by Ana Mićević

 

Hello everyone!

Since this is my first blog post (on this blog and actually ever), I was a bit nervous about writing it, since I never was particularly good at writing and also, until recently, I didn´t really realize how important sharing your experiences with people is. But, reading about people´s experiences has helped me a lot in making decisions and gathering important informations a few times by now. You never know who is going to end up in a similar situation and whom

you´re gonna help by writing a simple blog post. 🙂

Let me first introduce myself and my study path by now. My name is Ana Mićević and I come from a beautiful city where two rivers meet – Belgrade, capital of Serbia. I have finished my bachelor and master studies at the School of Electrical Engineering, University of Belgrade. Course of my studies was an interesting combination of engineering and physics, mainly focused on nanoelectronics and photonics. As my studies were coming to an end I had one big dilemma – do I want to do a PhD and stay in academia or experience the industry world first? It didn´t occur to me that I can have both until I found this amazing PhD position! Piece of information for anyone having the same doubts as I did: doing a PhD in industry is not uncommon in Germany at all, since the universities and industry have great collaboration!

So here I am now, in Munich, experiencing both: scientific and industrial point of view! My host institution is QUBIG GmbH, a company that produces state-of-the-art electro-optic modulators for fundamental research as well as industrial applications. I am co-supervised by Technical University of Munich, where I will get to experience the atmosphere and work environment of a university research group. And I have to say that this was a perfect choice for me! I am learning a lot from both worlds and this experience will definitely help me with the choice of my career path later.

Another great benefit of this PhD position: it is a part of a Marie Curie Innovative Training Network! I must admit, I had no idea how great this position is when I was applying for it. I didn´t know much about Marie Curie projects. Marie Curie ITNs are great training programs for young researchers that offer many options for professional and personal growth, apart from an awesome PhD topic that deals with attractive future challenges. The network is a collaboration between different universities and industries in Europe. Every year, an annual school for all the young researchers from the network is organized by one of the partners. It is a great opportunity to meet with your colleagues (that, now, after two annual schools we have spent together, I would rather call friends :)), listen to great talks, exchange ideas and participate in great soft-skills workshops. The ITN also offers two research internships that last for three months each, on one of the partner institutions from the project.

And those are just few out of many benefits offered by Marie Curie ITNs. If you would like to do a PhD in Europe, I would definitely suggest to look into this option as well! You can look for positions on EURAXESS website (https://euraxess.ec.europa.eu/ ). If you want to know more about my experience as a part of ITN or you have the same industry/academia dilemma as I did, feel free to contact me! I will be glad to provide some informations that might help you with your decision. As we all know, choosing the right PhD position is not at all an easy task! 🙂