is dental school hard?

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DentGirl23

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hey guys, im going to be starting dental school at san antonio 2013, i was just wondering if y'all could tell me what to expect...like how hard are each of the 4 years and such..thanks!
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I am a first year right now, and it's not as hard as it might sound, but it is definitely not easy.

If you didn't do well in undergrad you can still do well in dental school. I was often in the middle third or lower half of my undergrad science classes, but i'm having no trouble staying in the top 10-20% on each test in dental school. Not because it's easier, but because it's more interesting and I am applying myself more.

difficulty wise it's about the same as undergrad, except you're taking 3 times the number of classes.
 
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Yes. Every year is hard for different reasons. I keep thinking that it is going to get better, but dammit, I think I'm just so happy to be done with the previous year that it has got to be better.

1st Year: New schedule, LOTS of classes, getting adjusted, sitting in class 4-8 hours a day SUCKS, it is really hard on your rear and neck.

2nd Year: Lots of labs AND classes, learning hand skills where 1 mm means you pass or you fail (literally- I'm not joking), more difficult classes because you haven't ever taken material like this before (perio, endo, local anesthesia, etc..), school 8-5, 5 days a week, seems like there are at LEAST 2-3 tests a week, 2-3 quizzes a week. Plus, at the end of 2nd year, you start to get introduced into clinic, you get the stress of figuring out how to work Axium, which is about as illogical and confounding as any software I have ever used, how to deal with clinic, the stress of calling patients and making mistakes in scheduling, etc.. 2nd year summer is stress over Part 1 boards, add in a month or two of intense studying.

3rd Year: The intense pressure of getting requirements completed or else you fail- seems simple enough, but you have to recruit your own patients most of the time, organize and fight for chairs with your classmates (we don't fight, but you HAVE to book early, like a couple of weeks or you might as well forget about getting a chair), learn to read people that will lie to your face (and call them out on it) deal with the absolutely ridiculous 3rd year clinic protocol, that has you asking for permission to look at a tooth, much less cut it, and finally realizing there is so much you don't know, even though you have learned more than you thought you possibly could during the past 2 years.

4th Year: ahhh, time to relax? Hell no, you have even more requirements, possibly double or triple 3rd year requirements in some areas (although admittedly clinic bureaucracy is much less intense), then you have Part 2 of the boards during the winter, then you have WREB and national licensing exams as the final "swift kick in the rear" before you can finally get the hell outta dodge. And yeah, you think, "it's just another test", but you have never taken a test that costs $3,000 with the HIGHLY undependable variable known as the dental patient AND the added knowledge that failing will require you to travel thousands of miles out of state, paying for another person, all the while you are losing LITERALLY thousands of dollars in lost income because you didn't get your license like the rest of your classmates.

So now you are scared? Well, even after knowing all of this, I am still glad I am here and I know I made the right career choice. We are privileged to be able to touch people in the most intimate of locations (the mouth), often causing, alleviating and diagnosing painful phenomena, all while making good money. The road is long, hard and VERY expensive, but it could be worth it if you stick it out. Remember- learn from all of your mistakes, don't get mad when you make them and always recall that this is a marathon, NOT a sprint! GL
 
It's just grueling...most of the classes would be cake by themselves, but when you have like 10 of them piled up, PLUS a ton of lab work that you will be perpetually behind on, PLUS rotations...it gets overwhelming to say the least! :rolleyes:
 
Yes, it is difficult. If you are not set on specializing, however, the didactic and clinical demands are manageable.
 
jay47 said:
Yes. Every year is hard for different reasons. I keep thinking that it is going to get better, but dammit, I think I'm just so happy to be done with the previous year that it has got to be better.

1st Year: New schedule, LOTS of classes, getting adjusted, sitting in class 4-8 hours a day SUCKS, it is really hard on your rear and neck.

2nd Year: Lots of labs AND classes, learning hand skills where 1 mm means you pass or you fail (literally- I'm not joking), more difficult classes because you haven't ever taken material like this before (perio, endo, local anesthesia, etc..), school 8-5, 5 days a week, seems like there are at LEAST 2-3 tests a week, 2-3 quizzes a week. Plus, at the end of 2nd year, you start to get introduced into clinic, you get the stress of figuring out how to work Axium, which is about as illogical and confounding as any software I have ever used, how to deal with clinic, the stress of calling patients and making mistakes in scheduling, etc.. 2nd year summer is stress over Part 1 boards, add in a month or two of intense studying.

