What made you do a PhD?

Yep! That is one of the questions that will be possibly asked during one's viva. I was glad i attended today's session on "Surviving Your Viva". The seminar familiarized me with the process of a "defense" here in the UK. It is very much different from the viva/defense that I was used to back home. For one, your supervisor does not necessarily have to be present during the viva and secondly, you get reviewer(s) from another university. Another major difference is that you are not expected to do a 30min to 1hr presentation of your study before reviewers start to ask questions. They are straight to the point and can even start asking you details or general questions about your study straight away. The list of questions that was given during the session was very helpful as I find more general questions more difficult that specific questions about ones study. I plan on going over them and answering them as much as i can on top of the possible technical details of my actual thesis.

On the other hand, today I chanced upon another event under the StudyHappy program of the Library in Twitter (blip entry). A chance to pat the dogs again next week.