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uop or michigan?
- Thread starter pdhols
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i take uop. it's in cali, it can get foggy but it's never as crazy-cold as michigan. it's a 3 year program so you are done sooner, this is especially great if you want to specialize.
UoP hands down. My opinion is biased but San Francisco is always the better option.
pdhols said:
UOP..UOP..UOP..didn't I say UOP!
UOP, you can't beat the 3 year program. Too bad I didn't get an interview from them.
pdhols said:
What are your career goals? What kind of education are you looking for? UOP will offer you great clinical experience, but academic-wise, while adequate, is probably not as broad as at michigan.
Which school impressed you more? Which one felt more like home? You'll be spending many hours each week at school for the next several years. Make sure it's a place you'll like to actually be at rather than what other people tell you.
Michigan. I have heard, not sure though, that you won't even get to make a denture at UOP! All of the fourth year students at various schools I know feel a little scared to almost be out, so I can't imagine how you would feel in only 3 years.pdhols said:
Also, UOP puts you in the clinic the first week, but assisting and sucking spit out of people's mouths your first year and a half shouldn't be considered actual dentistry.
Michigan has a great program and who the hell cares about the weather? Like you'll get to enjoy it anyway! Especially if you're trying to cram in as many 'necessary' classes as possible at UOP.
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- Pre-Dental
crazy_sherm said:
I want to specialize...but don't we all?? I had strong impressions after both school interviews. I am from California (Los Angeles..) so going to UOP would be closer to home, and I eventually want to practice in LA. However, I loved Michigan. Ive been to SF many times in my life, so I plan to revisit Ann Arbor to get a feel for whether I could live there. I just don't know what to base my decision off of, since I loved both schools.
Ronald Jeremy said:
Students at Pacific wish they didn't have to make dentures! Starting the first quarter of Year 2, we learn to make dentures, and by Januray of that year, we are working with patients who need full and partial dentures.
During the first week at Pacific, we start working in the clinic, but we don't see our first patient until April. During those first nine months, we spend our time learning to do hygiene, periodontal, and diagnostic procedures like prophies, root planing and scaling, probing, and taking alginate impressions on other students. We are in the clinic once a week for about 5 hours.
Pacific provides a clinical education that is unbeatable. Many schools have a similar program (in depth), but none are better. How many other schools allow pre-doctoral dental students to provide root canal therapy on a calcified maxillary first molar? At Pacifc, students do dozens of difficult root canals, that students at most other schools hand off to endo residents (Michigan being a perfect example). A few other schools let their students get their fingers this wet, but not many.
Before you start making anecdotal comments, I'd suggest you remember that there are folks on here who acutally know what they are talking about. Please save us all from reading uninformed posts that say extremely brilliant things like "All of the fourth year students at various schools I know feel a little scared to almost be out, so I can't imagine how you would feel in only 3 years."
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Hi javadi 🙂 I was just wondering, with a 3 year program in which it seems like you're getting a lot of clinical experience, do they have time to teach you much of the basic sciences and the theories behind why you do most of the procedures? We are so busy right now with basic sciences, theory and science behind procedures and materials, and also the 3 hours/week in clinic and 8 hours/week in preclinic/lab that I am trying to figure out how all this can possibly get any more condensed 🙂 Do they focus mostly on being proficient in diagnosis and technical skills and not so much on the science of it? In your experience what do you think they are leaving out that other schools include in their extra year? I'm not trying to start a war here or anything, just honestly curious 🙂 From what you said, it sounds like clinically you're doing the same things we are, except that second year you have prosth patients and we don't until third year. maybe you just spend less time practicing each thing in preclinic before trying it out on patients and that decreases the total time?
Biogirl361 said:
Honestly, I don't know point-by-point where and if Pacific is cutting corners on our education. I don't think they are short changing us, but many outsiders think it's impossible to squeeze a 4 calendar year education into 3 calendar years. My experience so far tells me that we are getting slightly less time in basic science courses than the national average, but much more time than the national average in our preclinical courses. Each week, we spend 28 hours of 50 total school hours in preclincal coursework. On top of that, most students spend an additional 3 to 6 hours in the evenings or early mornings completing pre-clinical work that we didn't have time to finish during class. We have a pre-clinical practical (i.e. a crown prep, MOD, etc.) every week or two. We have a test or two every week. Our schedule is very compact--there isn't any extra fat to be trimmed off. In fact, some students are required to come in on Saturday morning for additional pre-clinical training. How many other programs have students in class 50 hours a week 44 weeks a year?
Each pre-clinical course goes over the why's and how's of each procedure ad nauseum. We are required to know the materials we use and the materials that we don't use at school, but that many dentists do use in practice. We analyze procedure alternatives and we think about why or why not to use a certain prosthetic (for example).
