In the first year of BDS, we were taught to make a perfect 1-inch plaster of Paris (POP) cube. Flat, clean edges. Perfect dimensions.
If it wasn’t perfect — rejected. 
Sure, maybe it helped us learn how to manipulate material…
But I still wonder: Did this tiny cube really teach us anything meaningful?
We never saw it again in clinical years.
We didn’t carve it, we didn’t mount anything on it, we just made it and moved on.
Was it a test of precision? Or just a ritual we all blindly followed?
Did this 1-inch cube really help you in any way later on? Or was it just a stressful start to dental school?
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So true. And even the heat-cure acrylic block in 2nd year prostho preclinicals. Also the cavity preparation carving on plaster blocks of molars and premolars with the help of carver in preclinical cons, never really understood these things.
Could’ve spent time in teaching about the latest innovations and digital world of dentistry!
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Was the 1-inch POP cube a lesson in precision or just our first taste of dental school’s perfection pressure?
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We never had that acrylic block thing. What was that. Could you please explain.
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We were giving moulds of maxillary and mandibular molars and premolars into which plaster was poured and then with the help of chisel/carver we were told to do class 1 & class 2 cavities on the, before typhodont in second year cons preclinical
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You should drop by a dental college sometime, it’s like a science fair meets an art studio!
From molding wax dentures to sculpting pastes, you’ll see students doing everything except pulling rabbits out of the hats!
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Oh it was indeed a funny way to waste our time.. and the preclinical tutors who rejected those cubes after measuring with scales…
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