Baker never went through all that.

Sylvester McCoy must have cheated. Obviously.

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