Surviving the PhD Viva an External Examiner's Perspective

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Surviving the PhD Viva - an External Examiner's
Perspective

• Jane Grimson
• Department of Computer Science
• Trinity College, Dublin

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Overview

• Research
• What is a PhD?
• Stages
• Studentsupervisor relationship
• Breakout groups
• Feedback
• Conclusions

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Research

• not simply a means of ensuring that academics
  keep up to date
  
• promotes a tolerance of uncertainty and ambiguity
  
  
• fosters a questioning and inquiring attitude
• develops specific skills
• ultimately equips students for life-long
  learning
  

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Research-based teaching

• fundamental to the university approach to
  education
  
• teaching, learning and research form part of an
  integrated whole
  
• forces at work to pull them apart
• mass higher education
• separation between those who teach and those who
  do research
  

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Postgraduate students play key role

• research groups
• funded research
• more than cheap labour

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What is a PhD?

• A PhD is about finding out more and more about
  less and less until one eventually knows
  everything about nothing
  Anon

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What is a PhD?

• original work
• displays knowledge of the field
• displays the exercise of critical judgement
• represents a contribution to knowledge

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Predicting the future?

• Everything that can be invented has been
  invented
  
• Head of the US Patent Office, 1889
• Heavier that air machines are not possible
• Lord Kelvin
• There is a world market for 15 computers
• Chairman of IBM, 1945
• Space flight is hokum
• Astronomer Royal, 1957

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Stages

• Finding a supervisor
• Finding a topic
• Research proposal
• Doing the research
• Writing up
• Viva
• Graduation

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One night a man had a dream. He was walking along
a beach with his PhD Topic. It was at night. Hazy
moonlight lit the scene with an eerie glow.
Sometimes the man could almost touch the PhD
Topic, but it would immediately dance out of
reach. The man said How am I ever to finish if
I can't catch you? The topic said Hah, hah, g
ood question! This is fate, my friend. This is no
ordinary walk. No, this is the rest of your life.
Either you may stray to the right, seeking
another topic, and end this walk with quiet
desperation in the Ocean of Infinite Technical
Reports, or you may stray to the left, and lead a
life of quiet desperation in  the Sorrowful Land
of Consolation Prizes. Ah, but the true goal lies
ahead! The problem is you don't know the cost of
what you seek, nor do you know how long this
beach is or where it leads. The man stopped, cr
ushed with despair. He reached down and quietly
played with the sand for a while. Then he laughed
and took out a cigarette lighter. Open wide, the
man said. No, the Topic shouted! Don't be silly
! The beach is almost over, really! And it leads
to the Peaceful Planes of Academic Recognition.
The man laughed again. You said this last year,
sorry. The lighter became a blowtorch. He aimed
it at the Topic. The Topic disappeared in a loud
swooshing noise. I knew you were just a lot of
hot air, said the man. He laughed again, and
whistling, ascended straight up into the last
open direction, the Ethereal Pleasures of Those
Who Don't Want a Topic. The moonlight danced on
. The beach was silent. The man was happy.
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Research proposal

• Description of proposed project
• problem, motivation and approach
• Account of any work you have done to date
• Bibliography and short survey of the area
• Approximate timetable with Milestones
• Outline Table of Contents

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Carrying out the research

• Enthusiasm, enthusiasm, enthusiasm
• Peaks and troughs, ups and downs
• 1 inspiration, 99 perspiration
• Dont give up

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Dont quit!

• Success is failure turned inside out -
• The silver tint of the clouds of doubt -
• And you never can tell how close you are,
• It may be near when it seems afar
• So, stick to the fight when youre hardest hit -
• Its when things seem worst that you mustnt quit

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Pitfalls

• Solving the world
• Manna from Heaven
• Computer Bum
• Ivory Tower
• One-off
• Misunderstood genius
• Love of Complexity
• Lost in abstraction
• Nobel prize syndrome
• Leaving evaluation until the last minute

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Writing up

• In parallel with research or sequentially?
• Big bang or iterative?
• Structure
• introduction
• state-of-the-art
• design
• implementation
• evaluation
• conclusions and future work
• references
• appendices

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English

• problems with soft-bound theses
• grammar, spelling and punctuation
• dont rely on MS WORD
• read it out loud

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Never-say-neverisms

• Dont use no double negatives
• Verbs has to agree with their subjects
• Proof-read carefully to see if you any words out
• Take the bull by the hand and avoid mixing
  metaphors
  
• Never, ever use repetitive redundancies
• Dont string too many prepositional phrases
  together unless you are walking through the
  valley of the shadow of death
  
• If you reread your work, you will find on
  rereading that a great deal of repetition can be
  avoided by rereading and editing
  
• Last but not least, avoid clichés like the
  plague seek viable alternatives

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Student-supervisor relationship

• a university if a collection of individuals
  united in a common dispute about parking!

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A negative view

• Most advisors are interested in working with
  bright people on ground-breaking research -
  thats why they became graduate professors. But
  they arent particularly interested in working
  with students, or on student research projects.
  Moreover, few professors really enjoy
  dissertation advising. Thats not what they were
  trained to do , not what they were hired to do,
  and usually not what they want to do.
• In academia, advising gets little credit
  toward salary increases, promotions, or prestige,
  so few professors feel its important. The result
  is, they lack motivation to advise well, and are
  diffident about their advising relationships.
  Its your advisors lack of involvement with the
  advising role that places sole responsibility
  with you to set up and sustain a good advising
  relationship ASGS

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An alternative view

• At the beginning, the child has little
  independence, and almost every action is directed
  by the parent.
  
• As the child grow, independence develops.
• As adolescence sets in, conflicts arise.
• In adulthood, parent and child redefine the
  relationship.

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Breakout groups

• What is the purpose of the viva?
• Do you have any particular concerns about the
  viva and if so what are they?
  
• Would you expect/like to give a
  demonstration/presentation of your work to the
  examiners?
  
• What sort of preparation should you do for the
  viva?

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The Viva

• Like debugging a program
• thesis is the program and youre the programmer,
  degree standards are the syntax and the examiners
  are the interpreter
  
• Error messages
• imply that bugs need to be corrected

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Conclusions

• dont try to solve the worlds problems
• be critical - dont believe everything you read
  or are told
  
• discuss/present your ideas regularly
• shut up and write
• write early and often
• measure your progress
• stay focussed

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Good luck!