Passing my viva

I passed my viva a couple of days ago. I arrived in Reading the night before and stayed with a couple of friends who live near Reading. The day had typical English weather when I arrived on campus, rainy with a few breaks during throughout the day. My viva was set for 12:00 pm and the Department made sure to order sandwiches in advance for us to arrive at 1:00. I met my Internal examiner EK from the department and the external, JH who had taken a train down that morning from the Midlands. Was I nervous? Well, to be honest, I didn't see the point, because I knew that the examiners had already made their decision of whether I'd passed or not, based on reading my thesis in the previous weeks. I think only if this was a borderline case would the viva voce make much of a difference about passing or not, because maybe they'd ask me questions about something I didn't put into my thesis that I should have. However, that was not the case with me. My main academic advisor, Rob, made some final suggestions about reiterating the questions being answered in each chapter at the beginning and end of each section, to make sure everything extra clear for the examiners, and that paid off. The best defence, is to have a good thesis that you know inside and out, and on the day I knew exactly where everything was. The image below has my final examiners' report and the viva, itself, went very well. I'm posting it here because I'm pleased with the years of work put into this.

After answering their questions, the three of us ended up having a very long conversation--3 hours-- mostly about the stuff I didn't have space to put into my thesis because it wasn't relevant to the research. Although it was a long, and draining experience, the event is what I imagine running marathons must be like. Enjoyable in a long, gruelling, sort of way. Only adrenaline really is keeping you going, but you've been conditioned to take part and you knew what was coming, so, there you are at a somewhat anti-climatic end, but pleased, none-the-less that you are done. Except, that you're not really done, there are some corrections... but they can wait for a week.

Anyway, because the viva was very long, usually if it is a pass it normally takes 2 hours or less, when I emerged from the room Rob was on the other side of the door talking to one of his undergrad students. He had clearly just come from teaching. He turned to face me, and I decided to play a small prank on him. "How did it go?", he asked neutrally. I had my poker face on. "I was awarded an MPhil," I replied. (Which basically means the thesis was so bad, you don't have the chance to fix it, they are just awarding you a lesser degree.) After a three second pause, he said in a very confused tone, "They can't do that, can they?" Another 5 seconds of silence from me, with my poker face on.

Sue, my secondary advisor, came up to both of us and asked how it went. Since I don't know her as well as Rob, I took the opportunity to smile and tell them both that I passed and got a hug and congrats from her. Rob shook his head and said he didn't believe I wouldn't have passed, but was thrown by the fact that I had been in the room for 3 hours with the examiners. But, being Rob, he had a good natured chuckle and we went for a drink before I caught the train back to Sheffield that night, in the rain. The examiners declined to come (probably because of the weather) but also because they wanted to get the paperwork done... and enumerate all of the typos I needed to fix.