Career Web Project
by Allison Sloan
Pursuing a career in dental hygiene.
A dental hygienist is someone who is usually expected to be interpersonal, kind, and good with their hands. These three qualities are some of the very characteristics that define me as a person. My major was dental hygiene during my first semester in college. I grew intimidated by the science courses that were required to get into the program and so I changed my major, which would have turned out to be a very long and winding road of eight years finishing school and then maybe getting a job in several years. I changed my major back to dental hygiene a year ago and have been volunteering at the dental clinic as an assistant to the dental students at the Shands hospital in Gainesville. Volunteering has made me even more interested in being a dental hygienist.
Descriptions of Dental Hygiene
U.S. Department of Labor
Professional Organizations
American Dental Hygienists' Association
Dental Hygiene Programs at Schools, Colleges and Universities
Santa Fe College
Employers
Medical/Health Dental Hygienist Beach - Employ Florida
Non-web Resources
1. Wilkins, Esther, M and Wiechmann, Lauri. Clinical Practice of the Dental Hygienist 10th ed. Philadelphia :Wolters Kluwer Health/Lippincott Williams & Wilkins, c2009. ISBN: 0781763223
At this point I must stress how difficult I believe it is to choose a career to work and love for the rest of your life. I have thought for many years what I might like to do for work but I simply cannot get myself to realize what it is that I am “passionate” about. Dental hygiene is something that I feel I will love doing for some time, perhaps even a decade, but most dental hygienists I have interviewed about the career tell me that the job grows boring after a year or two and the next step is usually to go back to school to become a dentist. As it turns out, it is very easy to go back to school, work part-time, and still earn $56k a year. My plan is to be a dental hygienist for a number of years and when I do figure out what it is that I am indubitably passionate about, I will go back to school for it.
Once someone gets into the dental hygiene program, the longest they will continue to be in school is about two years. This makes for a rather quick graduation and in most cases dental hygienists are able to get jobs fresh out of school. In this economy, getting a job right after graduating is a very big benefit of the dental hygiene major. A dental hygienist could work virtually anywhere there is civilization, which is yet another benefit. The only negative factors I have in my mind about dental hygiene at the moment is that getting accepted into the program is a very difficult task in itself; many programs do not accept more than fifteen people a year, and over a hundred apply usually. There are many tasks you can accomplish, however, to make it easier to get into the program, depending on the school.
I have always wanted to raise a family in North Carolina. I love wakeboarding and skiing and as it turns out, North Carolina is beautiful and has mountains and lakes, as well as a lower cost of living, so I’ve heard. If everything goes according to the way I have planned for some time now, I will be a dental hygienist somewhere away from the hustle and bustle of the city and have a horse or two. This has been my dream life. Being a dental hygienist is a career that will allow me to do this. I may not be a dental hygienist my whole life, but as I see it, it is a great start and I look very forward to it.
Career InfoNet
Florida Dental Hygiene Association
Hillsborough Community College
Dental Hygienist - Employ Florida
Dental Hygienist - Monster
2. Cooper, Mary Danusis. Essentials of Dental Hygiene: Clinical Skills. Upper Saddle River, N.J.: Pearson/Prentice Hall, c2006. ISBN: 0130462586
3. Darby, M.L.,Walsh, M. and Walsh, M. M. Dental Hygiene: Theory and Practice. Elsevier Health Sciences. March, 2009. ISBN: 1416053573
