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Friday 4 November 2011

Good news about PhD viva

I just wanted to share with everyone that I had my viva (oral examination) yesterday and I have now officially passed my PhD.

The viva meeting was a very positive one. There were two examiners, on ‘internal’ to the University of London and one ‘external’ from a university outside of the University of London (I attended Birkbeck). The examiners have a lot of experience in the field of Higher Education and work based learning and both have a lot of experience in managing vivas for PhD students. The result was for me was that it was more of a discussion than a defense, which was great. My supervisor attended the meeting, but could not say anything during the viva. I still have some corrections to make on the thesis document, but I will hopefully submit that but the end of the year. So a great relief and a lot of celebrating!

FYI before the viva I did look at the information available to prepare for the day, similar to looking at the handbooks for BAPP (Arts), to make sure of what it was I was supposed to be doing.

An example of this is a powerpoint form Birkbeck describing the process and requirements of the viva so click on the link if you are interested. It is always good to go to your own institution for instructions, but other higher education institutions in the UK also have a lot of information that is worth checking out online.

10 comments:

  1. Many congratulations Paula, fantastic news and I'm thrilled for you! I'm privileged to be working with such a scholar! Dr. Paula Nottingham.
    I've just read through the power point presentation from BirkBeck. Did you experience any 'Common viva surprises' and if so what where they?

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  2. May I present the newest PHD woman in London:

    Dr. Paula Nottingham

    Congratulations from Lily and MC from The Moonlite Players! XX

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  3. Congratulations for your PHD Paula, it's great to know that learning never ends and there is so much out there available to achieve. It gives me encouragement for my BA hearing such wonderful positive results! Well Done.

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  4. Congratulations! and thankyou for a useful campus session today..

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  5. Congratulations Paula! That´s wonderful news!
    The powerpoint is really interesting..thank you for sharing!

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  7. Congratulations Dr. Nottingham!
    Such good news! A big well done from across the pond!

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  8. Great news Paula! I actually hadn't come across this post before but I bumped into Wendy the other night at The National and she told me. Good for you! I hope it's been worth all the hard work.

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