Let's Talk Teeth

D1 & Done! Insights and Reflections from D1 Year

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In this special episode of "Let's Talk Teeth", Victor and Saad, now second-year dental students, share their experiences from their first year of dental school. They discuss the transition from undergrad, the importance of time management, finding a supportive study group, maintaining a balance between school and personal life, and dealing with challenges like burnout and imposter syndrome. They also offer advice to new dental students on managing coursework, staying involved in extracurriculars, and leveraging AI tools for studying. This insightful discussion aims to help new students navigate their dental school journey successfully.

00:00 Introduction and Episode Overview

00:16 Transition to D2: Reflections and Insights

00:43 Time Management Challenges

03:08 Importance of Study Groups

08:31 Dealing with Burnout and Imposter Syndrome

10:34 Social Life and Networking

11:56 Extracurriculars and Involvement

13:58 Advice for D1 Students

21:47 Final Thoughts and Shoutouts



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Saad Alamgir:

What's up, everyone? Welcome back to another episode of Let's Talk Teeth Today, we have a little different episode as I'm sure you could tell from the title. D1 and done. So Victor and I are officially D2's now, So for the class of 2028, congrats to y'all. Y'all got a fun four years ahead of y'all. And we just kind of wanted to give y'all some of our insights and what we've learned and what we wish we had known for D1

Victor Razi:

Saad and I made some bullets, so we have a good template to go by too, to make sure we don't miss anything super important to let you guys know.

Saad Alamgir:

Yeah, just going into expectations versus reality, kind of what we expected school to look like. So obviously we knew the time commitment was going to be a lot more. Everyone always knows that, but it's hard to really understand that until you're in that system. So for undergrad, I mean, basically just went to class whenever you had class and maybe you'd have some Tuesday mornings off Thursday, you know, Wednesday afternoons off. But for dental school, it was basically within two weeks, it was like eight to five every single day. So that was a pretty tough adjustment because that meant. Eight to five in class and then trying to figure out what time to study, what time to work out, what time to just have life. So that was a pretty big thing that I face just learning how to deal with time management. Victor, what about you?

Victor Razi:

Yeah. Time management was honestly probably my biggest thing because in undergrad, I was a business major, so I really had all the time of the day to do whatever which had its pros and cons. I think it definitely helped just being able to hang out with friends and do like hobbies and things like that. Academically didn't totally translate, but I was still able to get good grades and do everything else. Yeah, that time adjustment from going to from undergrad and then going into dental school, just really being more organized to. So the time adjustment having The time of the day to set out, when you're going to study, when to go to school, when you're going to work out how to prioritize those three things, you know, when to prioritize those three things. Yeah, I definitely think that undergrad is the biggest adjustment for me was more so time and then also just like the rigor of the coursework. And just getting kind of primed to studying, for me always studied a decent bit never, even an undergrad wasn't like the few hours before night before I tried to stay pretty on top of it studying, but in dental school, with the course load and having more classes, you have to be even more on top of just like studying or when you have a quiz and having a calendar or something to just keep you aware of what you're doing at all times.

Saad Alamgir:

Yeah. And I think something important that's really not, explicitly mentioned in school, but I think it's so important to find yourself a good study group. Guys that you'll pull up on a Saturday to bench or sim lab to drill a class one people that you're willing to study up all night in the anatomy lab. People like that they go a long way in helping you out. Obviously when all y'all are going through it together, there's no point And having to suffer alone, there's a, your whole class is suffering with you, so why not just lean on them for support, lean on them whenever you need it? Because times will get tough, but there's good times and bad times. There'll be days where, just had an easy test and everyone's leaving hype all your whole group just got good grades and you're all just really happy for each other. So it's just important to find. People that you could study with, that people you get along with, and you will find those people because obviously in dental school, you're surrounded by people who are very brilliant, very goal oriented, and That being said, it is easy to feel like you're not enough. And I think I speak for both Victor and I, to be quite honest, the first couple of weeks I was there, I was like, I don't think I deserve to be here, but you just got to remind yourself that you've been through this process. You deserve to be here. You'll have the backing of, like I said, all your classmates, your professors are there for you. And. I think it's important to remember that you will find a purpose. I mean, to be quite honest with you, like D1 it was definitely an adjustment and there were some things I wish I'd done better. There was a week, literally a couple of weeks ago this summer where I failed three tests in a row. It's tough, but I'm still here, you know, I mean, it happens and that's just life. That's dental school. It's just how you respond to it, how you bounce back. And at the end of the day, life goes on

Victor Razi:

for sure. Saad brings up a very important point to finding a friend group is important. You know, my friend group really sucks. So I'm trying to find a new one right now. I'm just playing, but yeah, no, that is. That is an important thing because it's a lot more bearable just having friends and, trying to be honestly, like trying to be a likable person, but still being yourself to and, you know, manage school and do all that.

