AUGUSTA, Ga ()- A big day for students at the Dental College of Georgia where more than 200 students attended the 25th annual Impressions Day.

The program gives students experience with mock interviews, tours and hands on simulations.

Aliyah Hill is a third year student at DCG and gives advice for anyone considering a dental career.  

“I would say be resilient, that would be my biggest piece of advice for dental school. Understanding that it will be hard and being prepared to embrace that, it’s about how you pivot. Coming in, the plan that I had for dental school and the one that I use right now are totally different, and sometimes it’s just a matter of tweaking things to work with how things are going. Dental school is rigorous, dental school is fast paced, you don’t get much sleep, things like that so it’s how you adjust from that.”  she says. 

Getting a spot in this program is highly coveted, in just the first 5 minutes of opening the form more than 200 students had already applied.

Hill looks back at her own experience at Impressions Day. 

“It was my first time holding a hand piece, first time drilling on a tooth and really experiencing what that felt like, it felt surreal because it was on a plastic tooth sure, but I knew that down the road that would be a patient, so it’s like I’m learning how to do this now but then I could start to feel that it was getting real. I was looking forward to applying to dental school and now I’m seeing my patients in junior clinic.” 

Kaitlyn Collins is a second year at DCG and was assisting students with making a model replica of a dental form. 

She explains why learning how to make an impression is so important. 

“Whenever we do impressions, we’re making a model of the patients mouth, that will help us treatment plan and problem solve. In dental school we’ll use it for professors to help us either catch problems and see things that we don’t note or any problems in the future when we are actually doing a treatment.” 

Megan Bartlett and Veronica Abdelmasih are two friends who met in dental school both volunteering at Impressions Day.

They say it is very fulfilling to now be able to help students when they were in their place not too long ago. 

“Making them feel more at home, we were all in their shoes one time, it’s a neat experience.” Megan says. 

Veronica says, “I know how nerve-wracking it is to try to get into dental school and how exciting this day would be, we’re very excited to be here.” 

The Impressions Day program at DCG was the first of its kind in the nation and is fully planned and executed by the Students National Dental Association.