I'm a biology major at a top 40 university (USA) with a liberal arts curriculum. I entered school without any clue about what I wanted to do with my life and, long story short, that theme has pretty much painted my entire experience here. I'm now a second semester senior and I'm considering my options. Dentistry appeals to me because of the direct, meaningful impact, quality of life, hands-on work, etc.
The problem is, because of lack of commitment, motivation, confidence, etc., I've ended up with a very unfocused and sparse biology course history to my name, pretty much no relevant extracurricular/social/practical experience, and little close interaction with professors (I volunteered at a pathology lab two summers ago, have done some volunteering in animal care/wildlife survey, and completed an environmental science internship last summer).
My cGPA is 3.75/sGPA is 3.76, but I took credit underloads, have done mediocre-ly (maybe 3.5 average) in dental prereqs, and have mostly inefficiently crammed up until this last semester during which I'm taking 17 decently heavy credits (immunology w/ lab, genetic analysis, gen chem II w/ lab, biochemistry, and a senior seminar in ecology). I'd like to think my motivation has increased as I've improved my study methods and I'm doing pretty well in everything but gen chem. I'll probably get a 3.4-3.8 semester GPA.
Upon graduation, I know I would need to eventually take the DAT (I'm generally pretty above average at standardized testing/measures of perception and spatial reasoning), get ~100 hours of shadowing experience, as well as take both semesters of physics, which I unfortunately was unable to accommodate in my schedule with my last-minute academic gear shift. I imagine volunteering in a lab would be helpful as well, but I think it would be more important to work on self-development in other ways such as through volunteering for grade school tutoring, leadership positions, general work (probably dental) experience, or potentially taking microbiology as its a pretty fundamental/relevant subject that I also wasn't able to fit in. I'm not too opposed to working as a dental assistant/tech/hygienist for a few years, but I don't want to cross working in a lab (small lab research assistant or MLS maybe) off the list yet either.
LORs also present another issue for me, in that I only have 2 professors that I might be able squeeze bland letters of recommendation from in the event that I want to shoot for the dental route as soon as possible. I also wouldn't want to ask for immediately as I still lack shadowing/volunteering experience that I could offer them as source material for the LORs. I was thinking that I could talk to them soon and float the idea of writing LORs for me after a gap year, but this idea goes down the drain if I end up deciding to work for a few years before applying.
What kind of direction would you guys recommend for someone like me?
*Sorry for the gigantic, scatter-brained mess of a wall-of-text*
The problem is, because of lack of commitment, motivation, confidence, etc., I've ended up with a very unfocused and sparse biology course history to my name, pretty much no relevant extracurricular/social/practical experience, and little close interaction with professors (I volunteered at a pathology lab two summers ago, have done some volunteering in animal care/wildlife survey, and completed an environmental science internship last summer).
My cGPA is 3.75/sGPA is 3.76, but I took credit underloads, have done mediocre-ly (maybe 3.5 average) in dental prereqs, and have mostly inefficiently crammed up until this last semester during which I'm taking 17 decently heavy credits (immunology w/ lab, genetic analysis, gen chem II w/ lab, biochemistry, and a senior seminar in ecology). I'd like to think my motivation has increased as I've improved my study methods and I'm doing pretty well in everything but gen chem. I'll probably get a 3.4-3.8 semester GPA.
Upon graduation, I know I would need to eventually take the DAT (I'm generally pretty above average at standardized testing/measures of perception and spatial reasoning), get ~100 hours of shadowing experience, as well as take both semesters of physics, which I unfortunately was unable to accommodate in my schedule with my last-minute academic gear shift. I imagine volunteering in a lab would be helpful as well, but I think it would be more important to work on self-development in other ways such as through volunteering for grade school tutoring, leadership positions, general work (probably dental) experience, or potentially taking microbiology as its a pretty fundamental/relevant subject that I also wasn't able to fit in. I'm not too opposed to working as a dental assistant/tech/hygienist for a few years, but I don't want to cross working in a lab (small lab research assistant or MLS maybe) off the list yet either.
LORs also present another issue for me, in that I only have 2 professors that I might be able squeeze bland letters of recommendation from in the event that I want to shoot for the dental route as soon as possible. I also wouldn't want to ask for immediately as I still lack shadowing/volunteering experience that I could offer them as source material for the LORs. I was thinking that I could talk to them soon and float the idea of writing LORs for me after a gap year, but this idea goes down the drain if I end up deciding to work for a few years before applying.
What kind of direction would you guys recommend for someone like me?
*Sorry for the gigantic, scatter-brained mess of a wall-of-text*