Saad Alamgir:

Yeah. So going into the classes that you'll be expected to take as far as us. We took. I mean, we took anatomy, histology, morphology, oral radiology, caries, anatomy. I mean, it's just a whole lot of,

Victor Razi:

yeah,

Saad Alamgir:

quite a few classes that it feels like just never ends, but you get through it and ultimately some of those preclinical courses when it comes to biochemistry, histology, anatomy, like some of them are very tough and it's just. You gotta manage it with your classmates and just try to get through it.

Victor Razi:

I'd say a big tip on that too is with the classes that you have, I think a big character trait that you can develop or work on developing is just like how adaptable you are to the situation you're in. So if a class is really hard, then like you knowing that Hey, my studying strategy doesn't work. Let me try a new one. And then that one does work. So you keep that. And then, okay, now working out the morning doesn't work when we work out in the evening works better to keep that. So being able to adjust things with yourself as the difficulty and the differences in classes and schedule plays a part in like your role as a student.

Saad Alamgir:

And I think we touched on this, but managing our workload, obviously eight to five, you're pretty much in school, but something that I think is really important for anyone to do is you had a life before dental school and don't forget about that life after you start dental school. So what I mean by that. Dental school can get so busy to the point where you'll kind of forget that you used to be a person, but you got to find the things that help you relax, de stress for me, I I like working out a lot, I work out every day, and at the beginning of the year, I wasn't working out every day, I wasn't working out at all. And it kind of got to me, kind of stressed me out, made me question who I even was. Cause that's a lot of what I do. So about a month or two in, I made the decision I'm not going to compromise my, who I am for school. So at the end of the day, if something's important to you, make sure it's important to you and you'll always find time for the things that are important to you. Whatever that is on a, Vic play some golf. He works out, I mean, you got to find some stuff to de stress.

Victor Razi:

Yeah. Golf is an interesting playing it, trying to play it, you know. But yeah, I definitely agree with Saad that doing things that you enjoy while also being in school and I guess something I would try to reiterate to people is keep your hobbies and things you like to do and be comfortable too with you know, if you have three tests one week, But you have nothing going on the next week and maybe working out twice that week and then since you have a week off the next week, work out four or five times. So that kind of goes back to, to like the priority thing, knowing when to prioritize something and what's bringing you more joy and stuff in your life on top of your schoolwork.

Saad Alamgir:

Yeah, so moving on to burnout and imposter syndrome, I think I kind of touched on that a little bit, but times will get tough, but it's important again to have some people that you're going through it with that y'all can lean on each other for support. I can't stress how important that is, especially. It's going through stuff every day and, don't forget to do the simple stuff meal prep. If you can every week, just make sure you're not eating, you know, McDonald's or whatever they got every day. I know I was doing that for a little bit and yeah, every now and then you could you could enjoy it. But yeah. Is be sure to take care of yourself. I mean, it's easy to forget eat I mean, there'll be days where I'm so busy and I won't even realize that it's past lunchtime, So

Victor Razi:

for sure. Yeah. I'm with you there. I definitely think too, that nutrition is important too you with like how much you're studying and your time and all that, like your body will appreciate you putting good food into it. Not to say that I don't, eat out, do stuff like that too, but you know, as much as I can, try to have good meals that keep you light and not weigh you down.

Saad Alamgir:

Definitely. And then as far as burnout goes, I mean, it's tough, it's gets pretty repetitive at times. It feels like you're just doing the same thing every day, over and over again. And the best thing I could say is it gets better because it is tough. I mean, there are some times we have class every single day and it's the same two classes all week and it just makes you like, I don't know, it just makes you just really mad, honestly, just knowing that you're paying all this tuition for this makes you like question why, am I doing this? But at the end of the day, for me, I remember the day I got into dental school. I was with my parents and I broke down crying with all of them and it's just things like that can just bring you back to reality. Just don't ever forget what you're doing this for, no matter what it is.

Victor Razi:

For sure.

Saad Alamgir:

But. So we move

Victor Razi:

on to social life and networking. There's two very important topics.

