I have received an official report summarising my viva. It's nice to have it all on paper!
It sounds like I should have given more background during my talk and
made sure that I'm putting my analyses in context ("presentation lacked
a bit of context").
I need to explain better where there are holes in our knowledge and
where the field is lacking data. I should point out how the questions
I'm asking and the analyses I'm carrying out fill in those gaps. Fair
enough!
The report ends with a note that "the meeting was very successful and the committee has no hesitation" about me progressing :] Yay :]
Showing posts with label milestones. Show all posts
Showing posts with label milestones. Show all posts
Wednesday, 26 August 2015
Friday, 17 July 2015
Confirmation: First year viva
I had my viva yesterday.
To be perfectly honest with you it wasn't so bad :]
Presentation
The meeting started with my presentation. I wasn't entirely sure what to present and there were no clear guidelines. Attempting to squeeze-in everything from my report seemed redundant, as (at least in theory) everyone on the committee would have read the report itself. Focusing on the broader picture didn't feel right either, I didn't think that giving the spotlight to the work of other people was the way to go while the panel was trying to assess how much progress I have made. In the end I decided to present my results, focusing on the analyses done between handing-in of the report and the viva (as those obviously weren't discussed in the report). I discussed any problems I had with analyses and asked for input. I thought it's a good idea to take advantage of four seasoned researchers when I have them all to myself!
Questioning
After a while it was pointed out to me that this wasn't a research talk and that other aspects of my report and candidature should be discussed (maybe I took advantage of the researchers just a bit too much). Future plans were outlined and discussed, e.g. we talked about the next field season and agreed to have a meeting specifically about that in the near future (next week if possible).
Leave the room!
Next, I was asked to leave the room while the committee members talk. It was a bit awkward to sit just outside as the room doesn't have solid walls, just glass, so you can see in and you know that the people inside are talking about you. Afterwards the supervisors left the room and I could talk to my thesis adviser.
We have discussed the fact that my current supervisor is re-locating; I was asked very directly (without my supervisor in the room) whether I had any worries or issues with the arrangements. I'm not worried and I think I can manage the change, so this was fine, but I'm not sure whether this is a way to have a conversation like that... Yes, my supervisor has left the room so that I could speak freely, but lets face it, if I had any issues it would have been pretty obvious as those would be discussed straight away when she enters the room again. Not much real confidentiality here.
Verdict
When everyone was back in the room I was told that I have officially passed my first year :]
Not on probation anymore! :]
-------------------------------------
Feedback report - updated after receiving the report.
From the assessment report I received after the viva it sounds like I should have given more background during my talk and made sure that I'm putting my analyses in context ("presentation lacked a bit of context"). I need to explain better where there are holes in our knowledge and where the field is lacking data. I should point out how the questions I'm asking and the analyses I'm carrying out fill in those gaps. Fair enough!
The report ends with a note that "the meeting was very successful and the committee has no hesitation" about me progressing :]
To be perfectly honest with you it wasn't so bad :]
Presentation
The meeting started with my presentation. I wasn't entirely sure what to present and there were no clear guidelines. Attempting to squeeze-in everything from my report seemed redundant, as (at least in theory) everyone on the committee would have read the report itself. Focusing on the broader picture didn't feel right either, I didn't think that giving the spotlight to the work of other people was the way to go while the panel was trying to assess how much progress I have made. In the end I decided to present my results, focusing on the analyses done between handing-in of the report and the viva (as those obviously weren't discussed in the report). I discussed any problems I had with analyses and asked for input. I thought it's a good idea to take advantage of four seasoned researchers when I have them all to myself!
Questioning
After a while it was pointed out to me that this wasn't a research talk and that other aspects of my report and candidature should be discussed (maybe I took advantage of the researchers just a bit too much). Future plans were outlined and discussed, e.g. we talked about the next field season and agreed to have a meeting specifically about that in the near future (next week if possible).
Leave the room!
Next, I was asked to leave the room while the committee members talk. It was a bit awkward to sit just outside as the room doesn't have solid walls, just glass, so you can see in and you know that the people inside are talking about you. Afterwards the supervisors left the room and I could talk to my thesis adviser.
We have discussed the fact that my current supervisor is re-locating; I was asked very directly (without my supervisor in the room) whether I had any worries or issues with the arrangements. I'm not worried and I think I can manage the change, so this was fine, but I'm not sure whether this is a way to have a conversation like that... Yes, my supervisor has left the room so that I could speak freely, but lets face it, if I had any issues it would have been pretty obvious as those would be discussed straight away when she enters the room again. Not much real confidentiality here.
