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Viva Survivors Podcast: Past, Present, Future

In case you didn’t already know – like I don’t talk about it enough – I produce the Viva Survivors Podcast. It’s an ongoing project of interviews with PhD graduates about “their research, their viva, and life after the PhD.” It came out of a desire to share the stories of what the viva was like for people; I had an idea that the horror stories that everyone seems to know about were, for the most part, myths – I wanted to share real stories. I was, and still am, delivering viva preparation workshops, and I thought as well that by learning more about what people had done to prepare for their vivas I would be able to help PhD candidates more.

I also thought it might be a lot of fun to do! And as time went on I realised what a tremendous learning experience it was for me too.

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Catch Up, 24th November 2014

Is it that time already? Seems like only yesterday that I was writing one of these posts, where does the time go… It’s been a busy couple of weeks for me, delivering more than a few workshops and keeping a few plates spinning. I was very happy to facilitate on a KESS Grad School recently; I’ve been involved with the programme for a number of years now, and it’s great that that’s continued on. Long train journeys to get to south Wales though, but perfect for lots of reading!

On This Blog

Almost two weeks ago I shared a favourite idea generation process of mine, which resulted in me coming up with some more Christmas presents for my wife! I reviewed The Path Of A Doer, and answered a common question about the viva (“what’s the worst question they can ask?“), before sharing a series of posts that started with me thinking about to do lists. I shared some experiments that I’ve run on myself to try to find things that work for me. In fact this week I’m doing another, capturing things in three columns on a big sheet of paper. Column headings are Tasks, Short and Emails (Short is for the little tasks that are not urgent but need doing at some point OR need doing soon but are not important). It’s just another little test to see what works. What works for you?

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Catch Up, 10th November 2014

Is it time for another catch up post? What happened to the last two weeks? Oh that’s right! I was out of the house delivering several workshops and facilitating one of Liverpool’s First Year Development Workshops – busy times! Fun times though. I’ve got a couple of other little projects that I’ve been pushing forward – I had cause to tweet the following a few days ago:

Watch this space I guess!

On This Blog

Around a fortnight back I was mulling over my creative playlist, before I introduced the Patreon campaign for the Viva Survivors Podcast. Regular readers will know that I’m really passionate about helping PhD candidates prepare for the viva, and the podcast is just one of the things that I do to support that goal. I’m looking to increase what I do with that resource, and through Patreon I hope to do more. Will you become a Patron to the Podcast?

After the Patreon post, I posted a total of six posts in my “Common Qs About The Viva” series, and there are more on this blog as well – and more to come! Do you have a question about the PhD viva? Let me know and maybe it will be the subject of a post in the future.

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The Viva Survivors Podcast on Patreon

If you read this blog regularly, you’ll know that I produce the Viva Survivors Podcast. This is a project of mine where I interview PhD graduates about their research, their viva and life after the PhD. I’ve always hoped that it was a great way to help PhD candidates realise that the viva is going to be OK – it’s not a mystery, there are things to expect and there are things that people can do to prepare.

The current Viva Survivors banner!
The current Viva Survivors banner!

I realised after a while that it was also a really great way to tell people more generally about research. Someone starting a PhD can listen to the podcast and find out a bit about what doing research is like, as well as learning about a really cool research topic. At the time of writing, there are 28 episodes in the archive, and I’m well on track to hit my target of 32 by the end of the year (and we’ll see if we can squeeze another one in for good measure!).

I want to do more: can you help?

In the last year I had to take time off from the podcast in order to adjust to becoming a dad! Now that I’ve stepped back up to it I’m enjoying it more than ever, and realising that I want to provide more. To help that process, I’ve created a Patreon campaign for the podcast. Patreon is a bit like Kickstarter, but whereas the latter is for a project that isn’t finished yet, Patreon is crowdfunding for ongoing efforts.

I’ve just started the campaign, but as support grows I’ll be able to spend more time on producing episodes, creating new content and expanding the output of the podcast. I have a couple of initial goals (like covering the cost of hosting, creating several pieces of writing each month and producing some focused tips-based episodes), but I also have big dreams. And I need your help to achieve both my goals and my dreams: providing a useful resource to postgraduate researchers in the UK and around the world.

So, can you help me?

If you can, great! The podcast will always be 100% free for everyone, and if you are able to become a Patron for the Viva Survivors Podcast then I can do some things to say thank you in return. I have a variety of things to begin with, like a “Thank You!” page of backers on the podcast, a pre-release notification that new content is coming to the site – and even early access to future episodes!

Patreon is straight-forward to set up, and it seems like a really useful way to support people creating things. Even if you don’t think that you can support the Viva Survivors Podcast at the moment, then have a look around and see what other amazing things people are doing.

Thanks for reading! I’ve really enjoyed the last two and a half years of producing the podcast, sharing the episodes and seeing it become a valuable resource. With your help I hope to continue this and do a lot more. Any help you can offer to support the Viva Survivors Podcast – by sharing the episodes, volunteering to share your story or becoming a Patron – is really appreciated.

Nathan (@DrRyder and @VivaSurvivors)

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Catch Up, 27th October 2014

What have you been up to lately? I’ve been in Sheffield delivering some workshops, and I’ve been preparing for a few more in the North West and Wales. I’ve also been recording more episodes of the Viva Survivors Podcast after a call for interviewees was answered by lots of people all at once – a good problem to have! I’ve also been writing for the coming weeks, as I’ll be away a little and didn’t want to break the chain of publication that I’ve been forging.