Saad Alamgir:

I'm just going to first speak about the faculty that you'll come across your dental school. And the faculty is awesome. They're there for you. Your professors are there for you and they want nothing more than to get to know you and get to know where you're from, who you are outside of class, because the important thing is they've, you've already been accepted. They are, they're already stuck with you for four years. They want to see who it is they're stuck with. So just be yourself, really try to go out your way and speak to your professors, find out. What they like and what they're into at the end of the day, they're just people too. So try to get to know them

Victor Razi:

Another topic on that too, is try to, cause you're going to be hanging out with your dental school friends like all day, every day. So try to hang out with your friends too, that aren't a part of dental school. So you can kind of disassociate from dental school for a little bit. Yeah, that's a big factor that I think we'll go a long ways.

Saad Alamgir:

Yeah, definitely. Don't forget. Yeah like Vic said, don't forget about your relationships. outside of school. I mean, do what you need to do to relax and de stress, take the weekend off, take the night off, enjoy it out with a couple of your buddies, your girlfriend, boyfriend, whatever. I mean, at the end of the day, you spend so much time at school that it's important to share some experiences with people who aren't there with you every single day.

Victor Razi:

Okay. So next topic we have is extracurriculars and involvement.

Saad Alamgir:

I guess I got involved, Victor, and I both got involved into research the summer prior to entering dental school. So we were able to continue that. We were able to go. On a research conference this past spring break. So that was a lot of fun. I mean, I'm in like ADEA, just some dental organizations. Just it's good to be involved, at the end of the day, you just got to find out what you're passionate in, whether it's research or philanthropy or, outreach to dentists, just find out what you like and what you're interested in and try to pursue that through the school. If you can, just because. It'll help out in the future. You'll get to meet some people who will maybe one day make big decisions about your life, whether it's, being your professor or maybe like a job recruiter or something. So try to stay involved

Victor Razi:

on the same page as side, you know, did the similar clubs. My favorite one was for sure. I guess organization was intramural soccer. We had that going in the fall and then the spring. So it was it was good to keep playing soccer. It's the sport I played growing up. Keep playing soccer while still in dental school, some days it was rough having a nine o'clock game at night, but it was worth going to. And for me to kind of prioritizing things and knowing how to be adaptable. If we had soccer one night and then that would be my like workout slash like leg day or something like that for the week. Thrown in there. It was good way to stay healthy, but also, you know, being Yeah,

Saad Alamgir:

definitely. We, we had an intramural league for our, like all the schools that we go and we play like the M twos or like the PT school. So that was a lot of fun. That was, yeah, that was definitely one of the highlights. We got our season starting up at about, I think three weeks now. So we're excited to play some soccer again,

Victor Razi:

for sure.

Saad Alamgir:

But it's moving on to what we wish we had known. Any advice what do you think you wish you had known?

Victor Razi:

What I wish I had known Okay. What I wish I would have known is when you're going through dental school, at least in the very beginning, you're like all gas, no breaks. Let me study. I don't know how much I need to study for this and that. At least at this point now I've kind of have a decent gauge on how much time it takes to learn information. Not to perfection, but like to a degree like knowing how much I need to study for a test. So that way it just. Doesn't eat up all my time. So that's definitely something I wish I had known before. what do you have anything?

Saad Alamgir:

Something I'd wish I'd known just how I think it's important to really pay attention in class if you can, because. To be quite real the first couple of weeks and months of dental school, I would just just sit in class and I'll take notes and whatnot, but I wish I'd been super focused during that time and try to absorb as much information I can during lecture so that after lecture, I wouldn't have as much work because what ended up always happening is, I would end up after my lectures, just going back and it'd be like, I'm looking at my PowerPoint for the first time. So it's a simple thing, but just really trying to pay attention in class and knowing how much time to allocate to what class, I think that's really important too. There's some classes that will eat up at your time and it'll be like a two credit hour class versus a class that seems like it doesn't seem like a lot, but it's a eight hour class or a seven hour class. So I guess also goes back to prioritization. Just know what is important to prioritize and when, and just try to do the best you can. there's a lot of things that, are moving. There's a lot of things that you wish could be have done better your first year, but at the end of the day, it is what it is. You just gotta take the punches and move on and just continue to make something of it.

Victor Razi:

That's a big topic there too. I think big lesson that I've learned or learn or still learning is that how do you perform or what you do, dental school moves at such a, at a decent rate that like, you don't even have time to absorb how you did or what you did. You just have to pick up as much as you can, as fast as you can and move forward. And I think that's a big lesson learned is accepting whatever you do as your best work and then moving on to the next objective. So that's a, and once you get comfortable with that phase, whatever you do and how much effort you can put in is all you got and you're ready for the next. And I think that helps you, not dwell on your like previous assessments and stay, in the cycle of just appreciating the process rather than, chasing the goals per se.

Saad Alamgir:

Yeah, definitely. Do you have any, tips or advice for the D1s who are starting off or if you're a D1 now, what would you say to yourself?

