Final Round of the PhD: Virtual Viva Voce
Laptop, webcam, AirPods, iPad and Apple Pencil, mouse, hard copy of thesis, notepad and pen, extension leads, lamp, extra lamp, box of tissue, water bottle, snacks and makeup bag. All stuffed into a suitcase. Got everything? Oh yeah and a bagful of stress!
Usually, everyone else gets to rock up to their viva with only a copy of their thesis and few sheets of paper, but this time it was different. A viva voce from latin literally translates to live voice, meaning orally. Due to the current ongoing global pandemic, my viva has been set as a video call one. Having a virtual viva meant having to sort out the platform my examiners and I could all work with, and which will allow me to have some means of virtually drawing. We landed on Microsoft Teams. Then came the issue of figuring out how to actually draw virtually. A very generous friend of mine offered an iPad Pro with the Apple Pencil and that was soon resolved. Then came the logistics of finding a quiet place for the viva. With the department still operating on a rota basis for lab-based work only, college was my only option. After a few days of trying to find a room free from others undergoing exams (someone had 4 exams that were each 24 hours long, yikes), I finally found my room, which was slightly darker than ideal, which explains the 2 lamps in my suitcase! With location, date, time and tech sorted, I was finally free to only worry about the actual defense of the thesis.
Being an avid fan and collector of all kinds of colourful stationary, this was my time to shine. I went on a mad one, highlighting, annotating, adding sticky notes and tabs to the whole thesis, making sure I knew it like the back of my hand. Then came the overthinking: should I read all my 350 references, should I make a summary of all recent publications from 2020, or should I plan every single details of my viva outfit? I remembered that I was super proud of some bits of the thesis and deeply troubled by potential questions that could come up regarding others. All the preparation in the world and asking everyone I knew about their viva experience could not have prepared me for mine.
It is such a unique, once in a lifetime experience. On D day, I made my way to college at around 3pm, and my viva was meant to start at 5:30pm. After setting up everything and calling my parents to make sure my video and audio were working, the wait started. I decided to do my make up to while away the time, as one does. Given the unusual 29 degrees heat for September, I left the door to the room open, and it was so nice to have several members of college, including my tutor and my library buddy, pop in to wish me luck. I 100% loved receiving the messages from my friends, family and supervisors wishing my all the best while assuring me they were crossing all their fingers and toes! My nerves were at their peak while I also felt some buried excitement that I might be done with the whole PhD in a few hours. Then the viva finally started!
After being told the rules and format of the viva, the questions started. My examiners were very lovely, but the questions were not always! After the initial stressful few minutes, I quickly became engrossed in racking my brains to explain my points, using very energetic hand movements. After an hour and half, my examiners decided to take a 10 minutes break. I could not move from my seat. This whole time had been only focused on my literature review, page by page, which was only one of the five chapters of my thesis. The idea that the viva could go one for maybe four more hours at this rate had me petrified! After we resumed, my examiners explained that from now on, the questions would be less frequent, and we started jumping from page 120 to 153. I sighed a quiet sigh of relief. This meant that my actual experimental chapters had been accepted and understood! The second half of the thesis was actually intellectually challenging but also, if I dare say so, fun! One of my examiners was an equine surgeon while the other was a biomaterials professor so we spent a long time discussing the clinical implications of my findings, relating to the blood flow in the spine and general diagnosis and treatment of back pain.
I was then asked to leave the call, as it is usually norm to leave the room to let the examiners decide on the outcome. I was then brought back into the call, and immediately told that I passed! I was speechless, overjoyed, in shock and smiling from ear to ear, all at the same time! The highlight of my viva was being told that I defended my viva tooth and nail, and I should be proud. Well, who am I to disagree? So, here I was, all proud! I now have some minor corrections to make before reprinting the final version of the hard-bound fancy thesis, but I am over the moon, and I cannot overstate this, that I have no more graphs or analysis to make! This was the best day of my life! By far!
I said my polite good evenings and ended the call with my examiners. I immediately called the group chat with my family! Then I lost my sh*t! Over the moon, happy and excited! It was already night time and my friends were anxiously waiting for me outside, which made me even more elated and here I was, done with the PhD and very very happy! Emailed my supervisors to share the news and tried my best to sound coherent while I replied to the messages from friends and family. But I was relieved! Relieved and a bit in disbelief, waiting for it to sink in but that night was for celebrations, so I celebrated. As for the reflections regarding the end of the PhD, to be continued in the next blog post.