3rd Year: The intense pressure of getting requirements completed or else you fail- seems simple enough, but you have to recruit your own patients most of the time, organize and fight for chairs with your classmates (we don't fight, but you HAVE to book early, like a couple of weeks or you might as well forget about getting a chair), learn to read people that will lie to your face (and call them out on it) deal with the absolutely ridiculous 3rd year clinic protocol, that has you asking for permission to look at a tooth, much less cut it, and finally realizing there is so much you don't know, even though you have learned more than you thought you possibly could during the past 2 years.

4th Year: ahhh, time to relax? Hell no, you have even more requirements, possibly double or triple 3rd year requirements in some areas (although admittedly clinic bureaucracy is much less intense), then you have Part 2 of the boards during the winter, then you have WREB and national licensing exams as the final "swift kick in the rear" before you can finally get the hell outta dodge. And yeah, you think, "it's just another test", but you have never taken a test that costs $3,000 with the HIGHLY undependable variable known as the dental patient AND the added knowledge that failing will require you to travel thousands of miles out of state, paying for another person, all the while you are losing LITERALLY thousands of dollars in lost income because you didn't get your license like the rest of your classmates.

So now you are scared? Well, even after knowing all of this, I am still glad I am here and I know I made the right career choice. We are privileged to be able to touch people in the most intimate of locations (the mouth), often causing, alleviating and diagnosing painful phenomena, all while making good money. The road is long, hard and VERY expensive, but it could be worth it if you stick it out. Remember- learn from all of your mistakes, don't get mad when you make them and always recall that this is a marathon, NOT a sprint! GL
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Very perfectly said! I'm now a D1 so I will add my input...In undergrad I struggled with wanting to test myself on everything, and then it was possible. Now, there isn't enough time to do that. It's humanly impossible to study EVERYTHING. In Med Physio, we did 6 chapters of information the other day in 50 mins. Add on that x4 and you add in a less than pleasurable experience. Add on Dental Morphology class and waxing quizzes, getting accustomed to knowing the difference in occlusal and mesial (very simple after a while, but at first you're just not used to it), and tooth ID quizzes where you get a plate with three teeth (in horrible condition) and you have to identify the #, quadrant, etc...it gets to be tricky, especially when you're under a very limited time constraint. You will be astonished at the level of detail in which you need to know each tooth. Waxing has been a big adjustment for me, so if you can try to get a practice waxing kit before school starts and learn how to "move the wax around" and which tools to use when. It will help so much when school starts. It's definitely doable, but you have never felt as overwhelmed in your life as you will about 2-3 weeks into dental school. Don't worry, it's normal to feel that way...just keep the end goal in mind and do your best. If 99% of people do their best, they will make it so chances are you're the same. Don't beat yourself up the first quarter if you get a B or C on a test either...most people that graduate at the top of their classes in undergrad get severely depressed because they've never had this happen to them. Never aim for those grades, but it's bound to happen to you some time or another. Anyways, best of luck to you!!!
 
Of course it's hard. Look at all the recent posts of all the students on the edge of flunking out. For me, the first year was the toughest. After that it's all easy going.
 
Can any of you slackers ;) comment on here who don't want to specialize. Is it very difficult to make B's and C's through the didactic stuff?
 
JLum said:
Can any of you slackers ;) comment on here who don't want to specialize. Is it very difficult to make B's and C's through the didactic stuff?
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No. If all you want is to pass, that shouldn't be a problem. Most schools also have a "safety net" (tutoring, retaking exams, etc.) to help students who do struggle so that they don't have to repeat a year. That said, even doing "the minimum" requires a lot of work. Dental schools have 4 years to train us to think as doctors and have a solid foundation with our clinical skills that we can build upon once we graduate.

I think part of what makes dental school manageable is that you're not going through it alone. Your classmates are right beside you enduring the same grueling schedule as you are.
 
I find lab to be more annoying than hard.

For example, I'm setting my anatomical teeth into the wax for complete U/L dentures. One faculty member tells me I have my retromolar pad height set a little too high, but everything else is fine...so she won't sign me off until I fix it. Well I fix it and get my posterior contacts right again... only to have a different instructor now tell me my crest of ridge line isn't centered right. Well WTF!!! Why didn't the first instructor tell me that? Now I redo the entire damn mandibular and get the contacts right again. It's a few hours into lab and it's about to be over. Damn, I'm forsure now getting signed off and heading home. I show my work to the only faculty member left and he tells me that I don't have enough canine prominence on my maxillary. Really?? Are you kidding me? Just sign me the eff off so I can go home and study for my stupid test. Why didn't the first 2 profs mention anything about my canine prominence?

