Nathan RyderOn holiday! Normal service will be resumed in a week or so. If you need to email me, then please be patient as a response won’t probably come until the 24th of March at the earliest. Thanks for your patience. Updates on workshops, blog posts, podcasts and more coming soon!
Nathan
Last year I had what I thought was a bright idea: I would create a Patreon campaign to support the production of the Viva Survivors Podcast. An ongoing patronage programme where people who wanted to fund the creation of a resource sharing PhD and viva experiences could – completely opt-in and no barriers or paywalls in front of the episodes. That’s the very last thing that I want.
I had high hopes and then… nothing! No patrons, no enquiries, nothing. And then after a couple of months a piece of EU legislation around VAT and digital sales came in, and I had to take down the campaign anyway (it would put me in an incredibly difficult position to have to register for VAT, and the application of the rules to platforms like Patreon are not clear yet).
Back at square one? Not at all.
Last year I asked seven questions about the viva, got 302 responses to them, and used the results to start to get an idea of what the viva in the UK is like. I did this because I’m passionate about helping PhD candidates prepare for the viva, and I thought that I could:
As my previous series of posts showed, I think that there are some interesting results in the data, and I know that in my work personally – both on the Viva Survivors Podcast and on the viva preparation courses that I run – this has had a huge impact in terms of helping people. At the same time, I view last year’s survey as a starting point. This is the beginning, and not the conclusion of my research into the viva experience.
I’ve had a little time off from working on my second book on the viva (coming soon!), and this has given me some time to check through my records. I’ve been a skills trainer since September 2008, and have accumulated a lot of stuff – some of it is worth keeping and refreshing myself on – some of it I’ve been happy to chuck into the recycling bin in the last few weeks.
I recently found my notes from a workshop that I ran for Vitae a couple of years ago. The session was on blogging and social media, but the idea that jumped back to the forefront for me was the icebreaker for the day’s workshop, which we used as a way to get people thinking of ideas for blog posts. The process is called Heuristic Ideation Technique:
Earlier this week I wrote about two of the workshops that I deliver, How To Work With Your Supervisor and Creativity for Researchers. Aside from some of the Grad Schools that I’m a facilitator for, the workshop that I deliver most often – and which I think I am most well known for – is Viva Survivor. So in the last post for this week I’ll talk a little about how I came to do this, what I do – and most importantly why I love doing it.
I started writing about some of the courses I deliver on Monday. First up was How To Work With Your Supervisor. Today, I want to muse a little on Creativity for Researchers, which is a workshop I’ve been developing since 2010.
To get back into the swing of writing here regularly, I thought that this week I would talk about my day job, which is delivering workshops to postgraduate researchers. I’m aiming to make these a mix of the why and the what – why I do the workshop and what I see and do. First up, How To Work With Your Supervisor, a session I regularly run to help PGRs explore working with their supervisor.
In January I shared that one of my goals for this year was to read some of the books that I have bought or have been bought in recent years, but have yet to get around to reading. I tried this the year before, but it never worked because – surprise, surprise – I didn’t make the goal concrete enough. This year, I had to do something different, so like it says in the previous post I made a list of ten books that I would read in 2015. They wouldn’t be the only books I’d read this year, but they would be some which I had to read.
So far I’ve read three and started a fourth:
I’ve started reading Playing At The World which looks at the history of role-playing games. I need to take my time with it though; it’s hyper-detailed, a serious academic work and not just a pop cultural story. I also started reading Serious Play, but I think when I bought it I may have mistaken it for another book, so I’m going to take another look soon. It may be that I replace it with another book off my oh-my-gosh-how-many-unread-books-do-I-own-pile.
I like reading for pleasure, but I also like to be inspired. Each of these books has inspired me in some way already, and the ideas form part of the mosaic of thoughts I put out in my work. It’ll be interesting to see how the other books impact.
What have you been reading lately?
Nathan (@DrRyder and @VivaSurvivors)
While I continue finishing my second book on the viva, it seems only appropriate to share some of the recent episodes of the Viva Survivors Podcast over here! I’ve interviewed two recent PhD-completers in the last few weeks, and both episodes are now up over on Viva Survivors.
First of all, in Episode 35 I spoke to Dr Eljee Javier, who told me all about her research in the experience of visible ethnic minorities who were native English speakers engaged in teaching English to non-native speakers. It was great to get a flavour of her research, then also hear about her viva experiences.
Two days ago I posted the latest episode, Episode 36, where I spoke to Dr Anna McFarlane, who recently completed her PhD on William Gibson, one of my favourite contemporary authors. It was interesting to hear about her research – and also to have an interviewee on the podcast who had, what we might call, an atypical viva experience – albeit quite a good one! You’ll have to listen to see what I mean.
These were two great interviews; I’m always looking for more people willing to share their PhD and viva stories, so please get in touch!
Thanks for reading.
Nathan (@DrRyder and @VivaSurvivors)
Once again the blog becomes a one-day-per-week affair. Apologies. My mind has been on other pieces of writing of late, as well as related aspects of them. As of Tuesday I finished the second draft of my second book – which may or may not be titled Frequently Asked Questions About The PhD Viva – and am now at the stage of looking for or designing a cover. I made the cover for Fail Your Viva myself, and while I’ve never been unhappy with it per se, I’ve always wanted something a little snazzier. I have found myself looking at the pre-made covers at Go On Write a lot in the last few months (spoiler alert: I’ve bought one or two already for future projects!). I don’t have one yet for this new book.
A new episode of the Viva Survivors Podcast went live on Monday! It was great to talk with Dr Eljee Javier about her research and viva; I met Eljee when she had just started her PhD several years ago, and it only seemed like a few months. Time flies, eh? It was great to hear how things had gone for her, and also hear about some really interesting research. There will be a new episode on Monday 23rd February too – it seems like a new pattern for the podcast might be that it updates on the last two Mondays of a month… I’ll see what I can do about that.
I’ve had a week of working from home, so don’t have any workshop news – I could tell you about my daughter’s latest accomplishments with the Megablox, but that might be less interesting to you than it is to me! In the coming weeks I’m back out on the road, delivering Viva Survivor and other workshops. If you’re reading this and want any details of these workshops then please get in touch and I’ll help in any way I can.
Until next week! Thanks for reading.
Nathan (@DrRyder and @VivaSurvivors)