Wanderlust

Wie war die Praktikums- / Studienplatzsuche?

Thanks to the Professor from our University, there was the possibility to join this exchange-programme in Pune, India. During an appointment with other fellow students, which were also interested, we discussed the details about this course. This exchange included that four Indian students of the partner institute, namely the Research Institute of Health Science and Management (RIHSM) visited the University of Hannover of Applied Sciences and Arts during "Summer-School", where the Indian and German students were taking part in the exchange programme, worked and learned together about the module “Clinical Trial” and prepare themselves for the course in India, too.
In the course at the RIHSM, we completed the exchange-programme by learning the basics about clinical research and a subsequent internship in one of the local hospitals, like the Noble hospital or the Galaxy hospital. After this meeting, I decided to choose this programme for my international experience.

Wie war die Zimmer-/Wohnungssuche?

Leicht Mittel Schwer

Meine Unterkunft war...

von Privat Studentenwohnheim Eigene Wohnung Wohngemeinschaft

Über die Zimmer-/Wohnungssuche und Unterkunft

The partner institute was looking for an accommodation for the overall five fellow students. Also, there was no extra effort for us finding an accommodation. After the arrival Pune, we saw the flat for the first time. There were 3 bedrooms and every bedroom had its own bathroom. We had a nice living room and a kitchen just for us. My bedroom, which I shared with a college had everything necessary. A place to work, a huge bed and space to stock your clothes. All in all, I was very surprised in a positive. Also, we had a good contact to the landlord. When something was broken, he was keen to fix the problem quickly. The area lived in was a safe and nice place also. Day and night there was a security guard, which cared for our safety. In our neighbourhood, we were the only foreigners, so it was normal that people asked us, who we were and what we were doing here, though not in an unpleasant way. Places to eat were easy to find and I got cheap and really good food and many restaurants were reachable by feet.

Welche Versicherungen hast Du vor der Reise abgeschlossen?

Kranken- und Haftpflichtversicherung
Reiseversicherung
Unfallversicherung

Wie lief es mit den Finanzen?

My finance was composed by a scholarship of 300 € per month, which I got from the Hochschule Hannover, and a one-time grant from "Go-out", which was 500€. Furthermore I got a travel allowance, which covered the costs of the flights. I had no financial problems during this time and I have to say that this was enough money for having an enjoyable time in India. Traveling costs are lower than in Germany and the scholarship is adjusted to these costs. However, due to the contract between the University Hannover and the Research Institute of Health, Science and Management we didn't have to pay much rent for the flat.

Art der Finanzierung

Stipendium
Eltern/Familie
Ersparnisse
Darlehen
BaföG

Wie waren die Lebenserhaltungskosten?

As I already described, the cost of living in Pune is very low. I decided to eat outside every day, because cooking for oneself is more expensive than eating in a ristorante. Nearby there was a takeaway, which serves good and inexpensive local food. Me and my colleague ate there nearly every day, as the average spent for a meal and cup of tea less than 100 rupees, which is around 1.30 €. Furthermore, there also was the opportunity to get international food, for example pasta, which is more expensive for the Indian standard, but not in comparison with Germany (250 - 400 rupees, which is around 2.60 - 5.20 €). The best and cheapest way to travel from A to B is to take a rickshaw. A rickshaw is a converted motorcycle, where 3 people fit in easily. For the journey from my flat to the institute, which could be compared a 15 minutes’ walk, I spent 18 rupees, which is around 23 cents. For a long distance drive, it is the best way to get an Uber or a Ola. Uber and Ola are like taxis, which you rent by an app, where you can enter the location you want to be picked up and where you want to go. There will be no long discussion about where you want to go in comparison to a rickshaw drive, as they speak English very rarely. Furthermore, the infrastructure is not as mature as in Germany. Therefore, I would suggest for example Uber or Ola for long distance drives, as they are cheap and comfortable. I spent 250 rupees for the 11 kilometre ride to the airport, which is 2,60€. The cost for the rent included electricity, water and the internet, which was around 7000 rupees per month, divided by 5 it was 1400 rupees per head, which is around 19€ per month. In one week, I spent around 300€ for traveling, which included the flight from Pune to Jaipur and the flight back from Delhi to Pune. Moreover it included seven Nights Hostels, food, train tickets and entries of touristic places also. Traveling on a low budget is definitely possible, if you don't aspect 'high class' holidays and travel in as a 'Back packer'. Another positive site to travelling like this, is that you can meet other interesting people and travel together. Overall the domestic flight was definitely the most expensive part of traveling with the expected 8.500 rupees, which is around 110€. With accommodations costing about 6.800 rupees, which is around 89€ (Hostel dorms). At least the cost of living is low, which includes train tickets, rickshaw, entry fees, food and drinks with 6.200 rupees, which is around 105€. For a sim card, I spent on time 40 rupees (52 cents) and I had to recharge it every month. I chose a package, which offered unlimited calls and 1 gigabyte per day for 357 rupees, which is 4.64€ for 28 days.

