I shared a 2 bed apartment with 3 other dental classmates. Toward the end of our 3rd year, another classmate joined the 4 of us…and I had to sleep on the couch in the living room. Before dental school (from the time when I first came to America to the time when I completed my BS degree), I lived with my parents. My parents rented out 2 of the rooms to 4-5 other housemates so I already had the experience in living in a small place with a lot of people.
When I got out, I shared a dental office space with another GP to save in the overhead and construction cost. Again, this is not a big deal since both the GP and I had the experience in sharing apartment with roommates when we were students. We’ve got along very well. At the end of the work day, we try to keep the office clean and make sure all the supplies are fully stocked so one of us can see the patients the next day.
When we had kids, we hired a live in nanny. And again, we have no problem with having another stranger living in our house.
There are a lot of benefits:
1. Huge saving: easily $30-35k in saving for the 4 years of dental school.
2. Since we all have the same classes, I could just skip the lecture and just asked my roommates to pick up the lecture handouts for me.
3. During the midterm/final exam weeks, we all studied for the same exams at the same time…and not bothering each other. When one of us lost a class note, he could just conveniently borrow it from another roommate. If you share a room with a non-dental student, you may run into the problem of one person listening to loud music while the other person is studying for the final exams because you guys don't have the same schedule.
4. We helped each other to graduate on time. I gave one of my roommates a denture case. And one of my roommates gave me a bridge case.
5. All of my roommates are very smart and highly motivated people. Initially, I didn’t plan to specialize but they all convinced me that I should. One roommate even gave me the GRE test application and “forced” me to take the test with him. All 5 of us got accepted to specialty programs: 2 orthos, 2 endos, and 1 OS. We all practice in the same county and remain good friends until today.
