Questions about the process of becoming a dentist

[MSPV]

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I have some questions about the whole process of getting into Dental school and becoming a dentist.

Where can I find some books or advice on how to handle a courseload of 15 credit hours or more? I've mostly been a full time student of 12-13 hours and did well but I'm doubtful about 15+ credit hours at the university level. I'm not sure how to handle all of that at one time, but I know I can do it. I just don't know how.

How soon do I need to start shadowing a dentist and how many dentists should I shadow?

How do I make myself to be an all around good candidate for dental school? I know joining honor societies looks good to some graduate schools. Would it look better if I had extra curricular activities behind me?

I have an overall GPA of 3.6 and will be enrolling at a university soon to get a degree in Biology.

 

[UCSFx2017]

Use the search function on SDN and don't just look in the predental forums. Look into the premedical forums as well for study tips. I think it's mostly about time-management. Google some time-management pointers. Here's a link to something about reading efficiency. http://english.glendale.cc.ca.us/speed1.html This website gives some general pointers but I've found that it also helps if you memorize the outline (heading, subheadings, titles, etc.) of a chapter before you begin reading the texts and memorizing the key points. This helps with recall and retention. Use mnemonics for helping you recall what you memorized. The more vulgar and expletive your mnemonic, the better. Here's a quick and easy one about mitosis that I would tell high schoolers. Prophase, Metaphase, Anaphase, Telophase. Using the first letter of each word you got PMAT. Reverse of PMAT is TAMP like "tampon" so I think of tampon when I think of mitosis.

[youtube]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=LTUHTxWG6EQ[/youtube]

Everything there is to know about applying to dental school can be found in these forums. You just got to use the search function.

 

[MSPV]

Sorry about that and thank you for the advice.