A normal week in dental school: *for a 2nd year dental student during 2nd semester.
On most days, class starts at 8am and ends at 5pm. I wake up at about 6:30am and end up leaving the house at about 7:20am to avoid any possible traffic that I might run into.
Mondays and Tuesdays of this semester, we start our day down the hill (which is in the basic sciences building--where we take our non-dental classes). We start these days off with pharmacology. After pharmacology, we go up the hill (which is where the dental school is located) to take periodontics. If we don't have periodontics, we pretty much have a free period. This time can be used to either chill, go get a bite to eat, or go up to the lab and work on assignments for our fixed prosthodontics class, removable partial dentures class, or operative dentistry class. After this, it is time for lunch! I either eat lunch in Cal Turner (our student center) or up in the dental school's student lounge if I have to study or do other things while I'm eating. Also, sometimes I go to Lunch and Learns which is when someone is invited to our school to speak to us about a certain topics (like life after dental school, how to get into residency programs, different job options, etc.). These are always really fun and it's nice that you can just pick and choose the ones that you want to go to depending on what you want to learn more about. After lunch, our next class on Mondays or Tuesdays are usually radiology or more pharmacology. We finish up these days with dental materials, periodontics, biomedical integration seminar, or more pharmacology.
On Wednesdays, Thursdays, and Fridays, our days are really different. We start off our days in the dental school in our lab with either fixed prosthodontics or removable partial dentures. Sometimes our professor lectures the whole class period (which is until 12) but he often lets us work on our lab work for most of the day. This is nice because we get to work at our own pace. After this class, we go to lunch then we have our operative class which is when we learn about/ practice different cavity preparations and restorations. Most days, we go to the simulation lab to work on them as well. These days are mostly filled with lab work so I sometimes stay late after school to work on anything that I did not get to finish throughout the day or I use this time to practice my cavity preparations and restorations. These days, we get to really experience more of what being a dentist will be like. We get to work with our hands!
After leaving class at 5 or leaving lab (sometimes I stay until about 7 or 8), I get home, eat and take a nap, then get back up and study until it's time for bed. I do take at least one day a week where I don't study after class though.
On the weekends, I catch up on work but I also take some time to myself to relax or do something fun. I go home or to visit my boyfriend about once a month so I do definitely get a chance to get away.
I know it seems REALLY busy but there are definitely a lot of fun times in dental school. My class is really close and supportive of each other so it makes the experience more enjoyable. I've gotten to know a lot of people from other classes this year and they are very welcoming and supportive as well!
Everybody's experience here is different but it's very easy to connect with great people and do some really great things here!