The Savvy Scientist
Experiences of a London PhD student and beyond
What is a PhD Viva Like? Sharing Graduates’ Experiences
When you’re trying to prepare for a PhD viva it can be really difficult to know what to expect. Unlike pretty much every other exam you’ll have experienced, the viva isn’t a standardised exam so you won’t find any past papers to practice on!
In this post I’ll be sharing the inside scoop on what a PhD viva is like. Both from my own experiences plus those of a few other PhD graduates.
Preparing for your viva? You may also want to take a look at some of the other PhD viva content I’ve written:
How to Defend a Thesis: An Introduction to the PhD Viva
Common phd viva questions.
Note: Every viva is different, in this post I’m focussing on my viva which took place in the UK. Two PhD graduates in Spain and the US also share their experiences.
What is a PhD viva?
For those who aren’t already familiar with what a PhD viva is, I’d highly recommend reading my full post on How to Defend a Thesis: An Introduction to the PhD Viva . This delves into how a PhD viva is assessed, who is present, the potential outcomes and what follows after.
As a quick recap, a PhD viva (also called a defense in some countries) is the final assessment a PhD student undertakes in order to pass their PhD. The format the viva can take varies from country to country and even institution to institution, but it typically involves discussing and defending your PhD thesis with experts in your field.
In this post you’ll hear about the viva experiences of three PhD graduates, each with a slightly different format.
To get the best understanding of how PhD vivas take place at your university I’d recommend:
- Checking out any webpages your university have which formally outline the viva process
- Speaking to your PhD supervisor
- Chatting to colleagues such as postdocs who’ve been through it
Viva Experiences from PhD Grads
Prof elizabeth bondi-kelly , phd from harvard university, usa. assistant professor in computer science at university of michigan.
What was your PhD viva like? At my (virtual) defense, I had my committee, adviser, labmates, and family/friends. I was fortunate to give my job talk presentation again for my defense, so I had already had a lot of practice with presenting it and being asked questions about it.
How do you suggest people prepare for their PhD viva? For anyone who hasn’t had that opportunity, I highly recommend practicing to get a polished talk and practice answering questions about it.
Prof Raúl Santos-Rodríguez , PhD from Universidad Carlos III de Madrid, Spain. Full Professor in AI at University of Bristol.
What are PhD vivas like in Spain? The viva process in Spain varies from university to university. In most cases there are a few previous filters (internal/external reports) that make it such that, once you are through those, most of the pressure is off for the actual defence. The viva consists of a public presentation (usually with colleagues, friends and family in the audience) followed by questions from a panel, with each member asking their questions in turns. Both presentation and Q&A tend to be time limited (around 45 minutes each).
What was your PhD viva like? My viva experience was nerve-wracking but rewarding too. I remember how the exercise of putting together the presentation with the panel in mind actually gave me quite a different perspective on how to tell the story of my thesis. The event took place in a rather formal lecture room in our faculty. The panel consisted of five examiners (three externals including one from abroad, and two internals), all of whom were experts in my field of study. The panel asked me a wide range of questions, covering both very specific details and very high level matters. Once I answered their questions to their satisfaction, and after a short deliberation, I was given the good news. Overall, I found the viva to be a challenging but stimulating experience — and a good memory.
How do you suggest people prepare for their PhD viva? In terms of advice, I would suggest to:
- Expect to be surprised by unexpected questions about your research
- Be clear and concise, allowing examiners to ask for more details if needed
- Practice your presentation without being constrained to say the same things every time
- Not be afraid to ask for clarification if you don’t understand and take your time to respond
- Enjoy the interaction with the examiners as they are experts that have a lot to add to your work
Me! PhD from Imperial College London, UK. Research Fellow in AI at Bristol.
What was your PhD viva like? My viva, which took place over Microsoft Teams, included just an internal examiner, external examiner and myself. I gave a short presentation giving a summary of my PhD then about five hours were spent giving suggestions to improve content I was preparing to submit to journals. It was much less intimidating than I was expecting.