Anyways, I stay an extra hour and half and make sure everything is perfect so I can get signed off at the beginning of class next week. I mean... my dentures look perfect right now. Except, I'm willing to bet that the wax will cool down and shrink, which will cause my teeth to move a little. Next week, when I take out my dentures and check them on the articulator, I will probably want to shatter it against the wall because it won't be how I left it. And even if I fix it, a professor will find something to bitch about that another professor thinks looks great.

That sums up remo for me atleast.
 
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longhornpride said:
I find lab to be more annoying than hard.

For example, I'm setting my anatomical teeth into the wax for complete U/L dentures. One faculty member tells me I have my retromolar pad height set a little too high, but everything else is fine...so she won't sign me off until I fix it. Well I fix it and get my posterior contacts right again... only to have a different instructor now tell me my crest of ridge line isn't centered right. Well WTF!!! Why didn't the first instructor tell me that? Now I redo the entire damn mandibular and get the contacts right again. It's a few hours into lab and it's about to be over. Damn, I'm forsure now getting signed off and heading home. I show my work to the only faculty member left and he tells me that I don't have enough canine prominence on my maxillary. Really?? Are you kidding me? Just sign me the eff off so I can go home and study for my stupid test. Why didn't the first 2 profs mention anything about my canine prominence?

Anyways, I stay an extra hour and half and make sure everything is perfect so I can get signed off at the beginning of class next week. I mean... my dentures look perfect right now. Except, I'm willing to bet that the wax will cool down and shrink, which will cause my teeth to move a little. Next week, when I take out my dentures and check them on the articulator, I will probably want to shatter it against the wall because it won't be how I left it. And even if I fix it, a professor will find something to bitch about that another professor thinks looks great.

That sums up remo for me atleast.
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I know what you mean man, you gotta find one instructor and stick with it. Or find one that isn't all that particular in the smallest of details.
 
Do you think that working in a dental lab during a gap year would help remove some stress that students face while learning these techniques in DS?

longhornpride said:
I find lab to be more annoying than hard.

For example, I'm setting my anatomical teeth into the wax for complete U/L dentures. One faculty member tells me I have my retromolar pad height set a little too high, but everything else is fine...so she won't sign me off until I fix it. Well I fix it and get my posterior contacts right again... only to have a different instructor now tell me my crest of ridge line isn't centered right. Well WTF!!! Why didn't the first instructor tell me that? Now I redo the entire damn mandibular and get the contacts right again. It's a few hours into lab and it's about to be over. Damn, I'm forsure now getting signed off and heading home. I show my work to the only faculty member left and he tells me that I don't have enough canine prominence on my maxillary. Really?? Are you kidding me? Just sign me the eff off so I can go home and study for my stupid test. Why didn't the first 2 profs mention anything about my canine prominence?

Anyways, I stay an extra hour and half and make sure everything is perfect so I can get signed off at the beginning of class next week. I mean... my dentures look perfect right now. Except, I'm willing to bet that the wax will cool down and shrink, which will cause my teeth to move a little. Next week, when I take out my dentures and check them on the articulator, I will probably want to shatter it against the wall because it won't be how I left it. And even if I fix it, a professor will find something to bitch about that another professor thinks looks great.

That sums up remo for me atleast.
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yappy said:
Do you think that working in a dental lab during a gap year would help remove some stress that students face while learning these techniques in DS?
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haha... I think you took my post the wrong way. The techniques aren't as stressful as the professors' subjective opinions. What one professor thinks is clinically excellent is clinically unacceptable to another. I was just ranting and venting my frustration from this weeks lab.

I'm sure working in a lab would help, but I don't think it's necessary. You won't be doing much lab work until 2nd year and you'll have plenty of time to learn. No need to worry.
 
DentGirl23 said:
hey guys, im going to be starting dental school at san antonio 2013, i was just wondering if y'all could tell me what to expect...like how hard are each of the 4 years and such..thanks!
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DS1 here, so I can only speak on what I've experienced so far.

Overall, I love the feel, I like waking up every morning at 5-5:30AM, take a shower, get ready and go to "work". Normally, on average I am out by 3 PM (some days longer, some shorter, but average 3 PM)..... Since I don't work, and I am 30 years old, DS gives me a purpose in life so.... I kinda like it lol.

NO ONE in their right minds likes to study, no one enjoys tests-n-quizzes, but thats just part of the system.

DS is as hard as your going to make it. If your laid back, relaxed, don't care about high grades, I don't imagine you'll struggle too much. If your one of those gunners whom MUST get minimum A- on every test/quiz, yeh your in it for one helfa-ride (I imagine initial 2 years).
 
