I'm so impressed that you got an interview!!! I still haven't managed to get past the short list yet..... :-( I'm sorry that you didn't get the job, but getting shortlisted is one heck on an achievement in this day and age in itself! Its all great experience so that when YOUR job comes along you'll be ready for it :-D

You still don't have a viva date???? I've been offline for a few weeks sorting out my incredibly complex (but short list) or amendments, so hadn't seen this - I can't believe you're still waiting, we submitted within days of each other - or maybe even the same day? :-( I'm so sorry to hear that you're still in limbo xxx

My supervisor is advising me to go for Postdocs rather than a 'proper' job for those same reasons - I am also applying for lectureships though as I need a secure(ish) job! Just for the record, in our dept there have been several lectureships come up recently but none of them have gone to internal applicants even though they've applied for them - it may well be different for you though :-)

Hi everyone

I've waited so many years to do this post... I've just passed my viva :-) I have minor amendments to do - I've been given 4 months to do them in as I'm working f/t within the dept and teaching starts next week, but in reality they won't take anything like that - they really are very minor - just presentation issues really and putting into the appendices tables and spreadsheets that I already have (but didn't include! duh)

I'll post a full viva story tomorrow when I'm feeling more with it in the hope it will help some of you and will put minds at ease. All I can say is that it was a totally positive experience - I was terrified, so stressed, so tearful, but once I got in there it was great and I really did actually enjoy it!

I want to say thanks to all the people on here who've advised me, helped me, shared their experiences, and gone through this journey with me over the last 4 years - its made the whole 'PhD thing' so much better and more fun than it might have been. You're all stars and I just wish I knew who you really are so that I could give you a big hug of thanks :-)

I always just wanted to know what they'd found out - loath theory (still do lmao), find methodology brain numbing (ditto) but always like to hear about the findings. I also think that it would be nice to give a very brief over-view of how you got to where you are now - that kind of thing used to fascinate me :-)

Thanks PinkNeuron - I will... whether it will be tomorrow or Thursday will kind of depend on the result and how I'm feeling I suppose - I hope tomorrow :-) I'm not planning on actually taking the articles with me, and am now wondering if I should.... I certainly wouldn't say that I know them inside out, but I know that so and so thinks this, and he thinks that and blah blah - I certainly do have a core group of articles/books that feature throughout and form the backbone of the lit reviews :-) The last couple of days have been awful - I spent nearly the whole of this morning in tears - not about anything in particular, but anything and everything set me off. First the report of that little girl missing made me cry (????!!!! I don't cry!) and then its been downhill from there - I even welled up reading your message - mad huh?

I'll certainly be back to give you a debriefing - I've been here since I first started this journey and will be here for the end. I've read so many viva stories, so many lovely ones, so many heartbreaking ones and never really thought, I don't think, that I'd ever get as far as having my own! This time tomorrow it'll all be underway, it starts at 14.30!

From my experience I would say that our experiences can certainly colour our perceptions. I can't fault my dept, supervisor and programme - they have been fantastic, caring and supportive. Maybe I'm just very lucky but I have nothing negative to say whatsoever!

So good to see you back Jojo :-) I'm so pleased to see how well things have worked out for you too. I'm have my viva on Wednesday so the fear is reaching fever pitch now - I remember well your experience :-/ It is good to see though that no matter how bad things go it can all work out well in the end :-)

Oh, and mine is quite a bit longer - 364 pages in total - I think it was 84,000 words then appendices and stuff - its quite sizeable! I've finished the read through now, so today I'll begin working out responses to standard questions :-)

Be careful NearlyFinished - a lot of these people come on and spam viral links - not saying that that's definitely the case here, but seen it happen so often and this is a new user - first post....

PinkNeuron - wow your room will be full - my sup won't even be on campus and we don't have chairpeople :-/ I wish my sup could be there, I'd feel a million times more confident but its not allowed, I've not even been allowed to fully discuss viva prep with him since submission. We had a chat yesterday as I went into complete meltdown over one chapter, but things have to be fairly neutral now - its not 'done' for the sup to interfere once the submission is made - isn't it weird how different unis have such different rulings? I think I prefer yours :-)

I don't understand - is it major corrections (or revisions as they call them at my joint) or is it an R&R? The two are quite separate. Its if 'just' (she says - sorry) major corrections then you've still passed, if its a full R&R then you haven't until the second R and examination following it. Are they going to make you do another viva?

It is all very confusing, and doesn't help that depending on where you go its all so different. At ours theres the minor typo/presentation, minor editorial (2 months), editorial (4 months) or R&R (12 months) then of course the MPhil and Fail, so its different again to yours. You need to clarify exactly where you stand and what they want from you.

Hope it all becomes clear soon - honestly - at times we're like performing monkeys leaping through hoops!

You sound like me PinkNeuron! I loathe speaking in public and suffer horribly with panic attacks - my trouble is that I get dizzy but also get the most awful waves of nausea such that if I speak I fear that I'll throw up - not ideal in a viva situation ;-) Glad that you're getting closer to finalising the date - I'd be going off my rocker (even more than I am already) if I didn't know the date! Its interesting that you have a chairperson - how many people will be in there? I only have the external and internal and no mock, no viva packs (what does that include?), nothing. Just an email saying show up here, then. :-)

I'm still busy trying to read through mine - I've got 113 pages in now.... I worry that its going to take longer than I've got! So far I've found 8 typos (eek!) - they are the orange index markers lol - the horrible ones!

I'm a little concerned at your copying part of your introduction - I'm presuming (please God) that you referenced this correctly and the examiner is simply concerned that you quoted so much? If you simply 'copied' then that is possibly the biggest no no in academia and no, I don't think anybody does that - not if they wish to carry on working anyway. Certainly nobody that I know who has been through this has copied anything without inserting it as a quote or paraphrase and fully referencing it. I've had to reference myself where I've used work that I've already had published. I'm hoping that this is simply a case of you using the wrong wording in the O.P and not that you have actually copied...:$

This is a really interesting thread - I've got my viva next Wednesday and am busy launching into meltdown- I'm not sure that's the ideal preparation :-) Reading through has actually freaked me out a bit - my sup told me to wait until the week before then just read through and note anywhere where there might be problems - I started with a typo on pg 1 and went downhill from there. I haven't even got through the intro yet. Its useful to see the list of questions - I'll try and work through them and clear my mind a bit.

Hope its all going ok for the rest of you :-)

Hi, I forwarded the titles to a friend (you're in a different field to me - excuse the pun!) but she can't get them either without paying. Sorry x