The Dougal Effect

Since 2004 I have had but three phobias: nose-bleeds, spiders, and vivas. The very thought of the viva would send shivers down my spine and goose-bumps over my arms.

At the same time, the thought of what would occur directly after would bring the salty waters of pride to my eyes and a dizzying sensation of success as yet untasted through my undergraduate and master’s years.

Yet the event itself was oddly, well, uneventful.

In my more dramatic moments, I imagined that I would be invited back into the room for the verdict and as the professors greeted me with the salutatory appellation of “Congratulations Dr. ~~~” I would swoon into a happy ever after of academic bliss.

Reading certain blogs in the run up to my viva, ostensibly scouring for tips and insights, a recurring phenomenon was the anticlimax of the viva. The bathos.

Their posts over the approaching days would be full of heady glee and anxiety, with countdowns and fretful notations, before…zilch. Nichts. Rien. Wallashi, τίποτα, nada.

A mere four-line mutter of: “Viva done, wasn’t great, wasn’t bad. Oddly uneventful.”

This used to puzzle me, until now. It is supposed to be one of the happiest moments of your life, and yet you are left feeling oddly empty.

The actual event can only be described in the following, rather unsavoury, manner.

Imagine an ice-cream in a cone. There is one big ball of ice-cream and it is two flavours: banana on one side, and vomit on the other. But the ice-cream has melted and mixed, so one lick is deliciously sweet and palatable, and the other strikingly vile.

This is the viva.

At the end, my supervisor was invited in to hear the result – which in itself inspired a fleeting moment of terror – and the examiners summarised the two hour meeting in the space of five minutes, and then hugged me before swiftly departing for the airport.

You emerge from the room to jubilation, yet it does not reach you completely. It’s like being in a bubble, and the party is around you.

Personally, the oddest thing is being called “Doctor”. As I change my e-mail signature I feel oddly fraudulent, as though I am still a student musing, “imagine when I finish…!”, and yet I have.

Although the widespread response advocates relaxation, holidays, time-out, sleep-for-a-month, I feel this cannot come until I find a job. After all, what use is a Doctor without a post?

The good news is that I am not alone. Of my contemporaries, those who have passed this week also suffer the Dougal Effect, while those who emerged as Doctors last month are basking in the long awaited joy.

I can’t wait.