For any Ph.D. scholar, viva voce is the moment of truth. While this writer has not reached that stage yet but has been advised by her supervisor to start preparing for the D-day by attending workshops and training sessions.

I have always wondered what it is like to be in a viva- voce session. The mere thought of taking the oral examination sends shivers up my spine. It was until a few days ago; I used to wonder why people who worked really hard on their research project dread viva so much. It never occurred to me as to why would any student fail his/her viva?

I recently had a chance to attend a mock viva for a colleague and it was only then that I realized why people got hysterical about it.

The student was sitting in front of his supervisor, who was acting like an external examiner and an internal examiner. It appeared similar to the labor pangs a pregnant woman experiences. However, in this labor (viva voce) no painkillers are allowed.

In viva voce, you need to demonstrate that you are capable of defending your thesis through providing thorough and scientific answers to all questions. In Viva, you should master how to play for time if you need it, how to avoid the use of certain terms and to mitigate your answers in a way that make you open for other possibilities. In Viva you need to demonstrate that you understand and accept that no matter how hard you worked, still your study is not perfect and it has limitations and you need to have clear suggestions in how to overcome those limitations in the future. In the mock viva, the supervisor was simply preparing the student for the “real thing” and he admitted that he tried to be as harsh as he could be so the student got prepared for the worst. The student, in my opinion, did really well and he seemed very confident and sure of himself and his work. This incident brought back to me a case of a colleague who did not pass his viva. We then heard that the problem was that he did not defend his thesis and decided to accept what the external examiner was saying, he lost the whole point of viva and ended up working an extra year to resubmit his thesis and redo the viva. Needless to say, I was thrilled and had adrenaline rush and decided on the spot that I would work extra hard now. I will resist any temptations to rest like I did in the past weeks, as the moment of truth is fast approaching and the clock is ticking.

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@HatoonKadi