How do you suggest people prepare for their PhD viva? I mainly suggest to not over prepare! Sure, reread your thesis and swot up on any content you don’t feel comfortable describing (for instance certain techniques you’ve used), but I would caution against rehearsing too much: come to terms with the fact that you won’t be able to predict all the questions you’ll get asked.
I’ll be sharing more details on my viva experience in the rest of the post.
How To Prepare For a PhD Viva: The Advice I Was Given
Ahead of my own viva I typically got told to:
Relax and take your time in replying . This is somewhat sensible advice but a bit like telling someone to calm down: it doesn’t always work. Furthermore, relaxing can be hard to do when you also get told to…
Be prepared to answer questions about every part of your work . At face value this can seem reasonable: if you did the work, and deserve a PhD, you should be able to explain your work. Like many of us I heard the horror stories of examiners asking students to provide an explanation of fundamental techniques from first principles such as: “derive energy”!
However, I don’t think any rational examiner can expect a student to be able to answer every possible question about their PhD work. Not least because many students aren’t relaxed during the viva and instead are filled with nerves.
Thankfully, the reality is that examiners simply need to check that you’ve done the work and understand it. Therefore, yes you should be able to give a broad explanation of the techniques you’ve used but you can’t be expected to know everything about every technique.
Once it strays from your work to underlying principles I suggest that you explain as much as you feel comfortable then push back – the internal examiner (who acts as a moderator) should also step in if unreasonable questions are being asked. For more details on what PhD examiners are looking for, read this section of another post I’ve written .
How I Prepared for My PhD Viva
The time between submitting my thesis (14th February) and viva (25th March) was shorter than for most people. On top of that I didn’t spend long writing my thesis, meaning that the time between finishing my actual research and my viva was pretty short (around two months). Therefore I didn’t feel the need to “revise” for my viva. As in, sometimes you’ll hear of people reminding themselves of how certain experimental or analytic techniques work, but it was pretty fresh in my memory.
Instead, about 48 hours before my viva I started to read through my thesis. This is going to sound really bad but this was actually my first (and only) time properly reading through my thesis. No, I didn’t outsource or use ChatGPT to write my thesis!
When I submitted my thesis I had of course assembled all the chapters but had never given it a proper cohesive read all the way through. I read through the thesis over the course of 4-5 sittings. Reading fiction is definitely more fun .
I personally didn’t prepare by trying to come up with answers for lots of potential questions. But if you’re keen to have those to hand, read my Common PhD Viva Questions .
Preparing for your own viva? I’ve created a set of viva preparation worksheets which are available for free in the resource library. Click the image below for access!
Why didn’t I prepare more?
I felt pretty relaxed about my viva. This isn’t because I am crazy clever or knowledgable. In fact, like many of us I’ve felt imposter syndrome, waiting for the moment that my lack of knowledge gets discovered: and if there ever a moment you’d expect this to happen it would be at your viva.
These three things relaxed me for the viva:
- The external examiner seemed nice from the time I’d met him in the past at a conference. Certainly not a sure-fire sign that he wouldn’t turn into a scary beast during a viva but it seemed like a good starting point.
- It was virtual. My viva took place right at the start of COVID and as such took place over Teams. For some reason this felt reassuring, as if I could get away with just unplugging my internet connection if they asked anything particularly scary. Thankfully I didn’t ever feel the need to try this out!
- I had published PhD work in a well-ranked respected peer-reviewed journal. This was far and away the most reassuring thing. As mentioned in another post, examiners have to be confident in all of the following things to let you pass your PhD viva. If you have published some of your work somewhere respectable you tick many of the boxes immediately:
Oh, and I also didn’t prepare much because I was preoccupied with moving from London the week before my viva because of COVID and the start of lockdowns. Unexpectedly I ended up moving in with my girlfriend’s parents. It was rather chaotic but probably a useful distraction too.
My PhD Viva Experience
Who was at my viva.
Unlike vivas in other countries, such as the two international experiences shared above, a viva in the UK usually only involves:
- PhD student – me in this case!
- Internal examiner – an academic working in the same research area from the host university. They’re there to moderate the discussion and check that the university’s viva regulations are followed.
- External examiner – another academic working in the research area from a different university. In my case this was someone who was a leader in the field who came from another UK university.
