Great questions!
1)I had to make some difficult decisions the initial years of dental school. I was used to going out often, spending tons of time with friends, and generally doing what I wanted to do while in undergrad; besides spending a few hours before exams I was pretty much free. In dental school I quickly realized in order to stay on top of the mountain of material, I had to study proactively. I guess it depends on what school you go to, but those are questions to ask the students during the interviews (definitely do that!!!). So what I did was take a Friday afternoon off and make set amounts of time that I would look over the material. Mine was generally 3 hrs per day after school. I had to sacrifice more time with friends in dental school compared to undergrad. However, even times of heavy studying, I would take the time out to go on runs and it really helped with the stress!!
2) the one thing I can think of that I would do differently is to just turn down the stress I would put on myself. I did pretty well in my didactic work, and maybe the stress put on myself helped with that, but chill little DS1 lol! Don’t compare yourself to others.
3) I picked up running about 3-4 days a week to deal with the stress. Competition is a real thing in dental school. Everyone is comparing themselves to everyone else. People in your class are used to being highly successful, that’s why they made it into this competitive field to begin with. My best advice: unless you are really concerned about your performance, just chill and ride on. Do your best, adapt to the amount of coursework, study to stay in tune with the material, and ask PROFESSORS for help, not other classmates. Professors are much better suited to help you out and they generally care about your success. Or if you find another student whom you share study habits with, that’s pretty good too!
4)pick a certain amount of time during the week and on weekends that your are willing to put to the side to study. Take as good of notes as you can. Oh ya, you can type faster than you write by hand...trust me. Look over your notes. And if your school records lectures, time is generally better spent relistening to the lectures on 1.5 speed vs going to class if attendance isn’t important. Wish someone would have told me that in the beginning!
5) during your interviews simply ask the students involved in your interview process if they feel prepared to practice Dentistry. If they say no or if multiple say no, be wary. I feel pretty prepared, and I feel you should be if you make the most out of your clinic time (last two years). There is a refugee clinic at my school you can spend extra time at. You can take time during your time off of clinic (generally an afternoon or two depending in what school you go to, it’s scheduled every week) and go shadow one of the specialty clinics. I found that if you ask faculty involved in public health, they have a lot of resources for you if you want to spend the extra time to get more general dentistry experience.