Where to start?

[ChrisV5]

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Hello everyone! I've been strolling around these forums for two days now and found this place to be a dream come true. I currently am a Freshmen about to enter my 2nd semester at UMBC and have alot of questions which I have no doubt will be answered by searching some , but it seems that this forums is mostly directly towards Juniors/Seniors. Perhaps I am looking into this early? I'm not sure if my decision to register here was based on being too worried early on, or just overly ambitious, perhaps even both!

Anyway, at this stage in my college career what should I be doing? The most common advice I have received was to just do well in all my classes but i feel that there is more than I need/can do right now just i'm not sure what. Applying to a Dental school will be the most serious thing that I have ever done with my life and even though it is years away I want to carefully plan my journey from today to the day I send in my application.

Hopefully i'm not the only freshmen here 😀

 

[beatsdre]

1) Get a high GPA. Pref. a 4.0 obviously.

2) Find the easiest professors. There are NO hard classes, only jerk professors who sometimes love to fail entire classes. Yes, you can challenge yourself, but in the long run, the risk outweighs the reward. I.E. You get screwed by a professor, your gpa is a 3.0 and you end up fuming at the world that have good grades due to easy professors. Guess what? Noone cares and you're not going to end up in grad school unless you do well in the rest of your classes. The whole goal is getting a high gpa/dat no matter what. Period.

3)Do extracurriculars or something extra. Join community service or some clubs. If you want to aim at "high" schools, then look into doing some extra extra like going to the olympics, creating a club, etc.

4)Find a dentist to shadow. Not obscene amounts but around 100 should be fine.

5)Most importantly, have fun. It's undergrad. Go live life outside of your textbook. Dental school isn't that hard to get into provided you have a ~3.4 and somewhat decent DAT. People make it out to be some grand endeavour, but the reality with a good gpa and the advice given above, it will be a [Edit: a definate route to success] to get into med/pharm/dental school. ;p

 

[namiie]

Dental school isn't that hard to get into provided you have a ~3.4 and somewhat decent DAT. People make it out to be some grand endeavour, but the reality with a good gpa and the advice given above, it will be a cakewalk to get into med/pharm/dental school.

I was with you until that line. Cakewalk? Really?

To the OP, right now, your priority is to build as strong an academic foundation for yourself as you can. This will not only help you GPA-wise, but will help you out come DAT study time too. You should also look for extracurriculars that interest you and get involved with those, especially organizations that have community involvement aspects to them too. Get to know your professors as well.

And if you think you'd like research, find out about what kind of research your professors are doing. If any one of their projects interest you, you might be able to join in next year. Research is not necessary but I think it's a good learning experience.

 

[beatsdre]

I was with you until that line. Cakewalk? Really?

Whoops, I meant it in a "lets go get them" football peprally way. Dental school is definately an accomplishment and difficult. I was just trying to rally the masses.

 

[dentalWorks]

Hello everyone! I've been strolling around these forums for two days now and found this place to be a dream come true. I currently am a Freshmen about to enter my 2nd semester at UMBC and have alot of questions which I have no doubt will be answered by searching some , but it seems that this forums is mostly directly towards Juniors/Seniors. Perhaps I am looking into this early? I'm not sure if my decision to register here was based on being too worried early on, or just overly ambitious, perhaps even both!

Anyway, at this stage in my college career what should I be doing? The most common advice I have received was to just do well in all my classes but i feel that there is more than I need/can do right now just i'm not sure what. Applying to a Dental school will be the most serious thing that I have ever done with my life and even though it is years away I want to carefully plan my journey from today to the day I send in my application.

Hopefully i'm not the only freshmen here 😀

Although I am one who always says to stay away from undergrad pre-health advisers .... they do serve the purpose of giving you a sheet of paper that tells you what are all the pre-dental/pre-med (they are the same) courses you will need to take. Stop by their office and just ask for that sheet of paper... DON'T ASK THEM ANYTHING ELSE.... if you need advice, come back to SDN.

Your still young, so chances are, you might change your mind to other majors before you become a junior (You might go pre-med? maybe pre-pharmacy? maybe vet? who knows).... but the MOST important thing is that GPA. Do your best to keep both your overall and science GPAs at or above 3.5.......... It will make life soooo much easier if you decide to pursue a healthcare education later on.

