Tutorial-How to become a Dentist

***I love to craft but I have to take a few days off, I promise I will be back with a vengeance as soon as my crafty supplies are unpacked at my new house NEXT week...until then I will share some inspirations and some life moments....please continue to follow---my crafting will be back in no time! 

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I know my blog is primarily a crafty blog, but I also love to be honest and talk about what is going on in my world.

So in the spirit of my up-coming graduation I wanted to do a silly reflection upon what it took ME become a dentist.

Step 1:  Graduate from High School and come out alive, with a few friends, and an okay gpa...but let me stop here and be honest I couldn't have cared less about my grades in high school I cared much more about my social life...ahhh priorities at that time!

Step 2:  Go to college, afraid of not being smart enough, work semi hard while focusing at first on being away from home and my new found freedoms.  I concurrently starting to see that college was my time to focus on myself and my goals and to put aside distractions. Somewhere in this mix of time I started getting good grades and a better self-esteem.  I then started working at an oral surgery office during school breaks and fell in love.  A couple of friends believed in me and convinced me to re-consider my aspirations of being a nurse.  I then did the the typical college struggle of what-do-I-REALLY-want-to-be-when-I-grow-up.

Step 3: Put everything aside all fears, all self doubt and go against the odds, change majors from nursing (when already accepted into the program) to pre-dentistry.  Change schools for a more competitive biology degree and set myself back a year in school.

Step 4: Put all efforts into getting into dental school.  Every thought every thought was centered around the doubts and fears that I would have changed majors and schools only to find out I wasn't good enough or not an ideal candidate to get into dental school.  Asked and begged for my family to help me attend a class in a city an hour and a half away to prep for the test to apply for dental school (DAT).  Took the DAT and didn't do well enough.  Doubted myself, doubted life, doubted my decisions, doubted EVERYTHING.  Studied more than I ever thought possible (we are talking months here) and re-took the DAT and did well.

Step 5:  Apply to dental school, write essays, fill out paper and computerized forms, research schools, and if you are very very lucky interview.

Step 6: Interview, feel inadequate to the other applicants, try my best even though interviewing was hard for me. Realize that it might all be worth it because being a dentist is the only thing I want to do, the only thing I can dream of being.

Step 7: Wait and wait and cry like crazy when December 1st rolls around (the first day schools are allowed to accept applicants) and not get a phone call.  Interview at the University of Michigan Dec. 1.  Have the University of Michigan tell you that you won't hear from then until late January if you get accepted and then hear from the December 28th saying you have been accepted.

Step 8:  Cry like crazy feeling SO so SO happy and bewildered that I was accepted against all odds---100 students accepted of the 4,000 that apply.  Start thinking there might have been a mistake.

Step 9: Move to a different state (although not thatttt far away), leave the boyfriend who I cared dearly about.  And actually, after dreaming of learning about teeth for four and a half years of undergrad, start learning all things related to dentistry.

Step 10:  Survive the worst year of my life, the first year of dental school.  Written work and developing hand skills while study all night every night and hardly sleeping.  Start working on patients and being so so so excited to use what I was learning while loving the patient interaction.

Step 11: Survive the first semester of second year and part one of written boards and then having a break meaning only one or two exams a week and less laboratory work.  While seeing patients a couple of times a week.

Step 12:  Enjoy third year, enjoy seeing patient while struggling through firsts for everything but learning SO much from each patient encounter all while providing good work.

Step 13:  Actually have the feeling of being on the top of the heap so to speak, while being pained that I still had an entire year to be at the school but understanding I still had more to learn.

Step 14:  Take boards on a "fake" manikin teeth, take three days of written boards, and one day of real patient boards---and find out results and cry with happiness when each exam was officially passed. 

Step 1:  Start finishing things, finishing last exams, last time seeing patients (this is harder than you might think---I developed strong relationships with my patients and it was hard to say goodbye!).....start feeling sad because the end is nearing and yet feeling growing pains---meaning that it is time to move on.

What have I learned?!?!?  SO SO much, and it has all made me who I am, just a crafty girl who wants do great work, be a good person and be happy.

Thank you for being here at this blog and for taking a moment to listen to my real life adventure not just as a crafter but as a real life gal too!

***All quotes are on my pinterest board with links please check them out here if you would like to know where they came from***