Quest to Hygiene School

I know I have already mentioned dental hygiene thousands of times in my front page, but I would have to say it is the biggest thing going on in my life right now. That is why it is going to be the first thing I write about in my blog. :-D



I first started thinking about dental hygiene way back in High school. I was doing the running start program and trying to decide what I wanted to do for a future career. I loved science, but knew I never would want to do research is some lab. My Aunt is a Dental Hygienist and recommended it. I started the prerequisites, but got intimidated towards the end at the hard classes and the pressure to get high grades in them. So instead of continuing, I took some time off and went to work full-time. It didn’t take too long of working at United Rentals before I decided I wanted to go back to school.


Since I was still too intimidated to try for hygiene, I decided to go back to school for Dental Assisting. I found out through an oral surgeon assistant that dental assistants actually make pretty decent money, unlike what I had heard previously. Fall of 2006, I enrolled into the Dental Assisting program at Renton Technical College. It was hard and challenging, but it was so great to feel like I was planning my future career. In summer of 2007 I graduated from the program with my CDA.


I started working at my first office in Renton and learned quickly that it was a good field for me. However, I learned quickly that being a dental assistant was not what I wanted. I didn’t like the pay and wanted to have more respect. I knew that after being in the field for awhile I could be successful and should go back to school for hygiene.


It was a hard step to take. I had to work full time to support myself and apartment and go to school. It took one year to finish up the rest of my prerequisites and I was able to apply to six schools. My overall science GPA is a 3.95 which makes me pretty competitive with my dental experience. I recently have done 3 interviews and more testing for all the schools I applied to. (Which is an accomplishment all in itself)I still have one more interview at Seattle Central on the 8th, then on April 16th I should know what school I got into and hopefully I will get to go to my #1 choice LWTC.


I can’t wait to start my journey through hygiene school. I know it will be a long tuff road, but it will be so worth it to know that I did not let fear get in the way of my overall dream. I am so excited to see what the future holds for me. Just goes to show you can’t let fear hold you back or I never would have even tried to go back to hygiene school.