Did you ever have second thoughts about all this?

[Emny]

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[7 Iron]

It's natural to get in a rut every now and then. It's the ebb and flow of life. I felt that way sometimes--frustrated that it took me more time to figure out what I wanted to do in life, while all my friends seemed to know from day one.

In whatever field you end up going into, you will always have to learn things that you don't want to. Some things seem pointless. You'll just have to grin and bear it. From what I've heard, dental school actually IS a lot of studying and most of that stuff we will not actively use in the clinic.

I think you might need to finish up undergrad, then take some time off to figure out your next steps. I couldn't help but look at some of your other posts and it looks like you were considering pharmacy as well. I wouldn't apply to a professional program unless you're quite sure. You would probably benefit from a break from school. My brother did this and it did him a world of good. In fact you might not even go back for more school beyond your bachelor's and that's OK. Even though you are good at school (only received two B's and you're a senior??) it does not seem like an advanced degree would be fulfilling to you.

 

[longhornpride]

no offense, but suck it up. no one likes studying. if you want to go out there in this workforce with a just bachelors or no bachelors (if you quit), then go for... i'm sure there are plenty of pre-dents that will show you the door. But remember, good things come with hard work and some hardships along the way. Good luck.

 

[Blobfish]

I wasted two years of my life being lazy before starting my undergrad, then worked for two years after my undergrad before entering dental school. There is nothing wrong with taking a little more time to start a professional school. Dental school required a lot of studying and you need to be mentally prepared for it. Take org chem, study for the DAT, and take it when you feel prepared. If you set your mind to something you will achieve you goal.
From what I experienced and knowing what other people have experienced prior to entering dental school, I say go at your own pace and don't listen to others. For example, my brother took more time than I did to enter dental school. Some of our family members told him that he was wasting his time and should do something else with his life. If he had listened to them he would probably have ended up with some dead end job that he hates.
If you want to go to dental school and others persuade you not to go then you will spend the rest of your life thinking, "what if".
Keep to your goal and you will get in.
good luck

 

[tingting]

There is a lot of useless info in dental school, and you have to learn more of it. With your current attitude I can nearly promise you won't like it because you sound a lot like my friends and I. You can get through it if you want, I'm just saying it won't be pleasant. Fortunately after dental school you can ignore most the BS, and its a decent job. But if you're not feeling stoked about dentistry, I would explore some other career paths first. Don't get seduced by the money in dentistry, it's overrated.

 

[newyorkblork]

I feel where you're coming from; I've felt tormented by the vast boringness of school since middle school, and yet for some ungodly reason, I keep coming back for more. Heck, I'm even considering Oral Surgery now, which would be 4-6 more years of educational institutions. Masochism perhaps?

Let me be honest: the first year of dental school is Speed Trivia. You will be asked to memorize things that seem to have no bearing on anything, at a rate beyond any you have encountered before. Your mental energy will be daily and continually expended upon the memorization of things that other people say is important. You will never know why. It will be, at times, exhausting, annoying, and irritating beyond belief. This is why you should, if you get into dental school, read the various "It's a marathon, make friends and learn to de-stress" posts on this forum.

I will say this point blank: if you walk into dental school thinking that every class will be about building on your knowledge as a practitioner, you are going to be horribly disappointed. You will continue to face exams that feel like trivia. You will be asked to look at microscope slides, identify the kind of cell that was dyed purple, say how it was dyed purple, then suggest how you would get it to be red instead. It will be painful.

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In terms of healthcare as a profession, I think that Dentistry and the Healthcare field in general lead to jobs with a high level of "Objective" value, which, if I can venture a guess, may be part of what led you here in the first place: a pursuit of Value in a life that has felt relatively aimless. Dentistry might be taxing physically and mentally, but (I think) it's rare that a Dentist goes home and says, "I did absolutely nothing that helped anybody today; I have the most pointless job in the world".

So what is my extremely long-winded point?

That dental school continues to suck just as much balls as college and high school did, and this time, it will also cost you a ton of money. It is normal and healthy to question your direction and to occasionally feel like you're wasting time, because it should lead you towards the question, "What can I change to make me feel like I'm not wasting time?" Many of us who are in dental school right now deal with this feeling, especially as our friends nestled in comfy corporate jobs make money and move along with their life plans. If you hate school, you will hate many aspects of dental school: but knowing that you are finally on the way to a tangible end goal will help you. This is assuming you know what that end goal of being a dentist is actually like.