Verdict
When everyone was back in the room I was told that I have officially passed my first year :]
Not on probation anymore! :]
-------------------------------------
Feedback report - updated after receiving the report.
From the assessment report I received after the viva it sounds like I should have given more background during my talk and made sure that I'm putting my analyses in context ("presentation lacked a bit of context"). I need to explain better where there are holes in our knowledge and where the field is lacking data. I should point out how the questions I'm asking and the analyses I'm carrying out fill in those gaps. Fair enough!
The report ends with a note that "the meeting was very successful and the committee has no hesitation" about me progressing :]
Tuesday, 30 June 2015
Confirmation: Report handed in!
Pheeeeeew, confirmation report done!
It's now in the hands of my thesis committee consisting of: my primary and secondary supervisors, person who will replace my current primary supervisor next year (she is relocating to Oz), my Australian supervisor and my adviser. They have two weeks to read and assess it. Then we shall all meet (well, except for my Australian supervisor, as he is all the way Down Under) and discuss it.
The meeting is often referred to as a first year viva and I wonder just how viva-like it will be. I will need to prepare a presentation and give a talk about my progress so far and future plans, after which I will be questioned by the committee on the contents of my talk and report. They are supposed to assess my progress over the past 10 months and decide whether I am a good PhD candidate and able to get a thesis together in a timely fashion. If they are happy I can continue doing my PhD. If not... ciao!
It's now in the hands of my thesis committee consisting of: my primary and secondary supervisors, person who will replace my current primary supervisor next year (she is relocating to Oz), my Australian supervisor and my adviser. They have two weeks to read and assess it. Then we shall all meet (well, except for my Australian supervisor, as he is all the way Down Under) and discuss it.
The meeting is often referred to as a first year viva and I wonder just how viva-like it will be. I will need to prepare a presentation and give a talk about my progress so far and future plans, after which I will be questioned by the committee on the contents of my talk and report. They are supposed to assess my progress over the past 10 months and decide whether I am a good PhD candidate and able to get a thesis together in a timely fashion. If they are happy I can continue doing my PhD. If not... ciao!
Sunday, 31 May 2015
First year confirmation/upgrade
Did you know that technically first year PhD students are not quite PhD students yet?
Yep, if one does not make enough progress in the first year, one might be asked to leave*. Enough to say that I don't want to be the one.
In order to be allowed to continue as a PhD student one has to pass their first year. This is sometimes referred to as confirmation, sometimes as an upgrade. Depending on the university the timing of the confirmation might vary - I've heard that some people do theirs after 6 months. Mine is at the 10 month mark.
I'll outline what I need to do in order to pass below.
Report
First of all I need to write a "project introduction & progress report". From the guidelines:
Viva
The second part of the assessment involves a viva.
I need to arrange a venue, date and time that suits all members of my PhD committee. Hopefully they are all free at one point!
"In the viva you are expected to give a brief talk, approx 15-20 minutes, summarising the progress on your research project."
This should be easy enough, as I recently gave a nearly 50 minute long talk on my project. Giving a short talk has its own challenges, but clearly I have enough to talk about for 20 minutes, so at least that's good to know.
"After your talk there will follow a discussion covering (among other things) the contents of your report and progress to date, any training you have completed, seminars you have attended etc. The viva also includes an opportunity for you to report on your supervisory arrangements in the absence of your first supervisor and vice versa."
I guess this might go a few different ways. I could be grilled during the discussion or it could be a friendly chat. We will see.
Either way it will be good to have a better idea whether I'm making enough progress. This is one thing that I find quite difficult about doing a PhD - each PhD is unique, each project different, so it's hard to know if I am doing enough.
Wish me good luck!
*(potentially being awarded a Masters degree as a consolation prize)
Yep, if one does not make enough progress in the first year, one might be asked to leave*. Enough to say that I don't want to be the one.
In order to be allowed to continue as a PhD student one has to pass their first year. This is sometimes referred to as confirmation, sometimes as an upgrade. Depending on the university the timing of the confirmation might vary - I've heard that some people do theirs after 6 months. Mine is at the 10 month mark.
I'll outline what I need to do in order to pass below.
Report
First of all I need to write a "project introduction & progress report". From the guidelines:
"As well as indicating your knowledge of the field and progress so far, the report should set out plans for the future, with appropriate indicative time-lines. If papers/manuscripts have been produced they can be included as appendices, but not in the body of the report."
A bit scary that people might expect papers to have been produced by now, but lets skip that for a moment. While I don't think anyone actually enjoys writing reports I think this one might be quite useful. It will be good to go over everything and bring it all together. I hope it will also serve as a handy summary of the analyses and results in the future.
Viva
The second part of the assessment involves a viva.