There are some good replies on here. To answer your "slacker" question, there are plenty of people who are set on GP but still have to put in hours and hours outside of class. There is no way to learn/memorize all of the material thrown at you, but there is a general rule of thumb that can help you succeed. First, learn the information that will be important to you has a practitioner and for the years to come in clinic. Next, temporarily memorize very important information for the tests. Finally, be familiar with all of the material for a test. That is the secret to making A's in dental school. Grades are directly proportional to the time put in outside of class. Good luck. :thumbup:
 
d1 here. if youre not trying to specialize its very manageable. But still much more time intensive than undergrad.

The kids trying to specialize are under alot of stress.
 
EDIT: Short version of my post. You can read the long version if you want, but a lot of it is me blowing steam, so you've been warned ;)
NYUCD.

Second year, you will spend a ton of time in the lab, which is physically very draining and mentally very frustrating.

Grading for practicals is very subjective, so if you're very attached to your GPA as a self-esteem modifier, you need to recognize that you will be very, very frustrated. Questions on exams can be very poorly worded, so again, disconnect your self-esteem from your GPA.

D-school is not "hard", but "Frustrating", especially if you are very set on getting out of here with a 4.0. If you just want to pass, then D-school can be fun, as long as you don't isolate yourself socially, and treat lab not only as serious practice, but as an opportunity to hang out with people who are just as tired and just as frustrated as you are.

-----



Slogging through second year at NYUCD here. Dental school is 'hard' because of the oft-expressed "It's a marathon, not a sprint" axiom. Actually, if you're inclined towards training at all, dental school is much more like intervals than like a marathon. There will be weeks where you have time to sit in your room catching up on Netflix or playing Skyrim, go out like a normal American 20-something if you feel like it, and still manage to keep up with everything - you're doing your lab practice, you're doing your maintenance studying, life feels good. Then there will be weeks where you are sweating bullets wondering how the eff you are going to make it through the next six days, with 2 exams and a major practical incoming, and oh god do we really have an Infectious Disease midterm the Friday after coming back from Winter Break, yes we do.

If you don't happen to be naturally talented with your fine motor and visualization skills, like myself and many others, then dental school, second year in particular, can be extremely stressful and fill you with an, "Oh my god I failed a practical, I will never be a dentist and I am going to flunk out and holy **** what am I going to do with half a DDS? What is half a DDS, would that be DD or DS? Oh god maybe I should start looking for a job now" sense of despair. I mean, I still can't do a "perfect" filling preparation yet, and now they're throwing preparations for crowns at me, along with the time they want me to sink into creating Complete Dentures. I practice a lot (not as much as others, but basically, I'm in lab unless I'm simply too tired or too frustrated to tolerate it), and generally I spend 10-20 hours outside of the lab just catching up, doing homework for practicals that I've failed, and practicing for the upcoming practical. Tomorrow I will be tested on a skill that was "taught" to us last Thursday. Which brings me to my next point about why dental school is 'hard'.

You have to try, really hard, to hound lab "instructors" to give you actually good feedback, and to actually help you. Then you have to weed out the instructors who have no idea what the eff they're talking about. I don't know how it is at other schools, but professors seem very reluctant to give demonstrations or watch you do a prep to give you useful feedback on what you're doing - they assure you to just practice and it will come eventually. You want to tell them that eventually isn't fast enough when you're racking up D's, but they're pretty adamant about not being helpful. Either that, or they try, but since they're not trained educators, they aren't really sure about what to show, and since they regard school as a chore, they aren't particularly patient with a barrage of questions. There are two instructors who show up on weekends; there are 200 students who show up on weekends.

You will put up with piles upon piles of bull****, in your didactic courses and in your labs. A student I know brought a preparation up to the grader and said, "Can you tell me what's wrong with this?" and was told point-blank that there were "Various critical errors" (sufficient number of critical errors results in immediate failure). This preparation had already received a 100, my friend was just trolling the system. I know this sounds like I'm just repeating an "urban legend" or just making **** up, so I encourage you to ask some of the D3's at your school what their preclinical was like, or other SDN'ers can chime in ;-)

For exams, there have been several instances where questions have been recycled from previous years, but the material was not taught in the current year, making it impossible to learn about the question without access to old exams, which are unreleased and guarded. There have been many instances when questions make absolutely zero grammatical sense. There have been many questions that have been made 'challenging' through the deliberate usage of obfuscatory language, and when questioned, the professors will respond "I can't answer questions during the exam", and the resulting email to challenges will give you some snide bull**** response, like "That's how it will be on the Boards, get used to it", or "I'm sorry you had to think on an exam, imagine that!"

