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Many Master’s students will know this: choosing whether or not to start a PhD is no easy quest. Having almost finished her PhD, Sandra Crnko can definitely put on the table a different view from those who have to start one yet and help some of us make this choice.

Sandra Crnko is a Croatian PhD candidate at UMC Utrecht, in the Department of Experimental Cardiology. Her work focused on the circadian clock, a mechanism that coordinates the timing of every biological process in the human body and it can be very important for the treatment of heart diseases in the clinic. Has Sandra applied for a PhD with this topic in mind? Surprisingly, not really. “I just jumped and I hoped I would like it” and it worked out. She came here in Utrecht and started a lot of different projects, and in the end, she put together a collage of different things she liked along the way.

If she didn’t have a specific topic in mind that she was passionate about, why embark on a four-years-long research project? Sandra decided to do a PhD because she felt she needed a transition between being a student and real-life working. Moreover, she gained experience for future jobs, she acquired lots of connections and learned about the real world outside university. Together with the practicalities, she just likes to do research and learning new techniques. “Research always starts with a problem that you want to solve, but then it clicks, you finally get the solution and you realise what’s your next step”, and then there is a new challenge to face.

Research always starts with a problem that you want to solve, but then it clicks, you finally get the solution and you realise what’s your next step.

On the other hand, a PhD is not all flower and sunshine. The beginning of her internship was a bit hard, she had to start an entirely new project by herself, along with the difficulties of moving to a new country. Four years ago, she was the only international in her group and she had to constantly remind people that she didn’t speak Dutch, so integrating was hard. “Why hire internationals if you don’t want to talk to us?”

Science isn’t a one-man band.

All in all, what are the most important lessons for Sandra from her PhD path? She learned how a real lab works, new techniques, how to juggle five different projects and how to work 50 hours a week. All the crazy stuff, if you have already done an internship you must be familiar with it. And, above all, she remembers fondly the incredible amount of people she met, with different backgrounds and cultures, the endless coffee breaks and brain storming sessions, the inspiring and fresh ideas, because “Science isn’t a one-man band”.