I need to arrange a venue, date and time that suits all members of my PhD committee. Hopefully they are all free at one point!
"In the viva you are expected to give a brief talk, approx 15-20 minutes, summarising the progress on your research project."
This should be easy enough, as I recently gave a nearly 50 minute long talk on my project. Giving a short talk has its own challenges, but clearly I have enough to talk about for 20 minutes, so at least that's good to know.
"After your talk there will follow a discussion covering (among other things) the contents of your report and progress to date, any training you have completed, seminars you have attended etc. The viva also includes an opportunity for you to report on your supervisory arrangements in the absence of your first supervisor and vice versa."
I guess this might go a few different ways. I could be grilled during the discussion or it could be a friendly chat. We will see.
Either way it will be good to have a better idea whether I'm making enough progress. This is one thing that I find quite difficult about doing a PhD - each PhD is unique, each project different, so it's hard to know if I am doing enough.
Wish me good luck!
*(potentially being awarded a Masters degree as a consolation prize)
Monday, 8 September 2014
A new beginning: PhD
I have started a PhD.
Starting a new job, in a new city, new
apartment, new flatmates, new department, office, colleagues…
Almost everything in my life suddenly changed and changed quite
drastically.
This is the sort of change that brings
chaos, along with new challenges.
In an attempt to deal with this change
and protect certain important aspects of my life I started planning
and organising (how I love organising!) ahead of time in an attempt
to mitigate some of the unavoidable uncertainty that comes with such
a Big Move. I'm organising everything, from my belongings, through
computers, to streamlining the way I work and keep track of projects
and tasks.
I'm curious to see how it will all work
out and whether systems established ahead of the time will actually
work out. How much have I managed to predict? How right (or wrong)
was I about the type of life I will lead during my PhD?
Who knows, maybe I will find that the
steps I undertook made my life a thousand times easier. But then
again, maybe after a month or two I will throw my hands in the air
and start from scratch.
Time will show.
Friday, 14 March 2014
I did it!
The choice has been made, the funding sorted, the paperwork signed. I will be starting my PhD project in mid-September, with fieldwork in the Land Down Under before the end of the year. I'm excited and apprehensive and very aware that the real stress and seriousness of this choice will probably hit me closer to the time.
The topic is very interesting, the department, group and supervisors are meant to be great (and really did seem so from the little interaction I had with them - good sign!), the fieldwork in Oz is an amazing bonus. The city itself is also a great place to live, although I will probably complain about the darkness and rain (the cost of living up north). I was trying to be careful when applying, trying to only apply for places I really thought I could fit in. But until you get a chance to talk to those people and to have a look around you can't really get a real feel for it. Of course a couple of conversations and a visit are not the same as a few years of actual work that the project requires, but one can only try their best while collecting the intel. Pull some strings, keep your eyes and ears open, ask questions. Be prepared.
I will have a lot of independence with a supervisor who is very hands-off (or so I'm told), but that also means a lot of responsibility. I don't like people looking over my shoulder and I don't need spoon-feeding, so fingers crossed that I can manage to truly be in charge of my own learning and development, of my own research. At the end of the day, I think this is what it is about. It's time to fledge.
Some wing stretching and exercise might be necessary first though.
The topic is very interesting, the department, group and supervisors are meant to be great (and really did seem so from the little interaction I had with them - good sign!), the fieldwork in Oz is an amazing bonus. The city itself is also a great place to live, although I will probably complain about the darkness and rain (the cost of living up north). I was trying to be careful when applying, trying to only apply for places I really thought I could fit in. But until you get a chance to talk to those people and to have a look around you can't really get a real feel for it. Of course a couple of conversations and a visit are not the same as a few years of actual work that the project requires, but one can only try their best while collecting the intel. Pull some strings, keep your eyes and ears open, ask questions. Be prepared.
I will have a lot of independence with a supervisor who is very hands-off (or so I'm told), but that also means a lot of responsibility. I don't like people looking over my shoulder and I don't need spoon-feeding, so fingers crossed that I can manage to truly be in charge of my own learning and development, of my own research. At the end of the day, I think this is what it is about. It's time to fledge.
Some wing stretching and exercise might be necessary first though.
Friday, 28 February 2014
PhD interviews
There is a myriad pages and blogs out there with interview advice, so I won't bother to give tips here. What I will say though is that I was invited to several PhD interviews (both PI interviews and funding interviews) and that pretty much all of them seemed to follow the "stress interview" path.
