COVID-19: she believed she could so she did.

So, where to begin…viva day was yesterday and it’s taken me over 24 hours to even make a start on processing what happened. Firstly, I am pleased to say that I passed my viva with minor corrections. In this post, I will document my initial reflections with a run down of what happened. Strap in, I think it’s going to be a long one (I’ve even added some headings for navigation and a summary just to save you all some time.) I’m not expecting anyone to read all of this, but I felt like a detailed keepsake for myself was important, and who knows someone might find it interesting/valuable.

TL;DR

• So many emotions before, during and still now 24hours later.
• The viva did not feel like a happy, chilled conversation about my research.
• The internet is public – even if you don’t think your examiners know about your blog, they do.
• Do the viva prep for you, it’s important, but don’t expect to use it.
• I’m so grateful for everyone who has been part of my journey.
• Examiners make or break a viva, and mine really made it.
• Don’t limit yourself based on other people’s expectations.

Pre-viva

My viva was schedule for 1400, which for me brought memories flooding back of university exams in the afternoon…what to do with the morning? I didn’t do any work, that I think is crucial. I had woken up at 0500 with all the thoughts of the day to come. I’m glad that in advance I had planned for this and also made a plan of things to do in the morning, nothing useful, nothing brain intensive…just stuff to keep me busy. The only thing I left to do on my thesis itself, because I know me and knew I’d need to do something, was to stick the tabs on for navigating my copy in the viva. Any decisions that needed to be made, I had made before the day, including where to sit and what to wear. I opted for smart but comfortable – I was going to be uncomfortable enough with the questioning, I didn’t need to be worrying about my shoes or a tight shirt. (I guess an advantage of female attire is that I’m not limited to a suit for such occasions!) Most importantly for me, I donned my radish earrings, which my sister got me years ago. (NB if you missed the radish earrings symbolism please refer to Harry Potter and the Order of the Phoenix, Chapter 10: Luna Lovegood and note that I, also, am a proud Ravenclaw.)

Sitting down at my desk ready to start my viva was a really surreal experience. I had the conscious thought of exactly that, how could I be sitting down for my viva at the end of my PhD already?! I knew it would be over before I could comprehend what was happening. I think perhaps because it was a virtual one, it felt like sitting down to just another Teams meeting. Turns out that helped me a bit, especially as both my and my supervisor arrived a bit early and had a bit of a chat about..I don’t even know what…the weather I think?

Viva

First things first, everyone arrived and greetings were had, before I was booted out for my examiners and I think supervisor to chat. I think it was only about 5mins, but it felt like 20 and then we were off with the opening question I was expecting and dreading “can you summarise your thesis/PhD briefly”. I had prepped for this, in fact this was my most prepped answer. NOTHING came to my mind. I even cracked a poor poor joke of “well, I guess I can’t say no” to buy me some time. In the end it just flowed, that answer and all the others.

The questions kept coming, and the so did the answers…and worryingly…so did my emotions. Before I went into the viva I figured it was going to be tough, in fact in a way I wanted it to be. I didn’t want to walk out with a PhD and feel like I hadn’t earned it. I tell you, I definitely do not feel that way! Time warped in the session, so take my timings and order of events with a pinch of salt…but about 30minutes in I felt like all was lost. What I heard was that my whole thesis needed restructuring as the focus was wrong, I need to delete significant chunks as there was too much repetition and my writing is nowhere near concise enough, and bring in information from the appendix. That was it…major corrections were coming right at me (and despite my last post, I was NOT calm or rational about this). I sat for what felt like an hour listening to my two examiners have this conversation, before my external examiner mentioned that this should be a discussion between three and what did I think. I can tell you exactly what I was thinking: “Shruti, do NOT cry in your PhD viva!” Even as I write this, I feel the emotion building up in my chest again.

That moment really felt like the defining moment of my viva for me, not because of the outcome or even because my response was particularly special. But it was the moment for me, during my response to this where I was happy to agree with my examiners, what they were saying made sense, that this isn’t a school test where what the teacher says goes. This is my PhD viva, my defence, and whilst my examiners had a fresh view of my thesis, it was my thesis. I know why I made the decisions I made, which felt appropriate at the time, and I was here to justify this. Hadn’t my external examiner just said that this was a three-way discussion? I feel like my answer’s tone changed part way through, from being entirely defeatist to having a bit of assertion. This has been the last 3.5 years of my life, and I wasn’t going to give up at the last hurdle. I wasn’t letting this slip away without a giving it a good go. I have no idea if any of this thought-train translated into my responses or anything, but it pushed me in the way I needed.

