I was accepted into an out-of-state dental school on the West Coast a few years ago when I was about 25. It was one of the happiest days of my life when I got my acceptance call. I maintained a 3.55 GPA in undergrad and scored 23 A.A and 24 T.S. on the DAT. I worked extremely hard and made many sacrifices to get into dental school. Unfortunately, I had a lingering mental illness that only got worse when I started dental school; the overwhelming stress of moving 2,000 miles away from home and taking 13 classes simultaneously pushed me over the edge, and made me experience full-blown psychosis. I moved back to my home state after withdrawing in my first semester, and I spent a year blowing money and doing nothing productive before my family had had enough and petitioned me into a psychiatric hospital. I had to stay at the hospital for over a month and go through many different drugs before one finally knocked me back into my senses.
The experience of living with schizophrenia for nearly 10 years and being completely isolated during that time was a complete shock; i decided to take another year off school and rekindle with my family members who I had not spoken to in years. The trauma of my situation led me to contemplate suicide on multitudinous occasions. I'm sure my mental illness played a major role as to why I could not succeed in dental school, but I also feel that I didn't study enough and used the wrong study methods. I also realized early on that I didn't enjoy dentistry or very much like working with my hands. I struggle with depression nearly every day of my life.
I am currently 29 and have about $100,000 in student loans and am in a program to earn an M.S. degree. I was given the option of returning to dental school, but a part of me fears that I'll fail out of the program again. Or even if I do graduate from dental school, whether I'd be able to be licensed as a dentist.
I am considering going into a PhD program to become a researcher, but am unsure of what to do at this point. Any advice is appreciated, and thank you for reading this.
The experience of living with schizophrenia for nearly 10 years and being completely isolated during that time was a complete shock; i decided to take another year off school and rekindle with my family members who I had not spoken to in years. The trauma of my situation led me to contemplate suicide on multitudinous occasions. I'm sure my mental illness played a major role as to why I could not succeed in dental school, but I also feel that I didn't study enough and used the wrong study methods. I also realized early on that I didn't enjoy dentistry or very much like working with my hands. I struggle with depression nearly every day of my life.
I am currently 29 and have about $100,000 in student loans and am in a program to earn an M.S. degree. I was given the option of returning to dental school, but a part of me fears that I'll fail out of the program again. Or even if I do graduate from dental school, whether I'd be able to be licensed as a dentist.
I am considering going into a PhD program to become a researcher, but am unsure of what to do at this point. Any advice is appreciated, and thank you for reading this.