Good luck to ya

 

[toothfairyy]

I'm a senior in UMBC, graduating this May!!!
I would say to definetly keep up with science classes, the orgo professors kind of make it rough but it's a matter of keeping up.
Go to the pre-dental society and then become a part of the board. Be active on campus, join an organization or do any of the volunteer opportunities that are offered.
Volunteer and/or shadow a dentist (100-150 hrs is sufficient) stay involved and active. But also, enjoy your undergrad experience!! I stayed active on campus with many events and hope to be a part of some this last semester too!
I loved my time in UMBC, it was hard and tiring at times but worth it!! 🙂

 

[ChrisV5]

I'm a senior in UMBC, graduating this May!!!
I would say to definetly keep up with science classes, the orgo professors kind of make it rough but it's a matter of keeping up.
Go to the pre-dental society and then become a part of the board. Be active on campus, join an organization or do any of the volunteer opportunities that are offered.
Volunteer and/or shadow a dentist (100-150 hrs is sufficient) stay involved and active. But also, enjoy your undergrad experience!! I stayed active on campus with many events and hope to be a part of some this last semester too!
I loved my time in UMBC, it was hard and tiring at times but worth it!! 🙂

Perhaps we already know each other 😀 I'm already in the Pre dent society

I also want to thank everyone for their replies so far, this is a career choice that i've had in mind since freshmen year of highschool and I got the chance to shadow a bit during that time so i know for a fact that this is what I want to do with my life!

I've also heard that the Pre-health advisers weren't as helpful as they make themselves seem so i've only talked to my Bio adviser and that conversation lasted a mere 5 minute

Another question I had was how did most of you manage to get shadowing experiences with multiple dentists, I only have mine that I stalked a few summers ago but I always wanted to see how the different specialities are compared to just being a general dentist.

Should I be strictly shadowing during my winter/summer breaks or is juggling it here and there during school not a death wish?

 

[Impulse155]

1) Get a high GPA. Pref. a 4.0 obviously.

2) Find the easiest professors. There are NO hard classes, only jerk professors who sometimes love to fail entire classes. Yes, you can challenge yourself, but in the long run, the risk outweighs the reward. I.E. You get screwed by a professor, your gpa is a 3.0 and you end up fuming at the world that have good grades due to easy professors. Guess what? Noone cares and you're not going to end up in grad school unless you do well in the rest of your classes. The whole goal is getting a high gpa/dat no matter what. Period.

3)Do extracurriculars or something extra. Join community service or some clubs. If you want to aim at "high" schools, then look into doing some extra extra like going to the olympics, creating a club, etc.

4)Find a dentist to shadow. Not obscene amounts but around 100 should be fine.

5)Most importantly, have fun. It's undergrad. Go live life outside of your textbook. Dental school isn't that hard to get into provided you have a ~3.4 and somewhat decent DAT. People make it out to be some grand endeavour, but the reality with a good gpa and the advice given above, it will be a [Edit: a definate route to success] to get into med/pharm/dental school. ;p

I found out number 2 the hard way. Now my classes arent based on whats interesting to me unfortunately. They are completly based off of what rate my professors says is easy or hard. I had two classes that I will never forget.
Class 1: Professor decided to change his standardization because he felt that the class was too curved. Over half the kids in his class ended with a C.
Class 2: Final is 100% of your grade. 40 questions. Multiple choice. Choose the INCORRECT answers. Each question is a brief word. ie: Renal System: And there will be 4 choices each about a paragraph long and there will be one word that will be changed to make the sentence frmo completly correct to incorrect. Ended up with a C in this class. Sucks because it was my physiology class.
A C in the class was a cumulative avg of a 38-47. Go figure I had 47. Below a 25 was failing 25-37 was a D. So technically if you put A for every answer, you get a 25 which would end up as a D. Over a 70 was an A.

Now I used rate my professors only and my gpa is about a 3.4 for the past 2-3 semesters.

Other tips outside my rant:
Follow the above guidlines. Most of the time if you go to your administration office and ask for the alumni list you can find a list of dentists in your area. After that just call and say, Hi I am currently attending _____ University, I would like to pursue a carreer in dentistry. Once they hear that you want to pursue their field and went to the same college 99% of the time they wont say no. Plus you have to shadow in order to get into dental school.

Next, like said, EC activities.
Pre med society.
Pre dental society if your school has one.
Red cross
Anything else that interested you.
Also like said, take time to relax. When I study ill never study for more than about 3 hours before forcing myself to take a 30 minute break or so.

 

[ChrisV5]

I made it guys. I made it.

 

[AlecGaro]

I made it guys. I made it.

Haha I just realized this is an old thread. Where did you end up going for D school?