Mohit Kothari (30) is a PhD student at the Department of Dentistry, Aarhus University. Coming from India living and doing research in Denmark has been new and very different experience.

What brought you to Aarhus University?

For me the main thing was the research group. When I was studying in Singapore I found out reading scientific papers that Aarhus University had a research group that was dedicated to the exactly same subject that I was studying.

Was is that subject?

My PhD project is called Cortical plasticity in tongue motor cortex induced by tongue training. What I am doing is that I am looking a kind of tongue training for patients who have difficulty in speaking and swallowing. In the world 50 percent of stroke patients and 80 percent of all patients with Parkinson’s Disease have these kind of difficulties.

What brought you to this field of research?

That’s a good question. As a dentist discovering the connections between the brain and the oral cavity was fascinating. It is fairly large interdisciplinary research field with dentists, speak language pathologists, neurologists etc. and I find that interesting. Research is always a puzzle. If you have a brick in your left hand you cannot be sure it will fit the brick in your right hand. That is why you need lots of small puzzles to get the whole complete picture.

What characterizes a Danish PhD education?

The first thing that strikes is the open and relaxed atmosphere between students and professors. I come from Asia where the system is very hierarcal: The student is at the bottom and the professor at the top and he is always right. You get to believe in yourself and I’m sure it brings better research in the end that you have an open mind and an open culture.

How would you describe the Danes?

Well, a pineapple comes to my mine. Danes are hard from the outside. They will not talk to you or recognize you. But it is only the first layer. I have to break the ice or the shell. Then they are really soft inside like a pineapple.

And how do you break the ice?

Go and bring a beer. When the beer goes inside the Danes become completely different… No really you have to take the initiative yourself. The Danes are not arrogant. They just don’t know how to express themselves at the first meeting.

What has been your most challenging experience?

That you have to do everything by yourself in Denmark. The background I come from you don’t do any work. You have a sovereign for everything. There is always someone to tell you what to do or you tell someone what to do. Before I came to Denmark I had never cooked food in my entire life and I had never been to the grocery, washed or cleaned the house. In India you get lazy and relaxed but here you always have things to do.

What are you doing in ten years?

At this moment when is finish my PhD I only have one job and that is to change the diaper of my child (laughing). No, really I’m not thinking 10 years ahead. I’m at a cross raod on what to do next. I would like to stay in Denmark as a researcher but I don’t know if that is possible.