Unterkunft im Monat (ca.)

100€

Verpflegung im Monat (ca.)

150€

Freizeit im Monat (ca.)

150€

Die üblichen Formalitäten...

Bank: With a credit-card it is easy to access money at an international bank, but in some cases, you have to pay fees for the transfer to your credit institute. In my case it was around 5€ per transfer.
Mayor's office: In India, you have registrate for the period of time you live in the country and you must state the reason why. This is not the same process as in Germany. The partner institute helped us during the bureaucratic process and prepared the documents for the police. I just had to take pictures for my passport. Therefore, I cannot explain the whole process. After submitting the documents to the police, the coordinator arranged an appointment with the police office. It seemed like they wanted to know exactly who we were and what we want to do here in Pune. We had to wait in front of the police station while our coordinator explained all the basic information.
Telephone/Internet: The coordinator of the partner institute also arranged a sim-card, because there is a specific way of documentation for this process. After the submission of the documents it took 2 weeks for my sim-card to be activated. To activate the sim-card you have to dial a number, which connects you to a person, that askes you where you are and where you live. After answering all the questions, you had to shut down your mobile phone and after turning it on again, your sim-card is activated and you can recharge it in a shop.

Kurzbeschreibung zur Hochschule/Einrichtung...

The Institute had a library, a computer room, a secretary where you can go anytime you wish to. There always is somebody to help you. You can lend books for 15 days and if you want you can renewed them as well.
I had the possibility to use the institute’s computers which were available at any time in relation to the opening time of the liberty, but there is no public license for example PubMed, in case you need some articles you’re your academic research etc..
The secretary is always helpful in relation to the opening time. Which was normally (10.00 am to 17.00 pm.). Furthermore, there was always the opportunity to make some print-outs.
In the class rooms the teachers normally used Power-point presentations to presents the lectures. In the class rooms there are fans due to the warm weather.
The institute is located in nice area where you can have your lunch in different restaurants if you want.

Tätigkeiten / Inhalte / Lehrveranstaltungen deines Praktikums / Studiums /etc.

The main topic of the course was clinical research which was split in different modules.
Budgeting - The topic of this lecture was budgeting, the costs of clinical trial and drug development. After these classes, I had to write a closing exam about this topic.
ICH Guidelines - The content of this module was the presentation of the ICH Guidelines in detail. Various parts of the ICH Guidelines were presented by the students.
Regulatory affairs - This module was about the different Indian specific regulations and global regulatory of clinical trials. After these lessons I also had to write a closing multiple choice exam. Furthermore, we had to visualize a project where every person had a specific role in the clinical trial process and had to submit their documents. The aim of this project was to get an ethical approval from the fictive Ethic committee. The class was divided in three groups. One group represented the Sponsor, which had to submit the “investigator brochure” and the budgeting of the fictive clinical trial. Another group was the CRO, which had to prepare the documents for the “Informed Consent” and the protocol outline of the fictive Study. The third group was the Ethic Committee, which controlled all documents and had to discuss whether the study will be approved or not. Moreover, we had to submit a second “Informed Consent” and a protocol outline for a fictive study in groups of two.
Publication writing - in this module we learned how to write an abstract for a clinical trial, the submission of one’s self-made abstract of a clinical trial was the conclusion of this module.
Hypothesis Testing - In this lecture I had to work out different tasks about hypothesis testing by an internet calculator.
Pharmacovigilance - This Module took 2 weeks from 10.30 am - 1.00 pm and 1.30 pm - 15.30 pm, in which we learned, the different parts about Pharmacovigilance in detail and wrote a closing multiple choice exam.
Internship - Due to the cooperation I had the possibility to collect my data in Pune, India for my Bachelor-thesis. For my project, I worked out a pilot-study with various ayurvedic doctors. The RIHSM are getting in contact with these participants. During this appointment, I learned a lot about ayurvedic medicine and had the opportunity to see some ayurvedic treatments and I also had the possibility to look into an ayurvedic hospital its different stations.