In short (too late?): the material is not hard, but the exams will be difficult!

The feeling that many of us get here at NYUCD is that there is a disconnect between effort and grades. I have talked to a lot of different people (maybe 8? 10? from different social circles) about it, and there's definitely a feeling of discouragement that comes from getting B-'s as a result of weirdly worded questions, and from putting in 8-10 extra lab hours a week to get C's.

There's psychological pressure too: because people tend to be very secretive about grades and performance, there's also an overwhelming sense of "Oh my god everyone else can already do a perfect filling while holding down straight A's, what is wrong with me, am I just ******ed?" I actually had a few people tell me that they figured I was one of those straight-A naturally-talented folks: their reasoning was that I sit in the front row during lecture and that I look serious :D My point is that I'm struggling just like everyone else, but people somehow think I'm cruising by and loving my dental school life. I'm telling you this now so you remember when you get here, that you're going to have "facebook syndrome", where it feels like your friends are having better lives than you are. In reality, the only reason dental school doesn't suck completely is because everyone is in the same rat-filled boat, and you will meet some pretty awesome people here, even if they, just like you will be, are tired and pissed off a lot of the time.

The people with natural hand skills have it slightly better, as they don't have to re-do their practicals; their sense of frustration stems not from fear of failure, but from watching their preps get 82's as other preps get 100's, with no explanation given for the "Errors" involved. It is not uncommon to receive a blank error sheet (checks are given for each error), or one with 1 or 2 minor checks made, then to receive an 82. I remember in first year feeling extremely awkward as I got a 93 on a practical, my friend got an 82; her prep looked like you could have slipped it into the model bag without thinking twice, and my prep looked like it was carved with a rusty knife. I had 3 error-checks, she had 0. After asking around, she was told her prep was deficient - no explanation. I didn't have the balls to ask about my prep because I was afraid of them re-grading me. Lols. Again, might sound like I'm making **** up, so ask around. Pre-clinical grading is pretty terrible, and can make you feel like crap no matter who you are.

---
So what's the point of this rant? Well, a big part of it is just me blowing off steam, so I apologize that you had to read that, but I hope it might actually give you a window into what second year feels like for me, and I think how it feels for many otherwise-silent people who don't enjoy typing excruciatingly long forum posts about it like I do. Mostly I want you to disconnect your possibly sky-high expectations of "professional school" from the experience before you get here, and I want you to understand some of the pressure that makes dental school feel like walking through a bog while carrying a dead horse that you are instructed to stop and beat occasionally. Dental school can be excruciatingly frustrating if you are a good student who wants to get straight A's.

As a student who got a 3.7 in Biology major undergraduate years, dental school is quite a shock. That's not me trying to be pretentious or number drop (you don't number drop with a measly 3.7 in dental school anyway, right?) - that's me trying to say, I'm not a lazy student, and I'm used to getting good grades. In dental school, because of the above rant, I have essentially given up on a shiny GPA, and am just trying to maintain a 3.2 or above while I practice in the lab so I can get the eff out of here. with some hand skills and physical endurance to show for it.
 
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DentGirl23 said:
hey guys, im going to be starting dental school at san antonio 2013, i was just wondering if y'all could tell me what to expect...like how hard are each of the 4 years and such..thanks!
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Jay and New York hit the nail on the head. Couldn't say it better. D-1 was not bad. A good amount of free time, but that free time was dedicated to endless studying for so many classes. D-2 is a complete different monster. We are literally in class from 8-5 every. Lab projects due every week, with exams every week. And as Victoria mentioned, rotations as well. It's pretty terrible. My class (and I believe I can speak for everyone) enjoyed first year A LOT more. And all the stuff New York said about GPA and accepting lower grades is absolutely true. Had a 3.7 after first year and now I just wanna make 3.3 or higher.

I also don't want to specialize, put in a lot less work than my classmates, but just like to do well. But my desire to do well is being overwhelmed by endless work in the labs and dreadful pathology.
 
New York, DII here. Yesterday, I did a prep for a gold inlay on #19. I asked a professor to take a loot at it. It was clinically acceptable but wasn't my best work. He sat down and fixed it for me with my handpiece, and then told me that's how it should look.

Without touching it, I asked another professor to take a look at the same tooth 5 minutes later. She ripped it to shreds and told me that the restoration would most likely fail because of the prep. The same prep another professor "fixed". Just goes to show how full of **** some of these faculty members are.
 
longhornpride said:
New York, DII here. Yesterday, I did a prep for a gold inlay on #19. I asked a professor to take a loot at it. It was clinically acceptable but wasn't my best work. He sat down and fixed it for me with my handpiece, and then told me that's how it should look.

