DDS2BE said:
Also, I would appreciate if any one of you 2008 people have any tips, tricks or recommendations to successfully survive
Here are my recommendations:
Don't buy those required or recommended textbooks right away! Most of them are useless and are a waste of your money! You should talk to an upper year first to see what they recommend. Sometimes there are better books then what the school recommends! From my experience, you will probably do very well on most courses without books other than the ones that I have stated below. However, if you are a book lover, I suggest you first search
http://www.half.ebay.com/textbooks or amazon.com for them as they will probably be cheaper than the ones at the school bookstore.
Gross Anatomy: Dr. Landers is one of the smartest professor that you will have in 1st year, however because he is so intellectually gifted, it is very hard for him to teach the lectures at a lower 'easy-for-student-to-understand' level. Therefore, when he lectures, a lot of information will be way over your head and will sometimes to discouraging to show up for class. His lecture notes are not great at all, with mostly figures and couple pages of notes in between. But it is good to listen well in his class and take as much notes as you can and try to understand and connect things that are important at home. His tests are mainly test files (less on the first test but increase in 2nd and 3rd test). He also has a big 'bell-curve' in this course as many students do have difficulty in this class (so don't worry - rarely you will remediate in this class)
Recommended books:
1) Gross Anatomy - Kyung Won Chung; Board Review Series (this is the best book you can get for gross anatomy)
2) Color Atlas of Anatomy: A Photographic Study of the Human Body - Johannes Rohen (this is a GREAT substitute if you don't show up for Dissection of the Human Body, however it will be better for you to go to those classes as the photos in the book are clearly dissected, whereas, in class, they are not and those will be the ones you will use on the tests (hint: look over test files to see which items are tested on and review the location of those on cadaver, he will most likely be testing those key items again on the tests)
Dental Anatomy: Don't know if they have changed the format of the course book but when I had it the information were everywhere and difficult to understand. For tests, Dr. J will rarely reuse test file questions, but do look through one for two recent tests to familiarize yourself with the format. She likes to put detractors on every single question just to screw your mind so read carefully on each question!
Recommended book:
Dental Anatomy - Its Relevance to Dentistry (this book is good at identifying the key features of each tooth as well as ways of differentiate it from other similar teeth from all sides. Excellent if you are having trouble in this section)
General Histology: If Dr. Tandler is still teaching, take good notes in lectures as they will be the only material that he will use on his tests. He doesn't use test files as well. As for identification part of the tests, just take photos or videotape all the slides he shows near the conclusion of each class and just memorize for them. He will use majority of the slides for the tests from class slides.
Recommended book: None really, any general histo book will be good for reference. But as I said, he only take questions from lecture materials
Facial Growth: Don't know if Dr. Hans will be changing the format of his tests this year after when the whole class found a way to ace his tests. If he does, I guess just to attend the 1/2 hr lectures.
Recommended book: None. Dr. Hans has a book that he had published as a recommended book, but I don't know how useful is it.
Biochem: You are lucky, Dr. Whittingham will be teaching the entire course this year and he is a great lecturer. Along with good lecture notes he will explain it in a way to make it easy for you to understand. His lectures will be interesting as he will pull some interesting stories about his son in lectures. You are also lucky because his tests are all from Brainslicer. So if you do and memorize all the questions on Brainslicer you will definately get an excellent grade in the course.
Recommended book: If you do want to learn, you can get the Biochemistry; Board Review Series.
Neurobiology: If the course format stays the same, you will have both Dr. Landers (Dr. Test files) and Dr. Whittingham (Dr. Brainslicer) for this course. Because each will rely heavily on test files and brainslicer to formulate their questions for their tests, you can get by without a need for any textbook. It will save you some money!
Periodontics: The prof might be changing the format of the tests this year. So I don't know what info to give you. But in general, the course is pretty straightforward.
Recommended book:
Clinical Periodontology by Carranza - this is a required or recommended book for the course. Although you will not be needing it for the course (from experiences of upper years and myself), it is a good book as many other dental schools are using this book as well and it is also good to have for future reference.
Critical Thinking: A waste of time. The professor don't know how to teach and the examples she use in class are horrible. Just learn from the handouts and you should be good.
Outreach: Basically study the lecture notes. Pretty straight forward until you reach the drugs section.
, I know this from one of my co-workers who is all into this show.
throughout those classes. I remember some one mentioned videotaping some class but dont remember which class and I dont feel like going back through this long a$$ thread 
