Personal Narrative: My Academic Failure In Dental Schools

Academic Failure:

One academic failure I encountered through the years was not taking my dental admission test for dental school at the time I was supposed to. Typically, students that are applying to dental school take the exam in junior year of undergrads. I however, did not take it until two years after that and I am currently applying this year instead. This mistake wasted two years for me. I could have been in dental school today if I had taken the exam at the time I was supposed to. The root cause of this mistake is distraction and lack of confidence. It is a difficult exam and the thought of failing made me afraid to take it as I constantly thought I am not good or smart enough. Being too distracted with work has also caused this mistake. Being not able to stop working completely set me back and left me with not enough time to study. I reacted to this when I saw all my friends getting into graduate school and moving on, I felt like I did not fit in anymore. I then decided at that moment to take action. I controlled my spending and cut my hours at work and took two courses at school

I lost out on a couple contracts and job offers and opportunities. Specifically, I missed out on a management position because I failed to be involved and I was not looking at the big picture about my career. The root cause of that is lack of focus and tenacity. I did not stay connected with my team manager and was missing out on opportunities I could have perfectly fit in. I lost sight of extra or alternative opportunities and was working so hard on what’s in front of me that I had almost no goal. I needed to learn how to keep my goal in check by weighing daily priorities against my goal. This does not mean that I do not care about the small scaled work, I just needed to have discipline and a perspective to adjust my course as