I survived the viva. 'Survived' is what I mean. It was pretty awful. Let me give my account of what went on, for the benefit of those who might be preparing for their viva. A word of warning, though: this is my own subjective experience; I won't even try to be objective.
1. Prepare for the worst. You might be lucky and have an easy ride. I didn't. It's a good thing I was quite well prepared. Even though, I could have done more in terms of preparation. I felt that a summary of my thesis was indispensable. It took me weeks to prepare it. It was quite thorough - 36 pages long; it included references; I used bold, big fonts and highlighting to help me find things quickly in the exam. Yet, I could have had page numbers next to each bit of the summary. Examiners expected me to tell them on which page things were pretty quickly and it took me a few seconds and some help at times. The onus is on you to find things in the thesis. I for one was overwhelmed with the amount of material I was handling.
2. Grilling. What do I mean by 'the worst'? I mean grilling, for instance. In my case, it was relentless for about an hour (?) until I raised the white flag and they let up for a second. There were hardly any positive comments regarding my thesis other than 'the presentation is good'.
3. Exam. This is an exam. Be in no doubt. There was hardly any discussion of issues. I felt a huge power difference going on and little in terms of interaction. I had to justify the weaknesses of my work and that was that.
4. Sinking. At times I had this awful sinking feeling, especially at the beginning. My heart sank when right from the start basic foundations of my work were bombshelled. I felt there was no recovering from that. The examiners were... well, one of them was very unhappy with my work. No chance of winning her back. I just had to weather the storm.
5. Defence. We're usually told not to be defensive in the viva. I'd say be defensive when needed. Had I not been defensive in some places my result could have been much worse.
6. ¡Viva! Having said all this, I passed. With some corrections. In the end, I'm not sure whether the examiners took pity or I overreacted to their criticisms in the exam but my list of corrections is rather small. I hope I'll manage to get over some of the unpleasant bits I went through and rejoice in having passed soon.
7. Future. However, some of the criticisms make me even less confident about my future career in academia than I was to start with. I was hoping I could build on my findings and methodology in future studies but I'm not sure any more.
PS: If you'd like to find out more about my experience you can email me at cmontoro@me.com or DM @CarlosMontoro on Twitter.
PS2 Many many many good wishes to all!