Difficulty of dental school

[mx41]

---

Members don't see this ad.

Hello

I have heard a lot about the difficulty of dental school, but can anybody (smart and average) make it through by studying hard - or is it only geared for the gifted people? What did you do at times where you could not understand a concept and felt that the class was moving too quickly?

Thanks for replies

 

[1992Corolla]

I'm an average bear. I work hard. that is the key to success. Some people study 6 hours for a test, some 1 hour.

WORK, WORK, and some more WORK! Dedication and steadfastness work too.

 

[Daurang]

If you're an engineering student, you will have it easy in dental school. If you're a business or undeclared major, you will have a rough time.

 

[Holy Thursday]

DS for brilliant ppl?! OMG, LOL, LMAO!

You just need to be a hard worker, know how to manage your time, know how to relax/not worry too much.

Man, there were so many idiots in my class, but they were hard workers. That is how you get through ds.

 

[INFNITE]

the key is to not fall behind. There are so many things going on in dental school that if you fall behind on something, it's very difficult to catch up. Don't even think about cramming, because it's not possible for classes like anatomy. The things they teach at dental school isn't hard....they just teach you ALOT. If you do not understand anything though, just ask your classmates.

 

[SuperC]

Fall behind, go to Vegas, go to every single home game, don't forget the SEC championship, party hard, cram a bunch you will make it just fine. What would life be with out a good challenge right?
-C

 

[12YearOldKid]

Hello

What did you do at times where you could not understand a concept and felt that the class was moving too quickly?

I have to second what others are saying. Dental school isn't hard because of the difficult material. You won't see anything more mentally taxing than you saw in college. It's just that there is soooo much of it.

If college were as jam-packed as dental school you could get a bachelor's degree in about 3 semesters. Seriously.

But work hard and you will be fine.

 

[bpenly]

If you're an engineering student, you will have it easy in dental school. If you're a business or undeclared major, you will have a rough time.

Wrong.

 

[INFNITE]

you can't really compare dental school to engineering. They are completely different. For engineering, if you're a brilliant thinker who's good at math, you'll have a relatively easy time. If this person goes to dental school however, being a brilliant math person does jack. Dental school is all about memorizing this, memorizing that, and retaining knowledge from a million different classes. The thing about engineering is that there aren't many things you need to memorize (in fact, many of my engineering classes in undergrad allowed you to bring a "cheat sheet" to exams) but the application of basic concepts require you to integrate basic ideas in complicated situations. Material taught at dental school is much more straight forward. It really all depends on what kind of classes you prefer.

 

[1992Corolla]

since when do engineers study the krebs cycle or the pentose phosphate pathway in great detail?

Just because you are math minded and can tell everyone the dynamics of a bridge design does not mean you can memorize 10,000 anatomical terms and define the purpose of each one.😀

Blanket statements on SDN should be taken lightly.

 

[ShakaZulu]

the key is to not fall behind. There are so many things going on in dental school that if you fall behind on something, it's very difficult to catch up. Don't even think about cramming, because it's not possible for classes like anatomy. The things they teach at dental school isn't hard....they just teach you ALOT. If you do not understand anything though, just ask your classmates.

Please take this advice to heart. I learned the hard way. 😀 😀

 

[fightingspirit]

IMHO:

Average intelligence+average work+average hands=average student
Average intelligence+hard work+above average hands=above average student (top 15-20% of class)
Average intelligence+hard work+gifted hands=top 10% of class
Average intelligence+slightly harder work+gifted hands=top 5 students
Above average intelligence+crazy hard work+not gifted hands=lucky to be in top 30% of class.

Above average intelligence=makes a small difference.
Above average hand skills=makes a huuuuuuuuuuuuge difference

If you wanna be in a profession that requires intellectual gift, do genetic engineering, physics, mechanical or biomedical engineering or aeronautics.

