DENTAL HYGIENE SCHOOL ADMISSION ESSAY

           

I recently got an email from someone who stumbled upon my blog and is interested in joining the very special Dental Hygiene Program. She asked couple of questions on how the program was so far and I explained to her that being in middle of my second semester and in first year there is only so much I could tell her. So we focused on "How to Get in the Program" It’s something I wrote about in one of the first blog posts but one major element was forgotten, How to write the Essay. Some people make the great mistake of plagiarizing someone else work and post it as their own. It's very enticing, tempting and even very easy to do in this great times of Mr. Google AKA Know It All. But looking at in the fact that you are going to Professional School where you are going to be trained to become a responsible professional, it borders on irresponsibility, laziness and outright dishonesty.

 Good communication skills, either through writing or verbal presentation goes a long way in any self-respecting career. It helps if we keep horning your skills through practice or school. We will be expected to communicate with our patients as we explain to them what to do and write reports on what we did with the patients. So in an attempt to give a very vague idea of what to write in that admission essay I put up a quick sample on what our 2018 Class were expected to write as one of the 2 or 3 essays we were supposed to choose from.  Critics welcome anytime as it's the only way we can all grow together.

                       A Novel That Influenced the Way I view the World and Why.

Reading various books as been a lifelong hobby for me.  Being an avid reader, I read randomly from fiction, science, law to biographies, theories and even growth and motivational books. From my many readings I recall many concepts and characters. However, none left a more permanent change to my view of the world than a book called Mindset: The new psychology of success by a Stanford University psychology professor Carol S. Dweck.

The professor spent decades researching on achievement and success. This is something that everyone in the whole wide world has some interest in. Everyone wants to be successful in whatever they do even if it’s not for the good of community. Carol Dweck brings in a very simple concept about success that changes everything the world believed about success. She focuses on the idea of mindset which she explains as a mental attitude that determines how human beings interpret and respond to different situations.

There are two different kinds of mindsets; the growth mindset and the fixed mindset. In fixed mindset, people believe that their qualities are carved in stone and this creates an urgency to prove them over and over. Dweck explains why it’s not just our abilities and talent that bring us success—but whether we approach them with a fixed or growth mindset. She makes clear why praising intelligence and ability doesn’t foster self-esteem and lead to accomplishment, but may actually jeopardize success. With the right mindset, we can motivate our kids and help them to raise their grades, as well as reach our own goals—personal and professional. Dweck reveals what all great parents, teachers, CEOs, and athletes already know: how a simple idea about the brain can create a love of learning and a resilience that is the basis of great accomplishment in every area

The other mindset is the growth Mindset. This is the mindset in which these traits are not simply a hand you're dealt and have to live with, always trying to convince yourself and others that you have a royal flush when you are secretly worried it's a pair of tens. In this mindset, the hand you're dealt is just the starting point for development. This growth mindset is based on the belief that your basic qualities are things you can cultivate through your efforts. Do people with this mindset believe that anyone can be anything, that anyone with proper motivation or education can become Einstein or Beethoven? No, but they believe that a person's true potential is unknown (and unknowable); that's it’s impossible to foresee what can be accomplished with years of passion, toil, and training.

I always viewed the world as a place for failure and success based on ones talents or natural gifts. I had a fixed mindset and believed that those that failed or became successful did so because they were created that way and that nothing about them could be changed.  I changed this view after learning about the growth mindset. Essentially, the book makes a case that those people who look at everything they do in life as a learning opportunity are much more successful.

I think where this comes into play most often is when we face a setback, or a failure. Whether that’s getting rejected from something (a job, a team, a school etc.), messing up at work, having your boss yell at you, losing at something, getting laid off, making a bad bet and even someone walking out on you in a relationship . Most of us have many setbacks in our lives. How we deal with those is incredibly important. If we let the setback define us, we might think we aren't talented after all, and lose confidence. If on the other hand, we look at it as something we can learn from, we improve as a person. Yes this book did change not only my life but how I viewed the world when it came to success and failure.
Ps: This is not a perfect article but a guideline on how you should go abour your essay.