Students Exchange Programme
India, 16-30 April 2011

We arrived in New Delhi after we changed 2 planes and travelled for 16 hours. At the airport we met with Jatin Aneja,NEO of IADS India and Robin Malik, Secretary of DSWAI. Next day we stayed in Delhi and visited some famous places, India Gate and Red Fort. We made our first impressions: the streets are very crowded, gives the feeling that nobody respects any traffic rules. You can see many 3-wheelers, a taxi system, which are made for 4 peoples but it is not such an unsual thing to see 16 people inside. There are very big contrasts in India: you can see modern buildings near markets where you have to bargain for everything. We also drunk theire traditional lemonade wich we strongly recomande to all people travelling to India (it has a special taste). Another aspect that we noticed was the lake of hygine.
We went to IDST, Institute of Dental Studies and Technology in Ghaziabad, the college where Robin is student.We spent there 5 days in the campus, we stayed in the Girl’s Hostel and we experienced the Indian student life. We attended to clases, we ate at the mess, we spent beutifull moments in evenings with our colleges in Ghaziabad with who we remained friends. We ate only indian food and we gradualy got used to it (most of it is vegetal and very spicey).
Theire program at school is from 9 to 15, with a break of 1 hour for lunch. The campus included a General Hospital, a Dental Hospital, two hostels (separated for girls and boys), a mess and a temple. The Dental Hospital is very big, well equiped, all braches are well organized. Their educational system is different from ours, they have 4 years school and one year internship. After this 5 years, students can attend a post-graduated cours (MBA). Students start working on patients starting with 3rd year and they are helped by the Interns and by the teachers. We attended Conservative, Prosthetics, Orthodontics and Oral Medicine. We talked to teachers, students, we saw different treatmeants.
After five days we came back to New Delhi. From there we went with organized trips to Jaipur and Agra. We saw really amazing places, monuments and temples like: Amber Fort, Jantar Mantar, Hawa Mahal, Jal Mahal, a lot of temples, and the famous Taj Mahal. We stayed 2 more days in Delhi where we went for shopping and we visited with Jatin some other important places like a big Sikh temple, Qutub-Minar and the Delhi metro.
Next week we went in Bhopal, to People’s Dental College where Chandresh Shukla, president of DSWAI, Naveen Dubey and the principle DR. Gupta took care of us. We spent our days in the campus, in a guest house, we attended clases. In evenings we visited Bhopal (the great lakes, the 5th biggest Mall in Asia) and the sourrandings (Bhojeshwar Temple, a 1000 old temple, Sanchi, a Buddhist temple).
People’s Dental College has a very big campus, with hostels for students and teachers, the dean, Dr. Gupta has his own home in the campus too. Here we attended clases in Prosthetics, Conservative, Buco-Maxilo-Surgery (we saw a restoration of a fractured Mandibula) and Orthodontics.
In conclusion, India is a very interesting country with a lot of contrasting parts and beautifull places. Everything you see/make/taste in India is different than in European culture. What we liked most in India are the people we met because they took good care of us, they are really special persons and we are missing them.
Ioana CANCESCU
Cristina DOBRE
3rd year students