 

[TiggerJSA]

IMHO:

Average intelligence+average work+average hands=average student
Average intelligence+hard work+above average hands=above average student (top 15-20% of class)
Average intelligence+hard work+gifted hands=top 10% of class
Average intelligence+slightly harder work+gifted hands=top 5 students
Above average intelligence+crazy hard work+not gifted hands=lucky to be in top 30% of class.

Above average intelligence=makes a small difference.
Above average hand skills=makes a huuuuuuuuuuuuge difference

If you wanna be in a profession that requires intellectual gift, do genetic engineering, physics, mechanical or biomedical engineering or aeronautics.

About this hand skills thing... I believe that some people are just naturally gifted with hand skills and thrive accordingly... However I believe that almost anyone can acquire amazing hand skills if they put the effort in to practice. I don't believe that I just naturally had amazing hand skills, but put in incredible hours practicing in the lab during my first 2 years to become pretty good with my hands. I also wasn't the only one doing this. The students who spent after hours in the lab at night and on weekends are the students I noticed doing well in preclinical labs. Where some people may reach a plateau in how much knowledge they can retain in studying, I believe the more you practice with you manual dexterity, there is always room for improvement. Just my thoughts...

 

[Mustt Mustt]

If you're an engineering student, you will have it easy in dental school. If you're a business or undeclared major, you will have a rough time.

I completely agree with engineering part. It was rough in undergrad and sometimes frustrating to study all night and at the end can't solve that one problem in the exam, it didn't matter how much you studied sometimes. dental is school is easier than undergrad in my opinion, may be little bit more time consuming but definitely easier so far.

 

[INFNITE]

I completely agree with engineering part. It was rough in undergrad and sometimes frustrating to study all night and at the end can't solve that one problem in the exam, it didn't matter how much you studied sometimes. dental is school is easier than undergrad in my opinion, may be little bit more time consuming but definitely easier so far.

once again, this is comparing apples to oranges. Some people may be naturally talented at math and engineering but have trouble memorizing anatomical structures. Just because you feel engineering is more difficult than dental school, it doesn't mean everybody else feels the same way.

 

[ElCubanito]

Retention of facts is very important!

If you didn't have a life before Dschool (you know who you are...) then you're gonna have it easy.

If you had a life before Dchool (parties, girls, alcohol, drugs) its gonna be hard for ya. You have to work at managing your time and being alone. By the by, D09's rock! Those people are party animals. Hope I was a D09 everyday
🙁 .

For me the hardest is to sit down for 4-5 hours everyday on top of classes and study.

 

[Daurang]

Don't take it too personally, but differential equation and material engineering (both basic first year engineering courses) are harder than any dental school class I've encountered. Ask any previous engineering student or laid-off engineer in your class. You got a problem if you think dentistry is just remembering 10,000 facts. Dental school involves a lot of critical thinking and 3dimensional skills, which is second nature in engineering and what you are taught in dental school.

 

[bpenly]

Don't take it too personally, but differential equation and material engineering (both basic first year engineering courses) are harder than any dental school class I've encountered. Ask any previous engineering student or laid-off engineer in your class. You got a problem if you think dentistry is just remembering 10,000 facts. Dental school involves a lot of critical thinking and 3dimensional skills, which is second nature in engineering and what you are taught in dental school.

True. But business majors and undeclareds may be better at these skills than engineers. It is about aptitude, not about what you have previously done.

 

[yadameen]

It is about aptitude, not about what you have previously done.[/QUOTE]

Have to disagree with you here. I believe success in dental school is mainly about discipline. The students who "failed out" in my class were the ones who just didn't study. I was an engineering student and found memorization pretty difficult. Friend I studied with first year could spit things back like a friekin robot. I had to study more, but was able to do this because I was used to spending 6 hours at a time working one design problem, staying up for 48 hours finishing a class design project. Many of my college friends whined about staying in to study for just one night. Engineering students for the most part have been MADE TO grind it out on a daily basis. So, engineers may not know squat about anatomy, but we will figure it out. You cant be an engineer if you cant "figure it out." Thats our job. Didn't say engineers would always be at the top, but from what I have seen, most will make it just fine.

