I just passed my phd viva with only minor correction. I was not confident before the exam and I was expecting major because when I reread my thesis, I spotted many typo errors and my data analysis was not perfect. I was expecting the examiners to give me major correction to reanalyze the data. However they were happy with my data analysis. One of the examiners did not even bother to show up during viva but he praised my thesis as hight quality thesis :) It was a sweet moment for me because my viva was delayed multiple times and I had to wait for 7 months for viva. For those of you who are waiting for viva, please remain calm and always reread your thesis multiple times before you go for viva

I'll be finally having my PhD defense by the end of this month. I am so nervous about it. There are a couple of things that really bother me. First of all, my research is not perfect. I have never won any awards in conference and I only have two publications as of now. Furthermore, my supervisor has already received reports from examiners but she has remained silent about it. Thing that worries me the most is my sample size is small. This has been brought up so many times when I sent my papers for journal publication. Regardless, my papers were accepted for publications although reviewers were not happy with my sample size. For your information, my research caters on rare disease in my population and there were not many I could get during my sample collection which took place for about 2 years. However my supervisor assured me so many times that it won't be a problem if I could explain very well to the examiners.

What should I do while waiting for my PhD defense? I have re-read my thesis multiple times and practiced the presentation. However I don't know what I should expect during the defense

I don't mind to say hello first

It was supposed to be 3 months. I sent my thesis on August last year and I checked with my supervisor last November to make sure everything was fine. To my surprise, person in charge from graduate school did not send my thesis to examiners until last November. Thus they have wasted my time for almost 3 months.

I submitted my PhD thesis 6 months ago and I have yet to receive news regarding viva exam. Is it appropriate to contact graduate school to inquire regarding this matter? My supervisor is on leave for 3 months and I cant contact her

@walter_opera While it might be partially my fault for not updating with my department regarding the viva, it should be worth to note that I paid thousands of bucks as a service to get my thesis handled by department and examined by examiners. Thus they made money from my thesis getting examined. Therefore I assumed everything was fine since I already paid for service.

That's what I think too although I will heavily criticize my department when 'Evaluation Form' gets distributed to me once I graduated :)

Hey all,

Here's the problem that has been bugging me for the last few weeks. I submitted my PhD thesis to my department last August for examination. However, I found out from my supervisor that my department only sent my thesis to examiners last November for examination. So it took them about 3 months to get my thesis to examiners. Before submitting my thesis, my supervisor already has elected examiners to examine my thesis and they all agreed to do so. Thus, there would be no problem in getting examiners to examine my thesis. And crazy thing is, when I confronted the staff who is supposed to handle my thesis examination, she nonchalantly said that she was so busy handling something else till she forgot to get my thesis properly to examiners. I was beyond furious to learn how unprofessional she is when handling my thesis. Now I am thinking to lodge a report to the Dean of my school regarding how unprofessional my department was in handling my viva voce. But then at the other side of spectrum, I'm scared that my department will have their vendetta against me when they found out that I made a report. Another option is to lodge a report to Dean once I graduated from PhD program but that seems like a cowardly move.

What should I do?

Hi all,

I'll be having my viva voce next two weeks. What should I prepare? I have reread my thesis multiple times and attempted to find mistakes but I'm still nervous. Also, I don't know what to include in my power point slides. I'll be given only 20 minutes to present my research but everything on my thesis seems so important. Help me

Hi, fortunately I have never experienced a very bad supervisor during my postgraduate years. However, I had a couple of friends who shared similar experience as yours. There are several options from this circumstance that you can do.

1. Yes, he is a very very bad supervisor indeed. Quit doing PhD from him right away.
2. Look for better supervisor if you really wanted to still continue with PhD research. Otherwise, look for a decent job
3. Leave out his name from your CV. You don't want your future employer to contact him for reference.

Goodluck

Here is an argument I had with my supervisor just now. My PhD field is biological science and there's this myth (or partially fact) that adding famous researcher onto author list will make scientific paper to be stronger and easier to publish. I am proposing a new research proposal for grant procurement and I would love to invite a famous researcher to join us so we could have higher chance to get published into top tier journals. While I did not have a lot of problems in publication during my PhD study without adding famous researcher onto author list, most of the papers published were not top tier journals. My supervisor is against that idea because she thinks it's better for us to work with researchers in our institution circle to ascertain that we can control everything without involvement from other institution overseas.

Is it true that adding famous researcher onto author list makes your paper stronger and easier for publication into top tier journal?

Hey Tudor. I have yet to decide whether I want to stick with my current supervisor or go somewhere else. It's too early to decide btw. I might do it after viva exam

Yes, the manuscript has her name attached to it and she is the corresponding author. This circumstance is a telling that she can be quite nonchalant when it comes to research. I did have a meeting and sent her an email with Gantt's chart detailing when I want to have this paper submitted for publication so I can move on with another paper.



Yes it was central to move my thesis forward as it was part of PhD research data. Thanks for your opinion. She did apologize to me for delaying my manuscript which is still good than nothing at all :)



No, I still have a few months to decide

I sent my manuscript for journal publication last 2 weeks. The status changed from 'editor assigned' to 'peer review' and then right now it is 'under review' What is the difference between 'peer review' and 'under review'?

I admit it. My current PhD supervisor is a very great supervisor when it comes to supporting me to explore new ideas and giving moral support to finish my PhD. The only thing that she seems to be lacking is the amount of time she takes to examine my written up manuscript/ thesis. I know every academician is busy with teaching and research responsibilities but for a supervisor to take more than a year to finish up examining a 40-page manuscript is kind of red flag to me. Of course she did apologize to me when she returned the examined manuscript to me which means she feels bad about it. But still it is unacceptable for me because I have already reminded her several times and gave her much time needed to examine the manuscript. Now she's offering to be my postdoctoral supervisor once I finish the PhD. Considering the amount of papers need to be published during postdoctoral study and the fact that my future tenure depends on how many papers that I would publish during postdoc, it's kind of a red flag for me.

Is a supervisor who takes more than a year to examine a 40-page manuscript a good supervisor?