{"id":3047,"date":"2019-06-27T12:18:36","date_gmt":"2019-06-27T12:18:36","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.editage.com\/insights\/ive-just-submitted-my-thesis-what-now\/"},"modified":"2025-01-15T06:32:58","modified_gmt":"2025-01-15T06:32:58","slug":"ive-just-submitted-my-thesis-what-now","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.editage.com\/insights\/ive-just-submitted-my-thesis-what-now","title":{"rendered":"I’ve just submitted my thesis. What now?"},"content":{"rendered":"

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\u201cThesis\u201d flickr photo by IaninSheffield\u00a0https:\/\/flickr.com\/photos\/ianinsheffield\/43944925970<\/a>\u00a0shared under a Creative Commons (BY-NC-SA) license<\/strong><\/em><\/p>\n

Last week I submitted my thesis. No hoopla. No fanfare. No round of applause. It was merely a matter of printing four copies, getting them bound, then dropping them off at the reception desk of a university office building. Quite an anti-climax really. In return I was given a pro forma acknowledgement of receipt and the promise that they would be passed on to the relevant department. I needed no more than that, but I can\u2019t help thinking how deflated some people must feel; all that effort and not even a \u2018Congratulations\u2019 or \u2018You must be delighted!\u2019 Perhaps there might be something to be gained from the university rethinking that small, but significant aspect of the examination process.<\/span><\/span><\/span><\/p>\n

The next formal stage from my perspective will be the viva or oral exam. At the moment, that\u2019s scheduled for mid-December, leaving me with five weeks in which to prepare. Most candidates have a mock exam and I know that will be vital for me too, so preparing for that is my next task. To be fair, I haven\u2019t exactly left viva prep until the last minute. Over the past couple of years, I\u2019ve been collecting resources which might help me in this endeavour. I\u2019ve listened to many\u00a0Viva Survivors podcasts<\/a>, read through\u00a0Pat Thomson\u2019s<\/a>\u00a0and\u00a0Inger Mewburn\u2019s<\/a> viva-related posts, and skimmed a number of books in the uni library to see which might be most helpful. I\u2019ve also attended a number of doctoral support seminars which have dealt with this topic, so it\u2019s fair to say I have a pretty good idea of what will be required of me. Knowing what I\u00a0should\u00a0<\/i>do and translating that into a solid performance on the day are two different matters however. Interviews have never been one of my strengths; I\u2019m never comfortable answering questions on the hoof, especially complex ones. To address this shortcoming, I know that what helps me is thinking through and preparing answers for the questions I\u2019m\u00a0most\u00a0<\/i>likely to be asked, answers which will be sufficiently broad that they can be reconfigured to address most general, rather than specific questions I\u2019m asked. I also need to develop a strategy for dealing with questions I haven\u2019t been able to anticipate.<\/span><\/span><\/span><\/p>\n

I spent the last few days well away from the thesis just to provide a little distance and breathing space, so I can return to it afresh. Now I\u2019m ready to get stuck in it once more, and firstly want to set the different steps I\u2019ll take over the next couple of weeks. There are two main parts I feel: becoming intimate with the thesis, and developing answers to possible questions.<\/span><\/span><\/span><\/p>\n