Just to point out, my examiners didn’t say those things to me in the way I’ve written them. They phrased things more constructively and explained how those things had impacted on the overall impact of my thesis. My “scientific” or formal writing is something that I’m pretty conscious about. I’m not a particularly concise writer and various feedback I’ve got over the years has ranged from “your writing is really flowery” about some school work to my undergraduate dissertation draft feedback, paraphrased “your writing is very engaging, but it needs to be made more scientific” which was phrased so nicely but the underlying message was clear. This, perhaps, is the reason my examiners told me they got the impression that I really enjoy writing (though my imposter syndrome came through in some of my chapters)…I was prompt to correct them on that. I really did not enjoy writing my thesis, perhaps because of the pressure to write it in a certain way (which clearly I didn’t)!

My examiners, clearly sensing my frame of mind moved on at this point and focused on perhaps the best aspect of my thesis, and PhD work as a whole. A little bit of breathing room, some time to feel like I was there for a reason and not just floundering. The whole viva came in waves, the grilling and the praise, and the emotions that went along with them. Way back at the beginning of my PhD, I deployed a survey and did some interviews talking to the users and clinical stakeholders in prosthetic rehabilitation. This was always meant to be a minor part of my PhD to contribute to the justification of my work. Until yesterday, hearing it from my examiners and their experiences of it from others too, I didn’t realise the extent of the importance of that work. It feels like I completed that part of my PhD in another lifetime, and I know that if I were to do it again, there are changes I would make, including one that I find unforgivable now.

It was interesting that the chapters that I was least confident about, were the ones my examiners were also less impressed with. They weren’t written as well as the work I had planned to do from the beginning of my PhD and it showed that I was trying to demonstrate how I spent my time and my technical abilities rather than being a significant research contribution. They asked about why I included this and I was honest..I said those two things. My examiners were understanding but also correcting my perspective on what should be included in a PhD thesis.

I have to say, I don’t really remember many specific questions that were asked of me throughout the three(ish) hour process. I remember thinking that I hadn’t been asked about anything I thought I’d be asked about other than that very first one, also that time went super quickly but at the same time I felt like I was there forever. What I do remember clearly are the re-assurances from my examiners that this is a good thesis and that there are some very good parts (also, the fact we deprived my internal examiner of his coffee for half an hour when he wanted one – oops). My internal examiner even re-assured me that we were talking about a set of “minor” revisions that would elevate my thesis. In hindsight, I wonder whether I should have taken this as the reassurance that I would get minor not major corrections, maybe I am just overthinking it. I will never know, but at the time I was trying to focus on the that moment and the sentiment behind the words, rather than the words themselves!

Shruti’s PhD “Recursion”

So here’s the part where I’m going to talk about Shruti’s PhD blog on Shruti’s PhD blog. Why, you ask, is this relevant to my viva? Well, even up to 36 hours ago I would have wondered the same thing. It turns out that not only were my examiners aware of my blog, but had also read it. Not only had they read it, but they brought up (seemingly randomly) in my viva was a pretty big shock. This was the one question in my viva that I was told I was allowed not to answer! I went with it, partly because I figured if it had come up there was a reason, and also it gave me a break from being grilled about my thesis!

My supervisor didn’t know I had a blog until that moment, and even looked it up during the viva. At the very end (after outcome had been sorted), my supervisor mentioned that it brought back memories and emotions from their own PhD journey and was worried that there were things I was going through that she was unaware of; in response, my external examiner reassured them that they came off well in the blog! My examiners also informed me they were expecting to be featured too – so if you made it this far…hi!

I never thought that this blog could be considered as a significant enough contribution to research that it should be mentioned in my viva, let alone recommended that it could be added into part of my thesis or suggested that it should be shared wider/through Imperial channels. If anyone has followed along for some time, you’ll be aware this blog is a series of my own ramblings, helping me on my journey through my PhD and putting out my very honest posts in hopes that it might be helpful for anyone curious about research/PhDing. My blogs are rarely/if ever planned ahead or proof read thoroughly. I don’t tend to think about my conciseness or anything, mainly just have a skim over to make sure that the post makes sense. Perhaps, this is what gave my examiners the impression that I like writing? It just feels different, outpouring my thoughts compared to writing an entire thesis when I’m conscious about being “scientific”.

