The Viva Voce! (UCD style)

Dionysus · 08-02-2009 3:32am #1

So, mine should be coming up in the next month (18 March is the deadline to submit the final thesis version in order to be conferred on 29 April). In classic UCD efficiency it is over three months since I submitted the thesis. Not a word from anybody about the viva since that day I dropped in 3 copies of my trachtás into Admin. Nobody. I might as well have died.
Is there anybody else who is waiting this long, or that had to wait this long for their viva?

The second thing is how many examiners do you have? My PhD is in Arts and I am apparently having three examiners, with the non-UCD NUI lecturer considered one of my internal examiners, which was a last minute surprise sprung on me by the powers that be (for the previous year he was expected to be my external examiner and thus responsible for directing the viva voce). Essentially, therefore, a new examiner was thrown on me last autumn and I had no choice in the matter. Then my other internal examiner was also changed, and I also had no choice in that matter. So, basically they suddenly changed my examining committee without seeing how I felt about it. My supervisor will be there as well to ensure all is OK.
Has anybody else experienced this sort of uncertainty about the make-up of their examining committee?

The third thing I'm not sure about is how the viva is run. The aforementioned UCD Admin has not put any information online about how the viva is organised - this is about the gist of it: http://www.ucd.ie/exams/student_info/theses.html#guide - so I can only go on how it works in other universities.
Do UCD students have a right to invite a relative or friend to attend their viva, or part of their viva? Is the actual examination preceeded by my giving a presentation? If so, how long should I expect this to be?

Lastly, how long did your viva last? Was there any break during it?

pathway33 · 08-02-2009 6:21pm

betafrog wrote: »

What the hell is a Viva Voce?

doesn't it mean the doctorate presentation of ones thesis. probably latin. would voca be voice? and maybe viva means alive or something? like a live voice as in a presentation. but that could be all wrong

griffdaddy · 08-02-2009 6:22pm

it's basically when you have to give an oral defense of a thesis to a group of bigger boys, usually for a doctorate. my advice is that if you get any difficult questions that you just rub your hand over your mouth and mutter something that sounds like it could be related to your subject

What was your thesis on may i ask?

huppenstop · 09-02-2009 11:38am

To the OP. I submitted my thesis in February 2007 and had my viva in May. There are many things that can delay the viva, most notably the schedule of your extern and internal examiners. They have to read the thing, then try and find a date in their diaries to examine it. In my experience, the scheduling of a date was done by my supervisor consulting with the examiners (I think, although I could be wrong). I'd suggest getting in touch with your superv first and seeing what the story is.

As for the exam itself...there will be an internal and an external examiner asking questions. Your supervisor can also be there, but they generally don't contribute, just observe. Good luck!

delta_bravo · 09-02-2009 12:24pm

As a matter of interest, can you actually fail this? And would you not be issued your phd if you failed?

huppenstop · 09-02-2009 12:28pm

I forgot to answer your last question...

Mine was for a PhD in Science, so perhaps it's a little different. But generally you will give a short presentation at the beginning, (very short, mine was about 6 slides long), which allows you to give an overview for your work and which can act as a good start for discussion. The main point of the presentation is that it allows you to settle into the viva, and will help calm your nerves. I don't think you can have family or friends present.

Mine lasted 1.5 hours (I think), which was about the same for my friends, although it totally depends on the exam. I know one guy whose viva lasted over 5 hours. If it goes on that long you will have a break. There wasn't a break for me, but if you need to take one I can't imagine that there'll be a problem.

The only other thing, is that the time will fly. At the end of mine, the examiner said something along the lines of "well I don't have any more questions" and I remember thinking that we had only been talking for 20minutes. It had been an hour and a half.

They send you out of the room while they deliberate and call you back in and tell you that you have it! (Despite the rumours you will hear about people failing their vivas, I honestly don't think it has happened at all or at least not recently). Think about it, your supervisor would not have let you submit if they didn't think it was of doctoral standard!

Best of luck again!

Dr Strange · 10-02-2009 9:49am

Actually there were some failures for PhD's in the last couple of months.

It is not that uncommon but it should also be kept in mind that there are several options without failing outright, such as the permission to resubmit the thesis with major changes or being offered the MPhil instead. Usually they tell you what your thesis needs to be brought up to PhD standard if they offer the MPhil so you can decide what you want to do. An outright fail is probably quite rare and shows that your doctoral committee (supervisor and director of the programme) didn't actually prepare your properly. Usually your supervisor won't let your thesis go for examination until he/she is happy with it being of doctoral standard.

Dionysus · 10-02-2009 10:08pm

10 out of 10 to pathway33 and griffdaddy. ;-)

DeltaBravo:

As Preusse observed (grrrr! says), failing the viva does happen. Over on the postgraduateforum - http://tinyurl.com/bsjjsb - there are some horror stories about people failing the viva. One person even had an 8 hour viva. I would suggest avoiding that forum if you have a viva coming up! Nevertheless, as Huppenstop notes (grrr! says) it looks very bad for you supervisor if he signs the form saying your submitted thesis is of doctoral standard, when the examining committee adjudge it not to be.

I'm expecting my thesis to pass with minor corrections. I'm currently compiling a list of the corrections I am making to the submitted softbound copy of the thesis - spelling, punctuation, faulty parallelisms, serial commas, and the like. I intend to hand these to the internal examiner before the viva... providing he ever contacts me to arrange it. I should be finished all these corrections (and creating my index) by the end of next week and if I don't hear from them by then I will have to contact my supervisor.

Dionysus · 10-02-2009 10:09pm

Huppenstop:

Thank you so much. I will definitely have to check up on whether they expect me to give a presentation because it seems the picture is mixed. Your 1.5 hour viva sounded fine, but I think mine will be quite gruelling as I, well, sort of went over the word limit and wrote, well, two phds so they will have loads to talk about. I was like that Duracell bunny once I started.

The other thing is that I am having 2 internal examiners, and 1 external examiner, and my supervisor will be present as well. You seem to only have had 1 internal and 1 external examiner, so I'm thinking my three examiners are a bit odd (one of the internal examiners was initially suppossed to be my eternal examiner, but last autumn he was told he couldn't as he was NUI (but not UCD) and thus a new non-NUI examiner was brought in to be external and the original guy was left on the committee. At least that's what I'm being told.

When it was over did you go home or were you invited for a drink or something? And how about conferring? Was that just much the same as the degree? One other thing, before your viva did word come through on the grapevine (i.e. via your supervisor) that they thought you thesis was sound and would have no trouble passing it, or did you go in without a clue about their views on your work?

Thanks again.

The Viva Voce! (UCD style)

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