Without touching it, I asked another professor to take a look at the same tooth 5 minutes later. She ripped it to shreds and told me that the restoration would most likely fail because of the prep. The same prep another professor "fixed". Just goes to show how full of **** some of these faculty members are.
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So then you wonder, which professor is right? And you take it to a third, who also says it's okay, and a fourth, who tells you it's ****..............

And then you just accept your C on the practical ;)
 
newyorkblork said:
So then you wonder, which professor is right? And you take it to a third, who also says it's okay, and a fourth, who tells you it's ****..............

And then you just accept your C on the practical ;)
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Haha. Well said. And to Longhorn, don't fret the inlay, it's good dentistry, but an out-dated procedure.
 
Great :/ thanks guys, the first two years sound terrifying...but I'm sure it wont be that bad!..hopefully..
is the first semester course work around the equivalence of 25 credit hours?
 
DentGirl23 said:
Great :/ thanks guys, the first two years sound terrifying...but I'm sure it wont be that bad!..hopefully..
is the first semester course work around the equivalence of 25 credit hours?
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Honestly, I have no idea what that would mean.

But for a more exacting metric, it's roughly the equivalent of a huge pain in the ass.
 
the young man with the page long post hit it exactly on the head....thats how it is at alot of places.
 
Did you expect anyone to say its easy? Its a completely different animal from undergrad. Better get all the fun out of your system right now before you start.
 
jay47 said:
. . . 2nd Year: Lots of labs AND classes, learning hand skills where 1 mm means you pass or you fail (literally- I'm not joking) . . .
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1mm!? That is a HUGE distance! What about those FGC or MCC chamfers? Our 'passing' range is 0.2-0.5 mm. Any more, any less and its clinically unacceptable...
 
I am a bit taken aback by the sense of satisfaction you seem to all have when having a graded 100, or professors work up being criticized by other professors. These professors are not there to grade other professors who know what theyre doing and what works for them, but are there to help teach YOU how to work something up and give you as much aide as possible. While there may be some flaws in the sense that grading and methodology is not universal, by tricking them with those tactics to prove a point, all you are doing is abusing a system meant to teach students.


You should check out
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rosenhan_experiment
where sane people pretended to be insane in order to be committed to a psych ward, and could not be released when they were "cured" because the system wasnt meant to work that way. Then read the impact and controversy section..

"If I were to drink a quart of blood and, concealing what I had done, come to the emergency room of any hospital vomiting blood, the behavior of the staff would be quite predictable. If they labeled and treated me as having a bleeding peptic ulcer, I doubt that I could argue convincingly that medical science does not know how to diagnose that condition."

^sorry, just found it interesting & having one professor tricked into grading another professors lab work reminds me of this. :)
 
my bad, apologies
 
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newyorkblork said:
EDIT: Short version of my post. You can read the long version if you want, but a lot of it is me blowing steam, so you've been warned ;)
NYUCD.

Second year, you will spend a ton of time in the lab, which is physically very draining and mentally very frustrating.

Grading for practicals is very subjective, so if you're very attached to your GPA as a self-esteem modifier, you need to recognize that you will be very, very frustrated. Questions on exams can be very poorly worded, so again, disconnect your self-esteem from your GPA.

D-school is not "hard", but "Frustrating", especially if you are very set on getting out of here with a 4.0. If you just want to pass, then D-school can be fun, as long as you don't isolate yourself socially, and treat lab not only as serious practice, but as an opportunity to hang out with people who are just as tired and just as frustrated as you are.

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Slogging through second year at NYUCD here. Dental school is 'hard' because of the oft-expressed "It's a marathon, not a sprint" axiom. Actually, if you're inclined towards training at all, dental school is much more like intervals than like a marathon. There will be weeks where you have time to sit in your room catching up on Netflix or playing Skyrim, go out like a normal American 20-something if you feel like it, and still manage to keep up with everything - you're doing your lab practice, you're doing your maintenance studying, life feels good. Then there will be weeks where you are sweating bullets wondering how the eff you are going to make it through the next six days, with 2 exams and a major practical incoming, and oh god do we really have an Infectious Disease midterm the Friday after coming back from Winter Break, yes we do.