We've been practicing amalgams for almost 7 months, and we have another 2 months to go. I have almost 3 cups full of typodont teeth that I've prepped in Operative dentistry alone (Fixed just started last quarter, so I don't have as many old maids yet). We spend an average of 2 weeks on a particular procedure (depending on the difficulty). We've been working on composites since October (a much easier restoration). In Fixed, it's about the same as Operative. Anyway, the story goes on, but it's not any different than what I've already touched on. By the time June rolls around, we'll be ready for our first patient--but I promise all of us will be nervous. We won't have anymore pre-clinical operative, endontics, or fixed prosth. classes ever again. During our second year, we will work on ortho, removable prosth, and oral surgery. By the time we are done with school, we will be ready to move into private practice just like other dental grads--and everyone's abilities will differ depending on their own skill development.
Hope that helps.
Holy $hit! You're such an a$$hole!!! Obviously Pacific doesn't help you along in the personality department! Wow!!!!!!!!JavadiCavity said:
Are all the students there as self-righteous as you? It's pretty easy to talk like that to someone you don't know through a forum. They don't have the opportunity to throttle you over the internet.
I may not know as much as you because you have a few-month head start on me, but I know something you don't know. Your personality as a dentist is your livelyhood. And guess what....you're in big trouble. Good luck with that, you pretentious dick. ANd don't talk to me again.
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Ronald Jeremy said:
I don't how you concluded that he's a "pretentious dick/a$$hole" based on his last paragraph. I thought it was civil. You have to understand that this a forum, where opinions are not withheld like the real-world, so just chill out.
Terrific point. Now re-read it and try to understand what you just wrote. In MY OPINION, the guy is an idiot.Unemployed said:
I 'concluded' that he's a "pretentious dick/a$$hole" because I've read some of the responses he's given people in the past. The guy has a serious problem with anyone having a different opinion than his own. He thinks he's "all knowing" because he's got a few months of dental school under his belt. WOW. Drop some more ten dollar dental anatomy words on all of us, then tell everyone how stupid they are because they haven't had a semester of dental school..yet.
This forum is designed to help pre-dents and dental students network and get help, not for someone to log on and be a condescending douche. If he wants to call people dumb, then he's a prick.....in my opinion. If you would like to defend your boy some more, start a new thread. You can title it, Poll: Is JanalCavity a dick??
I kid. 😉
Ronald Jeremy said:
Besides violating TOS, your comments show a lack of maturity. Learn to deal with criticism constructively or else you will be the one with serious a personality problem that could affect your livelihood.
I apologize if you took issue with my comments in anyway other than to improve the quality of your posts.
I think most people on this forum think that finishing dental school in 3 years is impossible and you arre leving stuff out. The truth is that UOP does prepare you well to be ready to practice in the real world. I think what matters is amount of time spent in school work while there rather than how many years it took to spend that much time. Remember you are going to school for 3 years and 8 months not 4 years, while UOP you go for 3 years. UOP is not for everyone because my friend goes there and it is really too much work. If you can't put too much work in I think four year programs are better for you. I know few UOP grads and they are great dentists and they went to private practice right after Dental School. I think UOP prepares you lot better than many other schools and their price is totally worth it. It is you ultimately that matters because school can only help so much. If I had been accepted to UOP I would have gone without a second thought. I didn't even get a damn interview from them though.
Thanks for the lesson, dad. I'll try really hard to improve the quality of my posts. What was I thinking when I posted something you don't agree with? I'm so sorry.JavadiCavity said:
You need to work on your tone. You see, people might think that your last comment was a bit sarcastic. Instead of implying that your peers are dumb, uninformed, or immature, you should just say you disagree with the issue at hand; respectfully disagree that is. You are using the classic Carl Rove technique of attacking the messenger. It really is effective, as proven by the last two presidential elections! But, it isn't working in the SDN forums. Boy, the stakes just aren't as high in here.
It's cool to disagree with someone, or maybe not even understand where another person may be coming from. But when you end your long winded rebuttals with a sharp jab at someone's intentions, or intellect, you are the one who comes off as a jerk.
Here's what I thought about your initial response to my comment. The first three or so paragraphs were OK. If you really do make dentures, you could have simply told me, politely, that I was incorrect about your cirriculum. After all, I did say that I wasn't quite sure about this!
What pi$$ed me off was your last couple sentences. You could have left that out. I checked out some of your other posts, and yep, you've degraded a good handful of people before. Not good. Your buddies at Pacific and BYU might think it's alright to talk like that to people, but no one else does. Did you forget that I am your peer? And that our profession is exclusive, tight-knit, and small? I can take constructive criticism fine. Too bad you're not in a position to give me any. Ever. I love you.