Victor Razi:

I'd probably look into some like private equity jobs or real estate or something.

Saad Alamgir:

No, man.

Victor Razi:

Advice for D1s, definitely. order of prioritization. So get your meals down. No, if you're not a meal prepper, which makes a lot easier and saves time, know what your goals are for meal prepping. That way we have food down and then you got to go through the basic necessities. So food's down that way. And then sleep, make sure you're not compromising sleep. Cause I think that's really important to at the bare minimum getting, I guess it's somewhat subjective, but for me, I don't try to get less than six and a half hours and shooting for seven and a half. So get your sleep down your meals down. And then once you have a sleep down meals down, your roof is over your head. Now you can Start working on like when to prioritize, how much time you need to study and things like that. You'll pick up on like nuggets as you go, but yeah, those are definitely big things to, absorb and have as you're going through dealing with your side.

Saad Alamgir:

And I think that's pretty good advice. I would say. If I was a D1 and I had to give myself advice or maybe you're listening and you're a D1 and you want me to give you advice first off I would say enjoy the process accept the grind because it's going to be a lot and ultimately don't ever forget what you're working for and why you're working for what you're working for. And I say that because I feel like, during my D1, there were times where I'd forgotten what I'm doing. I'd get frustrated over classes which I thought were pointless or classes in which I thought I didn't need to know. And so instead of trying to learn it, I just put it off and just waited till the week of and just try to cram for it. That's not the way to do it. And I'd wish I'd told myself, There's going to be times where you're really uninterested in the information. There are going to be times where you don't understand it, but sit down and try to learn it. And there's so many learning tools now that can help you with it. You have obviously your professors, your friends, but I think utilizing AI to your advantage too, that could be a huge thing. You know, just even like the way I study now I'll have my PowerPoint in front of me, my notes in front of me and I'll have chat GPT pulled up. And if there's literally any question I have on my PowerPoint, I'll write down all the notes that I can on my PowerPoints. And if there's one thing that's kind of ambiguous or something I don't understand on the PowerPoint, I'll either screenshot that exact picture and upload it to ChatGPT and ask them what's happening, or I'll just ask ChatGPT Hey, I'm a dental student. This is one of our objectives, or this is one of our slides. Can you explain what this concept is? And it'll help you. I mean, Utilizing AI, especially as a student, it's not going to hurt you. I feel like a lot of people have a negative connotation when it comes to AI, but ultimately you have to learn it, whether AI teaches you or not. So why not just use that to your advantage? So that's something I would say, and just try to do the best you can. there are going to be times where you fail. I know me and Vic both have had our fair share of failures, but like Webb would say, one of our classmates, it'll all work out. So

Victor Razi:

shout out to Webb. That's good advice. Mine, mine is yeah, so mine will be, if you've gotten a dental school, then you have enough lined up for yourself to get in the position to get into dental school and really, I think that's enough to get you, that's almost enough to get you through. I mean, you were organized enough to keep up with classes. You were diligent enough to study for the DAT. You prioritize the right things to get you into dental school. So if you can use the same confidence you had that got you into dental school to get you through dental school, then I think you'd be fine. So I guess in essence of that whole statement you already have what it takes to get through dental school. You just have to implement it day in, day out every week, instead of studying three months for the DAT, you'll study four years to get through dental school, but you've proven what you got, what it takes to study three months Keep it up for a few more years and you'll be golden.

Saad Alamgir:

Yeah, that's good. I mean, it's good advice. You all deserve to be here, whether you realize it or not. Gotten accepted. You've gotten through the hard part. Now the easy part is going through four years of dental school, right?

Victor Razi:

Well, that's You got anything else?

Saad Alamgir:

I think that's about all we got. just want to give you an insight to our D one year. So hopefully y'all could kill it as well to those of y'all who are just now starting out. Maybe you're even applying or maybe even a D two. You just want to hear how D one went, but special

Victor Razi:

shout out to Saad. He he's the guy who handles everything behind the scenes. Well, he's our tech guy or AI guy our. He does everything that you could imagine. So yeah, special shout out to Saad for keeping everything. He's our zoom guy, everything. So a special shout out. And Webb, of course.

Saad Alamgir:

Yeah. Well, I appreciate it. I mean, it's a two man journey. I'm glad that we were able to, Do this during our D one year as well. something to do. I mean, best of luck to the class of 2028 and onwards. If y'all are still listening y'all are going to kill D one. And if y'all ever have any questions or need any advice from us, then always feel free to reach out to us. We'll always be here

Victor Razi:

for sure. Good luck guys.

Saad Alamgir:

Good Luck guys. And we'll see y'all next time.