If you don't happen to be naturally talented with your fine motor and visualization skills, like myself and many others, then dental school, second year in particular, can be extremely stressful and fill you with an, "Oh my god I failed a practical, I will never be a dentist and I am going to flunk out and holy **** what am I going to do with half a DDS? What is half a DDS, would that be DD or DS? Oh god maybe I should start looking for a job now" sense of despair. I mean, I still can't do a "perfect" filling preparation yet, and now they're throwing preparations for crowns at me, along with the time they want me to sink into creating Complete Dentures. I practice a lot (not as much as others, but basically, I'm in lab unless I'm simply too tired or too frustrated to tolerate it), and generally I spend 10-20 hours outside of the lab just catching up, doing homework for practicals that I've failed, and practicing for the upcoming practical. Tomorrow I will be tested on a skill that was "taught" to us last Thursday. Which brings me to my next point about why dental school is 'hard'.

You have to try, really hard, to hound lab "instructors" to give you actually good feedback, and to actually help you. Then you have to weed out the instructors who have no idea what the eff they're talking about. I don't know how it is at other schools, but professors seem very reluctant to give demonstrations or watch you do a prep to give you useful feedback on what you're doing - they assure you to just practice and it will come eventually. You want to tell them that eventually isn't fast enough when you're racking up D's, but they're pretty adamant about not being helpful. Either that, or they try, but since they're not trained educators, they aren't really sure about what to show, and since they regard school as a chore, they aren't particularly patient with a barrage of questions. There are two instructors who show up on weekends; there are 200 students who show up on weekends.

You will put up with piles upon piles of bull****, in your didactic courses and in your labs. A student I know brought a preparation up to the grader and said, "Can you tell me what's wrong with this?" and was told point-blank that there were "Various critical errors" (sufficient number of critical errors results in immediate failure). This preparation had already received a 100, my friend was just trolling the system. I know this sounds like I'm just repeating an "urban legend" or just making **** up, so I encourage you to ask some of the D3's at your school what their preclinical was like, or other SDN'ers can chime in ;-)

For exams, there have been several instances where questions have been recycled from previous years, but the material was not taught in the current year, making it impossible to learn about the question without access to old exams, which are unreleased and guarded. There have been many instances when questions make absolutely zero grammatical sense. There have been many questions that have been made 'challenging' through the deliberate usage of obfuscatory language, and when questioned, the professors will respond "I can't answer questions during the exam", and the resulting email to challenges will give you some snide bull**** response, like "That's how it will be on the Boards, get used to it", or "I'm sorry you had to think on an exam, imagine that!"

In short (too late?): the material is not hard, but the exams will be difficult!

The feeling that many of us get here at NYUCD is that there is a disconnect between effort and grades. I have talked to a lot of different people (maybe 8? 10? from different social circles) about it, and there's definitely a feeling of discouragement that comes from getting B-'s as a result of weirdly worded questions, and from putting in 8-10 extra lab hours a week to get C's.

There's psychological pressure too: because people tend to be very secretive about grades and performance, there's also an overwhelming sense of "Oh my god everyone else can already do a perfect filling while holding down straight A's, what is wrong with me, am I just ******ed?" I actually had a few people tell me that they figured I was one of those straight-A naturally-talented folks: their reasoning was that I sit in the front row during lecture and that I look serious :D My point is that I'm struggling just like everyone else, but people somehow think I'm cruising by and loving my dental school life. I'm telling you this now so you remember when you get here, that you're going to have "facebook syndrome", where it feels like your friends are having better lives than you are. In reality, the only reason dental school doesn't suck completely is because everyone is in the same rat-filled boat, and you will meet some pretty awesome people here, even if they, just like you will be, are tired and pissed off a lot of the time.

The people with natural hand skills have it slightly better, as they don't have to re-do their practicals; their sense of frustration stems not from fear of failure, but from watching their preps get 82's as other preps get 100's, with no explanation given for the "Errors" involved. It is not uncommon to receive a blank error sheet (checks are given for each error), or one with 1 or 2 minor checks made, then to receive an 82. I remember in first year feeling extremely awkward as I got a 93 on a practical, my friend got an 82; her prep looked like you could have slipped it into the model bag without thinking twice, and my prep looked like it was carved with a rusty knife. I had 3 error-checks, she had 0. After asking around, she was told her prep was deficient - no explanation. I didn't have the balls to ask about my prep because I was afraid of them re-grading me. Lols. Again, might sound like I'm making **** up, so ask around. Pre-clinical grading is pretty terrible, and can make you feel like crap no matter who you are.

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So what's the point of this rant? Well, a big part of it is just me blowing off steam, so I apologize that you had to read that, but I hope it might actually give you a window into what second year feels like for me, and I think how it feels for many otherwise-silent people who don't enjoy typing excruciatingly long forum posts about it like I do. Mostly I want you to disconnect your possibly sky-high expectations of "professional school" from the experience before you get here, and I want you to understand some of the pressure that makes dental school feel like walking through a bog while carrying a dead horse that you are instructed to stop and beat occasionally. Dental school can be excruciatingly frustrating if you are a good student who wants to get straight A's.