Optionally the PhD student may ask their supervisor to attend. I’ve known of a few people who’ve had their supervisor there too, though it’s pretty rare and unnecessary in my opinion.
How long did my PhD viva last?
All in all it was about five and a half hours.
This was much longer than I anticipated. When we scheduled the viva to start at 10am I naively expected us to be finished by lunch. Admittedly the examiners did suggest stopping for a break at lunch time but again I naively thought we’d be done shortly afterwards, so declined the opportunity for more than a 5 minute comfort break. In the end we finished up around 3:30pm.
How was my PhD viva structured?
- Introductions (2 minutes) . I’d actually never met my internal examiner (who should act as a moderator) so introductions were necessary.
- Presentation (10 minutes) . A few weeks in advance of the viva I asked whether or not the examiners would like a presentation, and if so of what length. They said yes, 10-12 minutes. My supervisor strongly suggested making it on the shorter side: short and snappy is good and you’re about to have hours to discuss the details.
- Discussion (5 hours, yes, really!) . More on this in a moment.
- Decision and final comments (10 minutes) . I was asked to leave the metaphorical room (Teams call, remember!) and after a few minutes was invited back in after which they told me I’d passed with minor corrections. They gave a summary of the next steps, which were mostly administrative with paperwork, and briefly went over what changes/corrections they were expecting to the thesis.
What did we discuss for five hours?
Before my viva I had visions of it being like a job interview that lasts for hours and hours. They ask a slightly tough or awkward question, you try and answer, rinse and repeat x 100. The reality was really different.
The experience was much less intense than I was expecting. The examiners said from the outset that they were happy with the quality of the work and just aimed to give feedback to improve both the thesis and publications.
The vast majority of the viva was spent going page by page through the thesis covering points that the examiners had written down: not questions, merely suggestions. Very little of the viva involved me getting questioned: most of what I said was probably along the lines of “I agree, that’s a great idea”.
The examiners commented that they liked the [short] length of the thesis (140 pages before references) which may have helped. I was expecting at least a few dodgy questions such as explaining the content of a particular reference or deriving something from first principles. In all honestly I’m not sure I’d have been prepared for some of this, so was fine with not getting a hard time of it.
There were very few questions in general which was somewhat of a relief, though I was kind of looking forward to more of a discussion around the project. There were only two actual questions I think I got asked: one explaining why a particular technique wasn’t representative, and secondly a much more fluffy question of what would I do differently if I was starting again. That was it. I was really expecting more questions.
Every viva is unique so I can’t claim that my experience is representative but I will say that it was a relief to get through it unscathed.
What I wish I’d done differently
Asked more questions myself . The viva is one of the few times you’re likely to have hours of access to academic experts with such a keen interest in your work.
Was it tiring?
A little, just as any meeting which lasts over five hours would be. But because I didn’t feel like I was actually getting quizzed the whole time it was nowhere near as tiring as it could have been. Mostly I was tired just from having to pay attention for that long: I usually don’t sit still for more than 20 minutes!
What happened afterwards?
My viva was in March 2020, at the start of lockdown. I’d moved from London just the week prior and had to cancel the scheduled celebratory drinks with colleagues. So instead I had a glass of champagne with my girlfriend and her parents (who I was staying with).
After that, I got cracking right away the next morning on making the examiners’ suggested changes to my thesis.
My Advice If You’re Preparing For Your Own PhD Viva
- Download my free viva preparation guide .
- Read your thesis!
- Look up likely questions (if you want), here are some Common PhD Viva Questions
- Don’t over prepare
- Be honest. If you’re not sure about something, make this clear. Feel free to say you’re not sure.
- Ask questions
- Enjoy it! Channel those nerves as excitement and make the most of having experts show such an interest in your work.
Do you have any other questions about the PhD viva experience? Let me know in the comments and I’ll answer them as best I can!
If you’d like personalised help with preparing for your PhD viva I am now starting to offer a small number of one-to-one sessions. Please contact me to find out more or click here to book a call.
If you’re currently preparing for your own PhD viva, best of luck and remember to enjoy it! Be sure to check out the couple of other viva-related posts I’ve written .
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