Wie war der Kontakt zu Kommilitonen/Arbeitskollegen/Einheimischen?

The contact between the colleagues was good, because we knew each other since the course during the summer 2017 in Hannover. The course in India consisted of the four Indian students and the five German students, so there was a private atmosphere. To the coordinator and the professor, we also had good contact. We had a WhatsApp group, where we all connected to each other. In this WhatsApp group we discussed problems and other organisation parts, because we didn’t have a time table for the whole time so in this way we were informed about next weeks. The locals were also very friendly and helpful, for example when I had any problems explaining the rikshaw driver to which location he should drive me. The locals didn’t wait for one second to help me explaining the drivers where I had to go in their native language.

Was hast Du in deiner Freizeit gemacht?

Before the journey already I decided to try yoga, so through a contact of my colleagues I had the opportunity to learn yoga from a homeopathic doctor in an individual way. So, I spend two days a week with yoga. Furthermore, I had the possibility to join my colleagues from university for hiking in a national park. However, it was difficult to travel for one day, because India is a great country, so you had to handle very long distance and during the first weeks I had lectures from Monday to Saturday. On the Dewali holiday (Important celebration for India) It was not a problem to extend the holidays and manage to give us some more time for travelling a bit longer. During this time, I made a big journey with my colleague to North India, to travel around the “Indian triangle”. Furthermore it should be mentioned that we visited India during festival time so we joined other colleagues to celebrate their festivals, where we danced to loud Indian music.

Fazit und besondere Erlebnisse

At first, I must say that it was the first time the exchange programme took place and I think this could by the reason that in some cases the organisation was not so clear.
Maybe it would be better for a student in the fourth semester, because in the lectures, there was a big part, which we already covered and a student in an earlier semester would have the chance to learn more new topics and furthermore the student has not the dual burden of the Bachelor thesis. My individual resume is, that I learned to manage life in a more relaxed way than I did before and didn’t stress me because of trivial things. The lifestyle of Indian people is in some cases so peaceful and helpful, which has inspired me to do it in the same way in Germany. But I am also happy about the rules and the “easy” life that we have in Germany. When you had to see homeless children begging for food and money we can by grateful to have not this kind of problems in Germany. One of my favourite experiences in Pune was the Ganesha festival, which is one of the most important festivals for the people in Pune. Big Ganesha statues where carried through the whole city. Around this parade the people danced and played music. This was very impressive. Another unforgettable moment was the visit of the Taj Mahal in Agra. I never expected that one building would fascinate me that much.

Wie klappte es mit der Anerkennung der Leistungen für das Studium an der HsH?

In the contract between the RIHSM and University Hannover the conditions about the credit points that we need to complete instead of an internship in Germany were fixed. Regarding the credit points I had to write the exams, some submissions I already described and a practical part. For this I got a certificate, which was the evidence that we got the credits from the partner institute.

Wie wirkt sich dein Aufenthalt auf den weiteren Werdegang und die Pläne für weitere Auslandsaufenthalte aus?

This international experience improved my English a lot. After this programme, I don't speak English like my native language, but I am not that afraid to speak English spontaneously anymore. Furthermore, living in a different country and culture make you mentally stronger and more self-confidence. For the moment, I would decide to get more into the health management area instead of the clinical trial as a further work place.