Career Essay: The Journey To Becoming A Dentistry

The sensation that I get when I get to help people is one of the best feelings I’ve ever experienced. It’s like having an unlimited amount of bliss to warm your heart because you know that you have helped someone smile or have a better day. I think my career choice has been greatly affected by my parents’ line of work and how they were able to balance their life well. It seemed like they had so much time in their hands even though they were working do hard to provide for our family. The amount of effort they put into their education and their work seems really worth it in the end. I personally think that the journey to becoming a dentist is a long and challenging road and that leads to different paths in dentistry. According to Dr. Chaviano,

Based on my parents, I think that a typical day of a dentist that practices general dentistry, some orthodontics, and surgery varies. Sometimes, patients are scheduled back-to-back from 9 am until 5 pm, but there are times when there are only 2 or 3 patients a day. There are days that they only had 1 patient, but it was a big case like putting implants. I think dentists have the luxury of making their own timetable and organizing how they want to go about their week. I think I’d definitely love the ability to have certain days when I could just do my hobbies. I want to be able to have time in my hands. However, there are definitely some setbacks, like having to go through more years in school than the typical bachelor graduate, though it may be a small setback, some still think that the additional years and loans to become a dentist is not worth it. On the brighter side, the typical pay of a private general practitioner in 2013 was $180,950 and $283,900 for specialists, according to the American Dental Association (par. 1). It’s definitely a career that has a good compensation for all the hard work. Lastly, a dentist is well respected in the community because they help in the improvement of the lives of the people around them. I would definitely want to be an aid in the enhancement of peoples’ lives; to help them have healthier and stronger teeth

In order to become a competitive applicant, I must make sure that all prerequisite courses have been taken and that my GPA has an increasing or steady trend through the four years. Moreover, I must be able to have some shadowing and volunteer experience in the field of dentistry to show that I am truly passionate about it and that I want to involve myself in that career. I think that this will be the most difficult aspect to complete since there are less people who allow students to shadow. There are summer programs like the Summer Medical and Dental Educational Program (SMDEP), which provides students first-hand experience with handling cases on oral health. Additionally, the American Dental Education Association provides an annual Go Dental Workshop and Recruitment Fair which “offers students interested in dentistry the chance to meet dental school admissions officers from over 40 U.S. dental schools and attend interactive presentations that will help them be successful applicants” (Amer. Dental Educ. Assn. par.1). I think that Rutgers University offers several resources to their students, like the Health Professions Office, Career Center, and so on, and I can use these facilities to my advantage to aid me in applying for dental school. Overall, getting into Dental School and finishing it takes up so much effort and time and I must be prepared to work really hard if I want to