I believe Healthcare Professions, and Dentistry in particular, do reward those individuals who place a high value on Intrinsics - helping others in a hands-on fashion, having a high degree of professional autonomy and identity, owning your own practice. You can teach, you can go on outreaches, you can travel the country giving seminars on why your practice is awesome and how other dentists are doing it wrong. Basically, you can be a helpful and positive force in the world in a lot of different and interesting ways, and on top of that, being a dentist will, as long as your decisions are smart, make you a securely comfortable living. You can't say that about that many fields, and that is what keeps me studying for classes, even on weeks (and they are common, believe me) where I feel like tearing out my hair, beating my chest, and throwing chairs out of windows, screaming, "Why would you EVER ask ANYONE to memorize that?! I bet you don't even have it memorized yourself, RAHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHH".

[I also cook, game, write, read, and work out, as ways to make my life feel like it has intrinsic value in and of itself, reminding myself that I am not just "a dental student", but many other things as well. Writer of Overly Loquacious Forum Posts is a title I maintain because I think it's fun to read and write about these sorts of things]

Keep in mind that anywhere you go, you will have to "collect Extrinsics", and it will suck. So you need to spend the time getting those "shadowing gigs", and figure out what job offers the Intrinsics that are worth it for you. No (secure) job is going to be an absolutely perfect match; every job has an amount of BS, so you have to try your best to see if the Intrinsics are going to be worth the Extrinsics slog.

This, by the way, is what people usually mean when they say, "Find something you enjoy, don't worry about the money" - it's not literal, it means "Focus on the intrinsic rewards of potential jobs, weigh them against the costs, and determine whether you come out on top". It doesn't mean "I really like lying on the beach, maybe someone will pay me for that" (unless you're built like a model, in which case, get on that). If it helps, though, I have read many forum posts by dentists and surgeons who say they would continue to work even if their financial futures were secured, including several dentists who came back from retirement because they got bored. So chalk another point up to Medicine.

If you've "considered many careers", and it feels like you don't like doing anything, then, and I mean this in all seriousness, stop thinking so much. Go out and actually shadow people.

At the very least, you can start with a one item list:

Dentistry
[ ] Love it
[ ] Makes Me Want to Kill Myself

And hopefully your list will grow from there, along with reasons why you love it or why it makes you want to kill yourself, and you will figure something out. There are also a number of resources, including books like What Color is Your Parachute? and career counselors, that can help you analyze your strengths and weaknesses as a human being and point you in the right direction.

 

[yangwang]

no offense, but suck it up. no one likes studying. if you want to go out there in this workforce with a just bachelors or no bachelors (if you quit), then go for... i'm sure there are plenty of pre-dents that will show you the door. But remember, good things come with hard work and some hardships along the way. Good luck.

Really, SUCK IT UP, if you are struggling in undergrad and hating school, dental school will be no different, in fact, dental school is a lot worst. you will learn a semester worth of material in 2 weeks of dental school. And the studying never ends, you will have exams, competencies and lab work. Even on weekends you have to go in to do work. It's not easy at all! and you will learn a lot of garbage you will never use, but it's just another hoop you have to jump through. If you don't want to do it, others are more willing to.

 

[TeethVader]

no offense, but suck it up. no one likes studying. if you want to go out there in this workforce with a just bachelors or no bachelors (if you quit), then go for... i'm sure there are plenty of pre-dents that will show you the door. But remember, good things come with hard work and some hardships along the way. Good luck.

Totally agre. Look, it took me tears, frustration, suicidal thoughts, but you know what? I simply got off the canvas and kept fighting. You have to do some serious soul searching before you apply for d-schoo and when the going gets tough, suck it up, accept it, and always remember that tomorrow can be a better day.

 

[DrArete]

I should be asleep, as I have classes in several hours, but I find myself tossing and turning again. It usually happens when I start reflecting and thinking about where my life is headed. Anyway, I'm trying to figure out if I'm just burnt out from school, or if I need to start looking down another path in life, and I wanted to ask around if any of you have ever had the same feelings before or during dental school. If everything had gone according to plan from high school, I would've been graduating from a professional school this semester, but **** happens, and what can you do right? I feel old and like I've wasted four years of my life already, that I'm so behind.

