Are you close to submitting your PhD? Genevieve has some excellent pointers for you to smooth the process. In 2016 Genevieve Simpson completed her PhD, which examined community, industry and government perceptions of residential solar energy technologies and policies to support its adoption. She is excited about the opportunity to take her findings out into […]
Search Results for: viva
The Viva – a live presentation of your thesis to examiners – is not common in Australia. Our thesis examination is a blind peer review process, which has its own fears, but nothing like the anxiety that a viva can provoke. Horror stories tend to circulate, which is why I was happy to be sent […]
This is a book review of “How to fail your Viva: 12 steps to failing your PhD and 58 tips for passing” a new book by Dr Nathan Ryder, who is an expert on helping students get through the Viva. The viva is the oral examination at the end of the thesis process in the […]
An oral defence, or Viva, is common in the UK, Europe, NZ. The viva is less common in Australia. Most Australian students will do a final presentation before the PhD, but many universities are currently discussing how to introduce a defence as part of the examination process, so we can expect a defence of some […]
Well, that’s all your posts for the year friends – it’s nearly the end of 2017 already! I’ve been a big year for me: three book projects completed and a big research project report released. I exhausted, so I’m off to Tasmania for some much needed R&R. As ever, thanks to the wonderful team I […]
It’s almost Christmas time, when many of us have a bit of time with our families. It seems an appropriate place to pause and think about the myriad of ways that our families provide support for many of us. This post is by Moira Hansen who is currently in the 3rd year of her Lord […]
While PhD students can start at any time in some universities, in some there is a semester by semester intake. This means that some people will be starting their PhD this month. How should you approach this process to get the most out of it? Judith Krauss, now Director of Studies for Sustainability, is still […]
For the last couple of decades people have been experimenting with different types of PhD programs. The PhD by publication has become popular, especially in the sciences, but how do examiners react them? The academic world is quite conservative and some PhD students have encountered difficulties in the examination process. In this post, Chris Keyworth […]
Competition is like the background radiation of academia – ever present, but rarely visible. Here’s a field guide to some common forms of competition amongst research students and some useful ways to think about it. If just to prove that competition does not have to be a way of life, this post has three authors: […]
Some writing projects just take a long time. In academia this is always true, but this particular project had a more painful birthing process than most… Nearly two years ago now, Chris McMaster approached me to help him get together a book on post graduate study in Australia, written by students themselves. The book was […]