As a student who got a 3.7 in Biology major undergraduate years, dental school is quite a shock. That's not me trying to be pretentious or number drop (you don't number drop with a measly 3.7 in dental school anyway, right?) - that's me trying to say, I'm not a lazy student, and I'm used to getting good grades. In dental school, because of the above rant, I have essentially given up on a shiny GPA, and am just trying to maintain a 3.2 or above while I practice in the lab so I can get the eff out of here. with some hand skills and physical endurance to show for it.
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You speak so much truth!!!!!! I read the whole rant, and now that I'm in dental school, I find myself nodding over and over and over:):):) Just a second semester 1st year chiming in.
 
Erhatstil said:
his post was directed at newyorkblork...he didn't say he goes to nyu. he's probably a D2 at bu


lol at pharm student trying to call out "lying" dental student
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lol, I think he is a little trigger happy :rolleyes:
 
i was a little surprised you'd use that much effort in an attempt to catch someone lying....in an area of the forum unrelated to pharmacy
 
newyorkblork said:
EDIT: A student I know brought a preparation up to the grader and said, "Can you tell me what's wrong with this?" and was told point-blank that there were "Various critical errors" (sufficient number of critical errors results in immediate failure). This preparation had already received a 100, my friend was just trolling the system. I know this sounds like I'm just repeating an "urban legend" or just making **** up, so I encourage you to ask some of the D3's at your school what their preclinical was like, or other SDN'ers can chime in ;-)
Click to expand...

Not an urban legend. A friend of mine (a friend of a friend who has a janitor that lives in his building who knows a guy..) in my D2 class at IUSD asked one of the two module directors to evaluate 'this' prep. After about 10 minutes or so of criticizing the prep, telling the student that this "Might be deemed 'clinically acceptable,'" the student, whom had no malicous intentions nor was he trying to troll the system, said, "Oh well this is [Insert other Module Director here]'s prep..."

This is not to discret any professor or person at IUSD. I think they are all very knowledable and are trying to help the students. But that is just the system and it is pretty dang objective. If you are looking for faults in a project/prep/etc, you can endlessly find them.

Makes being a perfectionist difficult.
 
Doc Smile said:
Not an urban legend. A friend of mine (a friend of a friend who has a janitor that lives in his building who knows a guy..) in my D2 class at IUSD asked one of the two module directors to evaluate 'this' prep. After about 10 minutes or so of criticizing the prep, telling the student that this "Might be deemed 'clinically acceptable,'" the student, whom had no malicous intentions nor was he trying to troll the system, said, "Oh well this is [Insert other Module Director here]'s prep..."

This is not to discret any professor or person at IUSD. I think they are all very knowledable and are trying to help the students. But that is just the system and it is pretty dang objective. If you are looking for faults in a project/prep/etc, you can endlessly find them.

Makes being a perfectionist difficult.
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i think you meant to say subjective. but you speak the truth.
 
crax said:
I am a bit taken aback by the sense of satisfaction you seem to all have when having a graded 100, or professors work up being criticized by other professors. These professors are not there to grade other professors who know what theyre doing and what works for them, but are there to help teach YOU how to work something up and give you as much aide as possible. While there may be some flaws in the sense that grading and methodology is not universal, by tricking them with those tactics to prove a point, all you are doing is abusing a system meant to teach students.
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That's not the point at all. The trolling isn't done solely to give us a smug sense of satisfaction (although that's definitely part of it) - it's to emphasize the fact that the grading is, at times, downright arbitrary, and that it's nearly impossible to really feel like you're learning anything within a system where one minute your work is perfect, and the next minute the same work is a pile of ****. One minute you're given a demonstration on how wide your isthmus should be - the next, you're told that your work will fracture because you made that isthmus too damn wide, what were you thinking?

I don't think there's anyone in my school who would say that they don't feel a pervasive sense of frustration working within the confines of this kind of a system. And my point was that in a myriad of delightful ways, dental school is frustrating.
 
In my opinion, it's hard to study on dental school. But I also enjoyed it :D
 
DentGirl23 said:
hey guys, im going to be starting dental school at san antonio 2013, i was just wondering if y'all could tell me what to expect...like how hard are each of the 4 years and such..thanks!
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you think they give out 200k salaries to people without making them jump through a lot of tough hoops? think about it, no such thing as an easy buck out there
 
it looks like there are some easy d schools out there.....fml for not going to one :(
 
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