The main question is: are you ready for the PhD viva questions? Are you ready for the pressure of seeing your work of long years being bombarded with questions? After living with a topic for several years, it naturally makes one very attached to it (if not totally the opposite, it is the Marmite syndrome). Therefore, there is an implicit anxiety around how the others see our child, that one we gave birth with so much hard labour and, usually, so much pain as well. When the viva (or defense) comes, the candidate needs to be well prepared to present their work and to receive critique and lots of questioning. So, the PVS (previva syndrome) also called PVT (previva tension) is a collection of physical and emotional symptoms related to a person’s anticipation of the next period of their academic life cycle. Similar to its cousin PMT (premenstrual tension), “more than 200 different symptoms have been associated with” PVT, including “stress, anxiety, difficulty in falling asleep (insomnia), headache, fatigue, mood swings, increased emotional sensitivity, and changes in libido”.
At this precise moment when this post is published, my agony my viva is starting and my agony my PVT is finishing. While you read this in the peace of your privacy, I embark in the most waited part of this journey, in a private agony session with the comforting presence of my supervisor and the intimidating enormous expertise of my examining panel. When the agony viva is finished, I will be back here to tell the tale.
🙂