 

[bpenly]

Work ethic is important and is not entirely limited to those in the engineering discipline.

 

[rocknightmare]

fightingspirit.. you are sure taking the hands thing too seriously give it time bro it will come..

 

[uvaGirL07]

If you're an engineering student, you will have it easy in dental school. If you're a business or undeclared major, you will have a rough time.

i'm a biomedical engineering major... so.... just curious... why do you say that? 😕

---- edit ----

ok i need to make it a habit to read the rest of the comments before i post something... hahaha
hmmmmmm yeah... engineers don't sleep... i agree. hahaha
many many times.... the alarm on my cell phone would ring... i'd wake up after a short nap.... i'd pick up my cell phone and be like hello???? hello???? cuz i was too freakin tired to realize that it's the alarm... hahaha i hate when that happens!!! x__X

i think i'd be much happier with my decision to enter engineering if my gpa were higher...... -_-

 

[wizziefiend]

I don't think being an engineering grad will help me that much.

Engineering trains you to think.

My science courses just teach me to be a knowledge base.

Dental school seems like it'll be a bunch of memorization.

So I'd think my biology or chemistry major classmates will have an easier time in dental school because they're usually so freaking good at regurgitation of material.

My ability to solve forces on some complex structure won't help much when I've got 300 anatomy terms to memorize.

 

[Dr. Dai Phan]

I was an aerospace engineer before I became a dentist. Here's my scoop. Engineers are trained to think and those do well in ES are the ones who can apply the principles to problem solving. Ability to memorize does nothing in this field except for some equations that you need to have in your head. Dentistry like other medical field requires you to be able to recall facts and those who can memorize will do well in DS. Those who don't will do less. Dentistry although does require you to think critically like treatment planning complicated cases but nowhere it equals in engineering discipline. Design a plane that can fly requires much more critical thinking than doing a veneer I can assure you. DP

 

[PennPB]

If you're an engineering student, you will have it easy in dental school. If you're a business or undeclared major, you will have a rough time.

That's an interesting comment. Just to keep in mind, many finance majors at the top business schools also double as electrical engineering majors for the analytical workup - finance classes at said schools such as Wharton however, are still far more analytical, critical, and more challenging. Also to mention - I found econometrics far more difficult than pchem or biochem (and many times more challening than bio courses.) Both are quite similar, with pchem holding a greater concentration on derivations, and 'metrics more mathematical.

 

[SuperC]

If you made it into dental school you are not an idot. It does not matter what major you are.

It does not matter. You guys are sitting around talking about nothing. Our class has plenty of different majors and everyone is doing just fine.

-C

 

[The_Sensei]

Hello

I have heard a lot about the difficulty of dental school, but can anybody (smart and average) make it through by studying hard - or is it only geared for the gifted people? What did you do at times where you could not understand a concept and felt that the class was moving too quickly?

Thanks for replies

Here is how to succeed in dental school:

Inhale, exhale......repeat if necessary. That's all there is to it!

 

[eleminopee]

If you made it into dental school you are not an idot.

It does not matter. You guys are sitting around talking about nothing. Our class has plenty of different majors and everyone is doing just fine.

haha, idot. that's funny.

 

[HenryH]

Just to interject a bit of help (or, at least a technique that works for me) for those of you who seem to have trouble regurgitating volumes of memorized info. What I like to do is, after reading and learning a concept, I vocally recite the concept/its application out loud. For me, this works because saying something out loud seems to cement things in my brain. For example, if I'm doing a test and a question about the concept pops up, I can easily recall myself reciting it out loud during the day, study time, etc.

 

[toothfairy85]

I have done the same thing in undergrad... seems to work most of the time.