Selecting your College and Course for Dentistry masters in dentistry in the UK/USA/Australia/Canada

Nov 2, 2020
4 min read

Updated: Feb 6, 2021

“Those who truly have the spirit of champions are never wholly happy with an easy win. Half the satisfaction stems from knowing that it was the time and the effort you invested that led to your high achievement.”

-Nicole Haislett

Photo courtesy -@indykadeer

Somehow a lot of dentists ( don't know if this is specific to dentists) seem to underestimate the importance of this major decision in life .
NO TWO PEOPLE HAVE A SIMILAR CAREER!!! AND FOR THAT REASON , YOU NEED TO FIGURE OUT WHAT YOU WANT .
Just because someone succeeded / failed in a certain path does not mean you too will have a similar experience!
Somehow I have been contacted quite a few times to be able to guide someone on their master's journey, without the person having given any thought to this important decision.
It's almost as important as deciding on a spouse - it will stay with u for life/it's life-changing!
My research for a college and course was almost 2/3 years long and talking to alumini's , finding out what I wanted, how long I was prepared to invest in a course , what I wanted to do with my degree, how much of a financial burden we ( me and my supportive hubby!) were willing to take on , were we willing to relocate for the course and many other factors.
The Birmingham dental school was literally a stone's throw from my house at the time when I started looking at options , but after much calculated risks , I decided I wanted to do a course to get on the specialist list , did not think anything else would quench my thirst although I was mighty discouraged by many.
First time I applied to all three of the colleges in London(Kings, Queen Mary's and Eastman), the only 3 , offering a course to become a specialist in Prosthodontics in the UK at the time. I realised later my research and execution of my SOP /CV/CPD lacked perfection.
Second time around I found out about each of the institution's, it’s advantages and disadvantages, got in touch with current and previous students, faculty, visited all three of the schools and met the HOD's and then decided that I wanted to study only at King's College London, as it had all specifications that I was looking for and would help me to reach my long term goals. I decided to also apply to Barts and Queen Mary’s as my plan B.
The reason for leaving out Eastman as a choice, although it was world-renowned for its post-graduation, was because I found out in my research it was a stressful course and needed much more commitment in terms of time and effort and I had a small young family that also needed attention. Another strong factor was I felt I belonged when I walked into Guy's tower of KCL, you have to listen to your gut instinct sometimes.
Persistence, goal-oriented information gathering and decision-making helped me in tailoring my CV, SOP, CPD to cater to what KCL staff was looking for and helped me get noticed among the many applications.
My competition was from students who have studied at KCL itself , so knew the extended staff- from lab technicians to tutors to compound managers to nurses ( which all adds up I feel ) , with references from internal staff , it was a battle I had to fight out to get one of the slots - although I faced many demotivating and negative feedback while I was applying , I ploughed on and it paid off.
My reasons for sharing this with you all is to help you understand a few very valid pointers
- No goal is easy
- Not every courses is for you
- Not every colleges is for you
- Not every job is for you

You have to be clear of what you want for others to be able to see it. This is an important factor be it -where you want to study or what you want to study as these are important life-changing decisions.
I get quite frustrated when someone asks me questions like what course should I do? or which country is good for me ....And I have been asked this time and again too......There are at least 100 courses in the different colleges for post-graduation in the UK and this decision needs a lot of time and research and self-evaluation to know what is best suited for you.
No-one other than you would know what you want in your life.
Every course is of benefit depending on what you make of it... so that's an important choice - and you should make a choice after a lot of thought and complete understanding of why you want to do it.
In India, there was a time that our parents /elders, helped us make such important decisions for us but now it has to be completely in your hands and you have to rely on the one person who is determined to make you successful - YOU!