Pros and Cons of Living with classmates

[Julia523]

For people who live with their classmates, do you feel like you spend too much time with you roommates? Is it better to live with other graduate students who have same level of maturity?

Feeling anxious about moving to a new city and starting a different life. Appreciate your help!

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[ringofkeys]

a lot of the students in my class who live with each other seem to enjoy living with each other, and they also seem to mainly be each others' main friends for parties and social events and stuff.

pros: easy way to make friends, if you need help with class you live with classmates, someone to go to social events with at the beginning of the year so you're not awkwardly by yourself

cons: you will see them literally 24/7

 

[TanMan]

Better to live alone. It's hard to gauge level of maturity without having met them first, and even then, dental school cliques/colleagues/"friends" change real fast. If you don't get along, you're going to have to see them everyday at school too.

If your roommates can hook you up in terms of things that can help you dental school, that's great... however, you can get that without living with them.

 

[charlestweed]

When I started my first year, I shared a 2bed/2bath apt with 2 classmates, who also attended the same undergrad college with me. Then 2 quarters later, another classmate joined us. And when we started our 3rd year, one more classmate came in and joined us.

Pros:
- Saved a lot of money. Each of us only paid $250/month. To have my own apt without any roommate, I would have had to pay at least $700/month. We also split the phone (we didn't have cell phones back then) and electricity bills.

- We all had the same exams so we all studied at the same time. A lot of time I was too lazy to get up for classes, I just asked my one of my roommates to get the lecture handouts for me.

- All of my roommates were very smart. One of them ranked 2nd in our class and matched to the OS program at our school. Two of them were accepted to endo straight out of dental school. The 4th roommate and I matched to ortho. At the beginning, I didn't plan to specialize. But my roommates pursuaded me to specialize.

- We helped drive each other to the airport for the interviews for specialty programs.

- We shared food when one of us ran low on food.

- One of my roommates gave me a bridge case. Another roommate gave me a denture reline case. And I gave one of my roommates a cleaning patient for the dental board exam.

- My OS roommate has a private practice and I've referred a lot of patients to him.

Cons:
- The guy, whom I shared the room with, snored very loud. So I chose to sleep on the sofa in the living room.
- In the 90s, there was no cell phone and we only had one landline phone. So we had to take turn to call our girlfriends.

 

[Rynomachine]

I live with one of my classmates. We get along really well, and most of the people in my class who do the same enjoy it. I think living with several people right off the bat might be a bit rougher though.

 

[Cold Front]

I shared a room with 2 classmates - all 4 years of dental school.

Pros:

- We supported each other during school, both clinic and didactic. One of them graduated #2 in the class.

- We went almost everywhere together on the weekends; both day and night scenes.

- Time flies by when you live with someone who has similar goals as you. We even discussed our plans after dental school in great detail all the time.

- The roommates teached me how to be uber frugal. They nickled and dimed everything. We did groceries together. It was an eye opener for me, and learnt how to save more in the end from that experience - including today.

- Rent and utilities cost sharing. Worked out about $500 each, and we lived 5 mins walk from school.

Cons:

- 1 bathroom and 1 kitchen to share for 3 people.

- My bedroom was closest to the kitchen, so whatever they cooked - I had to smell it, good and bad; - from dumplings and Indian food that smelled great, to some random gross stuff. They taught me how to cook some of their recipe, which was cool.

- We had turns to clean the house, including bathrooms. It was hard at first, but became a routine after.

- We would have friends from school come over for parties. Sometimes people from school I didn’t want to socialize with.

- One of the roommates was highly opinionated about everything, and we would get into a verbal fight if an argument/debate went too far. I guess you can call that - a problem solving skills experience. The 3 of us are still good friends 10 years after we finished school.


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[pubhealthdent]

For people who live with their classmates, do you feel like you spend too much time with you roommates? Is it better to live with other graduate students who have same level of maturity?

Feeling anxious about moving to a new city and starting a different life. Appreciate your help!

I lived with 2 of my classmates. It worked out really well. Cheaper than living alone. I didn't ever feel like we spent too much time together.