Outcome

After being asked to leave the call again for a deliberation, I sat in front of my screen just waiting. Waiting for what I thought was the inevitable of major corrections and giving myself a pep talk about why that was okay. It was good to have my supervisor present, she asked if I’d like her there last week and I gladly said yes. I needed someone rational there and it felt like morale support to have her in the background. Also, she sent me encouraging messages in the break which definitely helped! Thankfully, I was brought back in to the call what felt like pretty quickly, maybe 5 mins or so (apparently it was longer?!) and my external examiner started to tell a brief anecdote about how in a previous viva the internal examiner stole the best part of the viva by informing the candidate that they are now a doctor. I remember hearing the words, listening and thinking…why are you telling me this?! What has this other person’s viva got to do with me, please just tell me what’s happening. If you’ve made it this far, you’re probably thinking..”Shruti, you idiot, why do you think he’s telling you this?!” Looking back, I’d say that’s a fair thought. I was an emotional mess at that point, so hopefully I can be forgiven. Tears were definitely in my eyes, if not streaming down my face by this point. I still didn’t quite believe what was happening until my internal examiner talked about the processes for next steps and confirmed in very explicit terms that I had minor corrections and 3 months to do them. At some point around here, my external examiner asked how I was feeling…I gave such a rubbish response..I just didn’t know. I couldn’t really comprehend what was going on. “I don’t know….I just wan’t expecting you to pass me” was about all I could say, to which my internal examiner responded something like “Yeah, we know that..we read your blog!”. Wonderful, but totally fair really! Haha

After the call, my supervisor called me for a quick celebratory chat and a well done, which was lovely. She mentioned that she had emailed my husband (they work on another project together) to let him know when it would be another hour and that she thought it was going well. So, when I walked out and saw my husband I thought he knew that I’d passed and tbh I was relieved not to have to be the one to tell him…there was a very real possibility that I was going to walk out my viva and see him bawling my eyes out and he wouldn’t know if I had passed or failed. He held me and said “I’m proud of you, darling” and all I could muster was “That’s Dr Darling to you”. Apparently, that’s when he found out I had passed, rather than just guessing from my body language/actions – oops!

Reflections

At no point during or after my viva have I thought that my examiners were unfair in any of their evaluations or questions. I feel like I was grilled, as I should be in a PhD viva, but supported to bring out the best in me and my research. In that sense, it was exactly the way I’ve heard a good viva ought to be. The parts I’ve heard about it being an in depth conversation, maybe even enjoyable…not so much. Perhaps, in time I will recognise those parts in some of the discussions (particularly about the parts both my examiners and I were most confident in), in fact, I’m even starting to..just. But, it was definitely not that the whole way through!

I’m really glad I spent the time going over my thesis, making notes all over it and adding sticky notes of key papers/reminders of things to point out. It made me feel more confident going into my viva, prepared and focused. I’m sure the process prepared me more than I can recognise. However, I used precisely zero of my sticky notes or reminders to myself in my viva. I do believe that we know in there the important parts of our viva, we’ve been living and breathing the research for a long time, so prep is there, really, to remind us of what we know and boost confidence before walking into the final viva.

I found that this viva experience really taught me a lot, not only about my research but about myself too. I’ve spent my life feeling like I’m being categorised out of being an engineer: “You’re not an engineer, you’re more suited to X” or “I don’t think of you as an engineer”, which I think has led me to believe that to be an engineer I need to be in a more “traditional” sense, more knowledgable about the technical aspects. Rationally, I know that this isn’t the case, I believe in challenging perceptions and embracing diversity and that a job title is not representative of who I am or what I do. It just doesn’t feel like this when applied to me. The detailed feedback from my examiners on my thesis highlighted to key things to me: 1) My own doubt about my abilities comes out in my work and hides the stronger parts 2) I am a bit different to what people thing an engineer is, but that’s not a weakness, it’s a strength.

Before I end, I have to say I am so grateful to both my examiners. Their empathy and genuine want to help me perform to the best of my ability was a big part of why I managed to get through this experience. Without such compassion, I honestly believe my viva experience (and maybe outcome) would have been very different.

My overarching emotion since my viva has been gratitude. To all those who have been part of this journey: my supervisor, participants, family, friends, colleagues, Twitter acquaintances. Everyone who has listened to me go on about my research when all they asked is “how are you?” (or in fact never asked anything at all), who has sent me motivational and encouraging treats and messages and those who have just let me be in a world of my own pondering or breaking away from our conversation because I’ve thought of something. I’ve never believed that success is something that is achieved alone and I feel like this journey is evidence for that. If every I’m feeling isolated or alone, I know I have particularly these last few days to look back on and realise that I am surrounded by people.