I'm sure this varies depending on the school, but I was wondering how much free time dental students get, and whether or not they have time to hang out with their friends or maintain relationships, visit family back home, go for a night out. It would suck to spend my prime years studying, eating, classes, sleeping and repeat, every day for 4 years. Just curious.
It's much more difficult and sucky after your 'prime' years. I had classmates in their 40s who I genuinely felt bad for.
I'll fully admit I sometimes hate that I am still in school (I am fairly young though, started residency at 24) while many of my HS classmates have now been working for years and some have bought houses and established their lives.
However, I kinda think about it like front loading the work in your life. I could have taken my UG degree and earned 50k/year at some job and slowly worked my way up through a corporation over 3 decades like many people do.
But I put in the initial for me (7yr with dschool+residency) which absolutely are very challenging and can suck (but there are definitely lots of good times too), with a likely expected income of at least 250k, and potentially double or more of that with the possibility of being in the top percentile of income on the planet earth. Importantly, you can also do something more meaningful and be your own boss which are two of my personal main goals in the future.
I did find that in my area and experience, people generally just respect you more when you are a doc. Which I appreciate as well.
BL: things will suck for 4 years. But you can still have some solid experiences, you definitely can visit home, friends, relationships, but less so than before d school for sure. sacrifices will have to be made.
as the other poster said, D4 was the best year ever for me, barely did anything except my residency interviews etc. really enjoyed it