Of course it might just be my personal impression, but all official interviews were panels interviews, with people asking unrelated questions in quick succession, frequently forcing me to forget about my current train of thought and jump onto a completely new, seemingly random (as in: not following from the previous question/answer) idea. Some questions were relatively easy and predictable - about me, my current research project, ideas, experience. But there were also questions about aspects of methodology and analysis for the PhD project (which I would be starting in 7-8 months time) and let's face it, it's pretty much impossible to know details of those this far in advance, while applying for several projects. There were questions of the predicted impact of the PhD project, how it would change the field, what post-doc projects would I like to create based on the PhD outcomes... Again, that's about 4 years from now. Those big picture questions, asking for a lot of detail were probably the hardest, although I was also asked a bunch of modelling questions despite the fact that I clearly stated in my application I have no modelling experience.
During one of my interviews I gave a 3 minute presentation on my Masters project - and afterwards I was left there hanging, the questions started without any indication I should sit down with the panel (I figured what the heck and crossed the room and pulled a chair for myself). After some of the answers I gave I was told "this is not what I wanted you to say".
I also had at least one "mean" interviewer on each panel, one person clearly disinterested in me and my answers, interrupting or looking out of the window. I was incredibly grateful that someone warned me about this type of behaviour before my interviews. Once I spotted it and knew I can safely assume it's just an interview method, paradoxically it calmed me down instead of adding stress - I expected it to happen, it happened, therefore things were going how they were "supposed to" go. I knew it wasn't personal and it helped.
The hardest part of the process ironically turned out to be linked to the fact that I was made more than one offer and had to make a choice. And I wanted it all.
Of course it might just be my personal impression, but all official interviews were panels interviews, with people asking unrelated questions in quick succession, frequently forcing me to forget about my current train of thought and jump onto a completely new, seemingly random (as in: not following from the previous question/answer) idea. Some questions were relatively easy and predictable - about me, my current research project, ideas, experience. But there were also questions about aspects of methodology and analysis for the PhD project (which I would be starting in 7-8 months time) and let's face it, it's pretty much impossible to know details of those this far in advance, while applying for several projects. There were questions of the predicted impact of the PhD project, how it would change the field, what post-doc projects would I like to create based on the PhD outcomes... Again, that's about 4 years from now. Those big picture questions, asking for a lot of detail were probably the hardest, although I was also asked a bunch of modelling questions despite the fact that I clearly stated in my application I have no modelling experience.
During one of my interviews I gave a 3 minute presentation on my Masters project - and afterwards I was left there hanging, the questions started without any indication I should sit down with the panel (I figured what the heck and crossed the room and pulled a chair for myself). After some of the answers I gave I was told "this is not what I wanted you to say".
I also had at least one "mean" interviewer on each panel, one person clearly disinterested in me and my answers, interrupting or looking out of the window. I was incredibly grateful that someone warned me about this type of behaviour before my interviews. Once I spotted it and knew I can safely assume it's just an interview method, paradoxically it calmed me down instead of adding stress - I expected it to happen, it happened, therefore things were going how they were "supposed to" go. I knew it wasn't personal and it helped.
The hardest part of the process ironically turned out to be linked to the fact that I was made more than one offer and had to make a choice. And I wanted it all.
Saturday, 25 January 2014
Masters and PhD hunt
The first semester of my masters year is nearly over. It's been great so far, busy, but great. It is the first time when I could really really get into a topic - from both the theory side (dissertation) and empirical side (practical research project). It's a research-based year and so it's different from the first 3 years of my degree. I get a chance to explore, play and think for myself, instead of focusing a lot of my energy on deadlines and marking criteria for different little pieces of work. I can plan my own experiments and I'm also responsible for my work and learning to a new degree. My time is unstructured unless I structure it.
I loved most of my degree and I'm glad I had a chance to try and learn lots of different things, as I think it helped me to not only develop a range of skills, but also allowed me to realise what my interests are and what type of research I'd like to be involved in in the future. This year confirms what I thought before: research is it for me. This is what I should do. This is what I will do.
Having this confirmation is helping me through the PhD application process, which is tough and stressful. There is however something incredibly exciting about learning, researching and possibly teaching, sharing the passion and knowledge, as a career, and this also helps to push through. The competition is high and the funding situation is not great, but hopefully, with a bit of luck, there is a PhD out there for me.
I loved most of my degree and I'm glad I had a chance to try and learn lots of different things, as I think it helped me to not only develop a range of skills, but also allowed me to realise what my interests are and what type of research I'd like to be involved in in the future. This year confirms what I thought before: research is it for me. This is what I should do. This is what I will do.
Having this confirmation is helping me through the PhD application process, which is tough and stressful. There is however something incredibly exciting about learning, researching and possibly teaching, sharing the passion and knowledge, as a career, and this also helps to push through. The competition is high and the funding situation is not great, but hopefully, with a bit of luck, there is a PhD out there for me.
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