Viva Voce

Viva voce. Maybe the biggest deal for a PhD student in academic life. Mainly because the pressure one puts on it and the expectation and importance one attributes to it is over the moon. It's four years of hard work, at the very least. This is why, I wanted to jot down my experiences and feelings, which still feel surreal even two weeks later.

On 28 January 2025, I passed my viva, and my life has never been the same. I'm kidding, of course, It is exactly the same and I feel like this is the problem. I don’t know anything else that makes me feel this underwhelmed. When you put this much importance on that day, you think that you’ll feel completely different, your life will change, or you will change. But none of those happened.

For starters, it was an online viva panel.  On a random Tuesday, I logged in to Teams, greeted my examiners and it began. After 1 hour 40 minutes, I was a doctor. Well, not really. I know the official title is yet to come, but so many people called me like this since my viva, so I feel like I have become one. One of my closest friends came and sat down in my room while I was defending my thesis from the living room- so that I wouldn’t feel completely alone in this online setting. I felt super-duper anxious before the viva. But 3 weeks before the actual thing, I felt waves of stress, coming and going.

The basic preparation for viva is rereading your thesis and trying to think of questions they might ask. But you can only read your thesis so many times. And since mine is 240 pages, it takes a couple of days to reread it. Plus, sometimes, while you’re reading, because it’s the same thing over and over again, your brain shuts itself down and you start not understanding a damn thing. Your eyes are just following the words in front of you one after another, but you don’t understand any of it. It’s an interesting process.

‘Don’t over prepare for it’. This was one of the advices I’ve received. How can you overprepare for it? You wrote the whole thing. Not in one day or one month. But you spent 4 years in front of the screen and meticulously chose every single word to put it together. I mean, obviously, you would know it better than anyone on earth. But the viva is not really about whether or not you know your thing, it is about how well you defend it. You are supposed to convince other people that you know your thing and your thing makes sense. You have to make very strong arguments about why your thing is better than any other thing. You have to be able to explain why you did it the way you did it. It's weird really. The entire time of viva felt weird.

I prepared over 40 general questions such as why I chose this topic, what’s my methodology, what’s my contribution, what’s my originality, how can someone take this further, etc, and memorised them all. I also reread my thesis at least 3 times and wrote down a bunch of potential questions that I thought they might ask about my chapters. None of them helped. The questions were so random and unexpected. But basically, they were in the line of ‘What do you mean by that here, what would happen if this happens, and why did you do it that way’. So, I don’t know if there’s any point in preparing specifically for it, but you got to know your sh*t well, you got to know it like your life depends on it.

What was I saying? Underwhelming. Yes. Because I attached so much expectation and stress to it, it was underwhelming afterwards. Like you’re not going to feel different in one night. I don’t even know what you are supposed to feel. It is a huge step in a PhD student’s life, but what possibly could you feel other than relief and maybe pride?

It was also overwhelming because of lots of congratulatory messages, calls, and gifts. On top of that, I wanted to celebrate it with my friends and my beloved friend Madison who sat through my viva, threw me a big party, and invited over 20 people, and we all crammed in my living room talking about my achievement with lots of drinks, pizza and sweet treats. It was perhaps one of the best nights of my life, but added to the overwhelming level. I am someone who loves spotlights but only when I wanted them in the way I wanted them. So, it is very possible for me to agree on a social gathering when I am feeling extroverted and then feel overstimulated. But this time, the problem wasn’t that there were many people. Those people were my close circle, so I felt safe. The problem was, before the viva, it felt too much and then too little right after, but people kept assuming it was too much, and then you are kind of stuck between those different levels of emotions. It's hard to explain, but this is the best I could do.

Fast forward to today- when I think about my viva and my four years, it definitely feels GOOD. A big chunk of weight is off of my shoulders. Of course, I received corrections that I need to work on. But, it obviously is not the same. I loved my PhD period. I was very productive, worked on so many different things, travelled the world many times­- mostly using my research, and had the most fun. I was miserable from time to time, but I still found a way to enjoy the process. These years might be my best years. But at the same time, having to write your thesis is definitely not fun. It feels like you have shackles on your ankles and all of a sudden, you’re released. That kind of freedom. No one is taking you hostage, not physically anyway. But not a day went by for me without thinking about my thesis. The mental workload that I carried all these years was enormous.

Now what? This is a good question that I also ask myself from time to time. Even though I have more or less clarity in my life now, I still have some room for new adventures, and I am debating which way to go now. Plus, I still need to work on so many things! Finishing your thesis and passing your viva is not the end of the road. I’m supposed to be on holiday at the moment, but I had to use my laptop a few times to get certain things done. The other day, my mom asked me how long I plan to keep carrying a backpack. I'm not sure, I replied, but it seems like once academia casts its spell on you, there's no breaking free. You’re a student forever, carrying a rucksack and opening your laptop at random places at random times- which I wouldn’t trade for anything in the world.