 

[2TH MVR]

I think if you have roommates who share the same study habits as you ... then things are fine. I shared a house with one DS roommate and 3 others attending the local undergrad university. The 3 undergrad students partied all the time and the dental student failed out after the 1st year. I moved out the 2nd year and roomed with just one DS student. Then he was kicked out his 3rd year of DS.
So my experience rooming with others has not been positive lol.
For the record. The 1st dental student re-applied to a more expensive DS and is now a dentist. The other dental student who was kicked out during his 3rd year gave up on dentistry. Not sure what he is doing now.

 

[Cold Front]

The other dental student who was kicked out during his 3rd year gave up on dentistry. Not sure what he is doing now.

There was a 4th yr DS student at my school (the class ahead of me) who was kicked out couple of months before his graduation. He probably had $300k in student loans at that point - and not sure if he re-applied or could re-apply somewhere else. But, can you imagine the psychological impact from getting kicked out of DS when you are so close to the finish line? There was a joke between me and few close classmates that he might come back to the school one day with a gun and shoot everyone indiscriminately - out of anger and despair for what the school did to him. It was a very scary thought for a little while, but those things can happen if you push someone too far, even in DS.



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[Julia523]

There was a 4th yr DS student at my school (the class ahead of me) who was kicked out couple of months before his graduation. He probably had $300k in student loans at that point - and not sure if he re-applied or could re-apply somewhere else. But, can you imagine the psychological impact from getting kicked out of DS when you are so close to the finish line? There was a joke between me and few close classmates that he might come back to the school one day with a gun and shoot everyone indiscriminately - out of anger and despair for what the school did to him. It was a very scary thought for a little while, but those things can happen if you push someone too far, even in DS.



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I feel bad for him 🙁 It must be hard to pay back the loan.

 

[MGA100]

Pros: makes things cheaper
Cons: ppl can be sloppy pigs

 

[batman12345]

I think if you have roommates who share the same study habits as you ... then things are fine. I shared a house with one DS roommate and 3 others attending the local undergrad university. The 3 undergrad students partied all the time and the dental student failed out after the 1st year. I moved out the 2nd year and roomed with just one DS student. Then he was kicked out his 3rd year of DS.
So my experience rooming with others has not been positive lol.
For the record. The 1st dental student re-applied to a more expensive DS and is now a dentist. The other dental student who was kicked out during his 3rd year gave up on dentistry. Not sure what he is doing now.

There was a 4th yr DS student at my school (the class ahead of me) who was kicked out couple of months before his graduation. He probably had $300k in student loans at that point - and not sure if he re-applied or could re-apply somewhere else. But, can you imagine the psychological impact from getting kicked out of DS when you are so close to the finish line? There was a joke between me and few close classmates that he might come back to the school one day with a gun and shoot everyone indiscriminately - out of anger and despair for what the school did to him. It was a very scary thought for a little while, but those things can happen if you push someone too far, even in DS.



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what do you do to get kicked out of school that late in the game?

 

[Cold Front]

what do you do to get kicked out of school that late in the game?

I don’t know the exact details of the case I shared in my previous post, but I have seen it range from serious academic or clinical deficiencies, to other misconducts (cheating, sexual harassment, faculty complaint, etc). The school makes an example of a student who crosses certain lines, no matter what stage the student is in the program - even if it’s their last day of school.


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[2TH MVR]

what do you do to get kicked out of school that late in the game?

He was already struggling through most of his classes up to this point. The final straw came in the Crown and Bridge lab class. One of our requirements was to cast a two surface gold inlay. He just couldn't manage to accomplish a well fitting, non rocking, perfect margin gold inlay. I tried to help him, but after many failures he just gave up and the school released him. Can't blame the DS. They tried to help him.

 

[TanMan]

He was already struggling through most of his classes up to this point. The final straw came in the Crown and Bridge lab class. One of our requirements was to cast a two surface gold inlay. He just couldn't manage to accomplish a well fitting, non rocking, perfect margin gold inlay. I tried to help him, but after many failures he just gave up and the school released him. Can't blame the DS. They tried to help him.

For those that ever run into a problem of a non-fitting gold restoration on a typodont, use a hammer. I didn't want to redo a cast gold post so I hammered it into the typodont and it passed. Don't do this in real life though.

Always think outside the box
😀