This week I had my mock viva. I have lived to tell the tale. OK, so it wasn’t a complete disaster, but I am familiar with the format at the least, if I’m not brimming with confidence going into the real thing next week.

I think it would be wiser to share some of the secrets of a good viva after I have actually done the thing for real, otherwise I could be setting myself up for a fall. However, I have learnt that the most important thing is to not set myself up to be tripped up by blagging an answer I really don’t have much clue about. I think I know which bits I need to defend to the death and for the questions that aren’t exactly on my thesis I should give a short, non-committal answer that doesn’t leave me wide open for a follow-up.

I do know that it was a good tactic to do a mock and I would recommend it to every PhD student. Getting my supervisors to ask the questions and also make notes about my responses for a debriefing in the pub afterwards was a good move. I knew that my supervisors would know just the most difficult questions to ask to really test me, and they sure did. The fact that the mock was in the same room as the real thing will be next week, I think will be helpful too in making me feel used to the venue for the grilling of my life next week.

I shall report on how that goes…