hi everyone, I really need advice on my dental school journey so please advise.
for some background:
- I graduated in 2021 with a degree in Biology (3.4 GPA/3.0 sGPA) but my junior and senior year were prime pandemic years so I kind of lost interest in what I was doing and just graduated to graduate. I was working as a medical assistant because I was previously interested in medical school.
-once I graduated I decided to pursue a masters in biomedical sciences and in the middle of my first semester (fall 2021) I decided to drop out due to a lot of personal problems.
-I got a job the following year (march 2022) at a pharmaceutical company in compliance and I've been working there ever since
-about a month ago, I looked into dental and I found it really interesting so I've been shadowing a dentist ever since and I decided that I do want to pursue dental
the questions I have:
-I need letters of recommendation and to get a refresher on how to be a student again so what would be better post-bacc or masters program? and does anyone have recommendations for either?
-what should I do to prepare for the DATs?
-how many hours are recommended for shadowing and/or volunteering?
-how do you guys fight imposter syndrome?
also, if anyone has any advice in general, please share! I feel like I decided a career in dental really late and I'll probably graduate dental school at 29 or 30 which I know isn't old but I'm feeling the pressure of "wasted time" from literally everywhere :/
thank you in advance!!
for some background:
- I graduated in 2021 with a degree in Biology (3.4 GPA/3.0 sGPA) but my junior and senior year were prime pandemic years so I kind of lost interest in what I was doing and just graduated to graduate. I was working as a medical assistant because I was previously interested in medical school.
-once I graduated I decided to pursue a masters in biomedical sciences and in the middle of my first semester (fall 2021) I decided to drop out due to a lot of personal problems.
-I got a job the following year (march 2022) at a pharmaceutical company in compliance and I've been working there ever since
-about a month ago, I looked into dental and I found it really interesting so I've been shadowing a dentist ever since and I decided that I do want to pursue dental
the questions I have:
-I need letters of recommendation and to get a refresher on how to be a student again so what would be better post-bacc or masters program? and does anyone have recommendations for either?
-what should I do to prepare for the DATs?
-how many hours are recommended for shadowing and/or volunteering?
-how do you guys fight imposter syndrome?
also, if anyone has any advice in general, please share! I feel like I decided a career in dental really late and I'll probably graduate dental school at 29 or 30 which I know isn't old but I'm feeling the pressure of "wasted time" from literally everywhere :/
thank you in advance!!