Becoming an Orthodontist is an exciting and rewarding career. You will be able to help people keep their smile looking great and teeth straight. Having a beautiful smile makes people feel good about themselves and boost their self-esteem. They will now have the confidence to go out and do the things in life that they couldn’t do before because they were embarrassed about their teeth. So what exactly does it take to become an Orthodontist? It takes a certain level of education and determination to succeed because the competition in the dental field is fierce.
Graduate High School
The first step in obtaining the right education to become an orthodontist is to graduate High School of course. It may sound easy but high school can be a very trying time for young kids. They are learning how to be teenagers, dealing with hormones and emotions on a very high level and also trying to academically succeed. To get the right education to become an orthodontist you will need to buckle down in high school and keep your grade point average as close to a four-point zero as you can. This will mean that you will have to study hard and make sacrifices in order to get good grades. If you know that you want to be an orthodontist then you will need to start taking as many science and anatomy classes as you can while you are in high school.
Undergraduate Degree
The next step to complete your orthodontist education is to get an undergraduate degree or Bachelor’s Degree in Science. This process will take you four years but if you take extra classes and take summer classes you may be able to complete it in about three years. You will be taking a long list of biology, chemistry and anatomy classes in order to prepare you for your next step which is dental school. Every dental school has different education requirements so before jump right in you may want to contact the dental school that you want to attend to make sure that you are taking the right classes.
Dental School
Now you are ready to apply for dental school. Keep in mind that acceptance into dental school isn’t guaranteed and you make take an entrance exam called a DAT in order to gain entrance into the school. Once you complete the test the school will take into consideration your test scores and your grades from high school and your undergraduate degree and make a decision on whether or not they will accept you into their school. If accepted then you will be in the dental school to obtain your DDS for four years. After the four years of dental school, you have to decide if you want to continue your education to become an orthodontist. The orthodontist specialty school will require you to complete another two years of education. However, if you can stick with it for about ten years then you will be an orthodontist and make about two hundred and fifty thousand dollars a year. Learn more here about the questions to ask the orthodontist.