On This Blog

Almost two weeks ago I shared a post about inspiration, which was followed the next day by my first book review (a monthly feature of this blog from now on). I rounded that week out by answering a common question about the viva: is there a dress code? Last week was a bit reflective around here, and I shared a total of four posts loosely themed around “Time and the PhD“. These were some ideas that I’ve been chewing over for a while now, and they’re starting to poke out from among my brain cells and make themselves known more and more. I’m sure that it’s a topic I’ll be returning to in the future, as I try to draw thoughts together.

Anyway: let’s take a look at what else I’ve seen that’s piqued my curiosity!

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Catch Up, 13th October 2014

Every two weeks or so, on a Monday, I write a recap of what I’ve been posting about – just in case you missed anything, after all, you’re busy, it’s not all about me! – and also share a couple of links to articles or things that I’ve found interesting recently.

On this blog

I shared some ideas about capturing ideas, and then a couple of posts each with ten questions: first, for people who were starting a PhD and the second for people who were starting another year of their PhD. The second seemed to interest folk a lot, I was tweeted left, right and centre and had a few hundred people come and read it! If you shared it, thank you, and if you read it I hope it helped.

Last week was all about the research I’ve been working on, looking into the viva experience of PhD graduates in the UK. This was a series of five posts, and I am very happy that they have been shared and read as widely as they have already. I’m thinking hard about the next step for this research – I have a couple of ideas, and if you have any thoughts please get in touch!

Anyway, enough about this blog – what other treats have I seen?

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Catch Up, 29th September 2014

Every two weeks or so I intend to write a post just like this one – where I’ll talk about what I’ve been posting for the last few weeks, and link to any posts or things I’ve seen that I think are also worth having a read or look at. OK?

On this blog

The last – and first! – two weeks of posts here have been about acronyms, the neatly encapsulated ideas that I use all the time both for myself and for working with postgraduate researchers. I’ve written about INTRO, which helps start presentations; STAR, a technique for talking about your skills; PMI, an idea evaluation tool; and five other acronyms. If you haven’t already, take a look, and let me know in the comments what acronym ideas you find really useful!

Meanwhile, elsewhere

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I Need You!

YOU!!!!!!!I’m doing this blog for lots of reasons

A big reason is that this is a testbed for ideas. I alluded to this on Wednesday, but broadly speaking material that will appear here – material written by me – will at some point probably end up edited and reworked into books. Those books will probably cost money, but at the point here it will be totally free. You don’t have to pay any money or do anything in order to read it. You don’t have to sign up for anything, give me coin or contact details or even tell anyone in order to read these posts.

If you would like to tell people about this writing though, there are lots of ways to do that: follow me on Twitter (@DrRyder and @VivaSurvivors), like the Facebook page, put the Google+ page in one of your circles. I’ll be mentioning the Viva Survivors Podcast from time to time as new episodes come up, or if there is something new and interesting over there that I want to share more widely. Follow, like, put it in circles – and I’ll keep you up to date with posts and other things as they come up.

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Schedule

I’m doing this blog for a number of reasons:

  • I want to share thoughts with people;
  • I want to hopefully help PhD students;
  • I want to build up a good writing habit for myself;
  • I want to develop my own writing.

My first goal is to be consistent though: I want to publish one post, Monday to Thursday, every week of the next year (with the exception of holidays!) at a minimum. Quick back of the napkin calculation says that’s around 210 posts. Yikes.

So I’ll be writing and preparing some posts in advance, and I have a slush pile of ideas. I’m also keen (like I said yesterday) to hear what people think, and see what topics people are keen to hear about.

I’ll be starting the blog properly next week with a two week series of posts on acronyms.

Wait! Come back!

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Hello World

Next week it will be six years since I started a business. After so many positive experiences during my PhD I decided to try being a skills trainer. I had an idea that I wanted to help lots of different people. Over time I realised that what I really wanted to do was help postgraduate researchers and research staff. I am passionate about helping people directly – being in a room with them, or in conversation, and sharing ideas and experiences, seeing what they need and if I can meet that need.

As long as I can remember, I’ve also been passionate about writing. And like many people passionate about writing, I have been incredibly scared of sharing that writing. I have novels in the bottom of drawers and on old USB sticks. I have books aimed at PhD students – several books on different subjects – that I don’t dare share (yet). In January 2013 I finally worked up the courage to share my first ebook, and finally realised that it was OK for other people to read what I had written.

Then life intervened – we moved house, had a beautiful daughter and it was suddenly eighteen months later. I kept writing, but again those old jitters came up on me. What was best to write? What would people want to read? What if it was no good?

The answer to all of these questions was to just write and share, take on feedback and keep on writing and sharing.

So that’s what this blog is: I’ll be writing and sharing. Some of these posts will be polished thoughts. Some will be things that I’m working out. Some will be things that I don’t know what I think (yet). All of them will be aimed at helping postgraduate researchers. If you’re a PGR or a PGR developer or are someone who just cares then please share this blog. Tomorrow I’ll share some details about what you can expect in the coming months (Monday-Thursday daily posts with occasional other updates), and on Friday I’ll share details of what you can do to support this blog if you’d like.

I’ll mention work from time to time, but this isn’t really about workshops that I do or trying to sell you on hiring me to deliver them (although if you want to then please don’t let me stop you!).

This blog is aimed at providing something useful. So my first question – and feel free to comment – what would be useful to you?

If you could see me write on any topic that would be useful to PGRs what would it be?