This is going to be my last semester before I graduate with my Bachelors, but I've pretty much been sick of school and hated going to school for the past couple years or so. I think this is partly due to the fact that it feels like I'm never going to be using any of this information that I'm learning. I mean, if I'm a physician, will I need to know the velocity and trajectory of blood spurting out of a patient on the operating table? Am I ever going to have to tell someone that I think they're sick, because their Acetyl-CoA is jacked up? Or like, "Doc, my tooth hurts," "Oh, you know, if we just take the derivative of your marriage and multiply it by the extinction coefficient, it will all be better."

I feel like I'm learning so much useless information, and in the event that I do get into dental school, I hope it doesn't feel the same way. I have taken some interesting classes before, maybe something like philosophy, where there isn't a right or wrong answer, and that class fostered a lot of interesting discussions, but that's about it. Am I in the minority here? My girlfriend wonders sometimes about why I want to get into four more years of graduate school when I hate school and studying so much. I'll find any excuse to not do homework, even cleaning my room or some other menial task. Usually it's just surfing around on YouTube wasting time though.

Just recently this hatred towards school has trickled into my studying habits as well, I reckon, and I think it just compounds my procrastination. Last semester, I got my first two B's ever, one in OChem, and the other in evolution. I just didn't care anymore it seems, and now I'm banging my head against trying to do my school work for OChem 2 and Physics 2. Hell, I might not even graduate if I don't pass those two classes, but I'm sure I could swing by a C at the least. I get all this, "But you're so good at school, how can you hate it so much?" too, but I don't know what the deal is either. Doing well in school and getting A's doesn't really make me happy either. It's like, meh, just another A, whatever.

Maybe I just haven't finished going through my quarter-life crisis yet, but I've been feeling pretty blah about everything lately. Maybe this isn't what I'm cut out for, but I don't know what else to do, really. One aspect of dentistry that appeals to me is the financial stability and freedom it offers, having good wages, being able to be your own boss, etc. The other one is in helping people, I liked that I could be able to help people, and that always makes me feel better about myself. Seemed like a profession in the health care field would be a win-win situation for me, anyways. Although, I must say it seems like a very daunting field, I went to a dental simulation clinic at a local school, and using the handpiece trying to do mock fillings was hard as balls, maybe also because I'm left handed.

People tell me to do what I enjoy, find something you enjoy, don't worry about the money, but to be honest, I'd rather not do anything. Maybe that's just because I'm lazy, but I don't know many people that would want to work if they didn't have to. If I didn't have to worry about money and all that, I just wouldn't work. I wouldn't mind lounging around all day on the beach or something, spending time with the people I care about. I've considered many different career paths, but nothing really strikes me. The only thing I've ever really enjoyed was when I working with kids, helping tutor them and being a classroom aide. But that was just my volunteer time, and I want to have a family one day, so that probably also skews things. I don't think I would want to be a teacher, even though my teachers have told me I should be one.

Another reason I think I'm having second thoughts is something else my girlfriend told me about my procrastination. See, I should've gotten a gig doing some job shadowing or volunteering since last Fall, but I still haven't gotten on the ball for that up until now even. I was planning on taking the DAT this summer and applying this cycle, but I've foregone that with the excuse that I still haven't taken OChem 2 yet, and I want to take that core class before taking the test. I suppose I could have self-studied OChem 2 after Spring semester and bit the bullet, but I don't know. So I guess I'm going to graduate, then study for the DAT, take the test, apply next cycle, and find a job in the meantime to pay back some student loans for undergrad. She tells me if I really wanted to become a dentist, I probably would've already gotten on the ball sooner and finished applying for this cycle. I'm starting to think that maybe that's what I'm trying to tell myself subconsciously. I don't know anymore.

Any thoughts or comments or advice? Do any of you have similar experiences or stories to share?

[YOUTUBE]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=AjZJqh4IX7w[/YOUTUBE]

 

[superspike]

I should be asleep, as I have classes in several hours, but I find myself tossing and turning again. It usually happens when I start reflecting and thinking about where my life is headed. Anyway, I'm trying to figure out if I'm just burnt out from school, or if I need to start looking down another path in life, and I wanted to ask around if any of you have ever had the same feelings before or during dental school. If everything had gone according to plan from high school, I would've been graduating from a professional school this semester, but **** happens, and what can you do right? I feel old and like I've wasted four years of my life already, that I'm so behind.

This is going to be my last semester before I graduate with my Bachelors, but I've pretty much been sick of school and hated going to school for the past couple years or so. I think this is partly due to the fact that it feels like I'm never going to be using any of this information that I'm learning. I mean, if I'm a physician, will I need to know the velocity and trajectory of blood spurting out of a patient on the operating table? Am I ever going to have to tell someone that I think they're sick, because their Acetyl-CoA is jacked up? Or like, "Doc, my tooth hurts," "Oh, you know, if we just take the derivative of your marriage and multiply it by the extinction coefficient, it will all be better."

I feel like I'm learning so much useless information, and in the event that I do get into dental school, I hope it doesn't feel the same way. I have taken some interesting classes before, maybe something like philosophy, where there isn't a right or wrong answer, and that class fostered a lot of interesting discussions, but that's about it. Am I in the minority here? My girlfriend wonders sometimes about why I want to get into four more years of graduate school when I hate school and studying so much. I'll find any excuse to not do homework, even cleaning my room or some other menial task. Usually it's just surfing around on YouTube wasting time though.

Just recently this hatred towards school has trickled into my studying habits as well, I reckon, and I think it just compounds my procrastination. Last semester, I got my first two B's ever, one in OChem, and the other in evolution. I just didn't care anymore it seems, and now I'm banging my head against trying to do my school work for OChem 2 and Physics 2. Hell, I might not even graduate if I don't pass those two classes, but I'm sure I could swing by a C at the least. I get all this, "But you're so good at school, how can you hate it so much?" too, but I don't know what the deal is either. Doing well in school and getting A's doesn't really make me happy either. It's like, meh, just another A, whatever.

Maybe I just haven't finished going through my quarter-life crisis yet, but I've been feeling pretty blah about everything lately. Maybe this isn't what I'm cut out for, but I don't know what else to do, really. One aspect of dentistry that appeals to me is the financial stability and freedom it offers, having good wages, being able to be your own boss, etc. The other one is in helping people, I liked that I could be able to help people, and that always makes me feel better about myself. Seemed like a profession in the health care field would be a win-win situation for me, anyways. Although, I must say it seems like a very daunting field, I went to a dental simulation clinic at a local school, and using the handpiece trying to do mock fillings was hard as balls, maybe also because I'm left handed.

People tell me to do what I enjoy, find something you enjoy, don't worry about the money, but to be honest, I'd rather not do anything. Maybe that's just because I'm lazy, but I don't know many people that would want to work if they didn't have to. If I didn't have to worry about money and all that, I just wouldn't work. I wouldn't mind lounging around all day on the beach or something, spending time with the people I care about. I've considered many different career paths, but nothing really strikes me. The only thing I've ever really enjoyed was when I working with kids, helping tutor them and being a classroom aide. But that was just my volunteer time, and I want to have a family one day, so that probably also skews things. I don't think I would want to be a teacher, even though my teachers have told me I should be one.

Another reason I think I'm having second thoughts is something else my girlfriend told me about my procrastination. See, I should've gotten a gig doing some job shadowing or volunteering since last Fall, but I still haven't gotten on the ball for that up until now even. I was planning on taking the DAT this summer and applying this cycle, but I've foregone that with the excuse that I still haven't taken OChem 2 yet, and I want to take that core class before taking the test. I suppose I could have self-studied OChem 2 after Spring semester and bit the bullet, but I don't know. So I guess I'm going to graduate, then study for the DAT, take the test, apply next cycle, and find a job in the meantime to pay back some student loans for undergrad. She tells me if I really wanted to become a dentist, I probably would've already gotten on the ball sooner and finished applying for this cycle. I'm starting to think that maybe that's what I'm trying to tell myself subconsciously. I don't know anymore.

Any thoughts or comments or advice? Do any of you have similar experiences or stories to share?

I feel you there. It's not easy deciding on a career when you have not really had much real life experience. I was in your exact position and what I did was just focus on graduating early and get out so I could spend more time researching what I like and where I have potential. I graduated from UCLA a few months after I turned 21 and moved back home to begin. Of course being a burnt out college student, I just relaxed and did little things here and there and did things I never got to in college (learn the stock market and investing, get an M1 license, learn to skimboard, etc).

But I also looked at many websites, did a lot of research, and shadowed different positions. I got into dental school, but deferred my admission for a year because I got a great job as a small business consultant at a wealth management company. One place I would check out is studentmentor.org, some people on there are very helpful. But do your research, and just know you don't need the highest degree to succeed and do what you want in life.