Welcome to Dentalelle's Blog! My Story of Why and How I Help Students

*Original post from August 2014

Welcome to Dentalelle's Blog!  Surprisingly this is my first blog post with Dentalelle even though we have been online for the past 5 years.  Why do you ask?  Truthfully I simply did not have the time and for students who know me, I do it all and I do it all myself :).  NOW however, I do have time, or in other words I am making time!  Let me start off by introducing myself and why I started Dentalelle Tutoring in the first place...


My story is quite an interesting one so read on!  Basically when I started college for my dental assisting course, about 10 years ago, I realized after that first week how much I love anything dental and learning about oral health. I will always remember the instructor putting a stack of papers on my desk the first day, I took one and passed the remainder of this large stack to the student beside me.  My instructor quickly replied "Oh no dear, this stack is for YOU..for the month".  A month??!!  Ok, wait a minute..what kind of program is this??!!  

But, who are we kidding, I loved the fact that I would be learning a stack of information in a month and of course needed to memorize it for WEEKLY tests (yes you read right, we had WEEKLY tests).


11 months later I had graduated from dental assisting college and began working at an amazing office which employees currently 6 dentists.  More about this office later, oh yes..I will be going into detail about what working has been like first as a dental receptionist, dental assistant, and now a dental hygienist.  I need to save some information for my upcoming blog posts!  It will be an exciting read for you all every week.


When I went to dental hygiene college, this is where I quickly realized how much I loved teaching other students and even being there for them to display a positive attitude when things got rough.  


Let me say dental hygiene school IS stressful, and if you want to go home and cry everyday this IS normal!  Oh how I would have loved to have someone to listen to my venting (we all know our families, spouses, boyfriends/girlfriends, friends DO NOT understand).  To make my long story short (too late? :), this is why Dentalelle is here!  I will listen to you vent and help you remain positive during this tough time.  Seriously - email me when you feel like giving up or when you have been studying for 4 hours straight and think you can't do it anymore.  I am here to help :).


I first started Dentalelle Tutoring because I wanted to help students, plain and simple.  In my school - additional tutoring was $60 an hour and as a student working only weekends that is certainly something I couldn't afford.  In fact, I didn't know any students who could unless mommy or daddy happened to be paying their full tuition and living expenses (gosh how that would have made things so much easier for me!).  

For any student out there currently in dental hygiene school you know one hour of tutoring isn't enough, more like 4 hours AT LEAST are needed to really understand something.  So basically you are paying $60x4=$240 for tutoring...umm no way!  Needless to say in school I did not receive tutoring instruction if I needed it and neither of my friends did either.  We kept saying "why isn't there anyone out there who can tutor us on weekends for a reasonable price and better yet online so we can sleep in for a change!"


This is how Dentalelle was born!  I literally started designing the web site, developing course content and tutoring students a few months after I had graduated.  This took TIME!  Think of it this way, each 2 hour tutoring session or course took me at least 4 hours of prep (and still does, I am a perfectionist!) The program and material was still fresh in my mind and I really wanted to help make things easier and less stressful for students.  We all know, if our marks are good (or GREAT) we are less stressed and can actually sleep at night right?!

So here we are - I tutor for individual class courses (pharmacology, oral pathology, radiography, etc.,), board exam preparation full courses (see the popular Board Exam Prep Academy here, which includes full tutoring and prep for the board exam until you graduate AND pass the exam), and continuing education courses for dental hygienists.  We offer a discount for students who sign up together also.  Email me if you have any questions anytime or you need to vent.  I really am here to help and make your life as a dental hygiene student less stressful!

Also, did you know....?

I took dental hygiene school TWICE, yes TWICE!  Imagine the stress of that?!  A common saying I had for students when I went to school was "Hey, at least you are only taking this horrible, stressful program ONCE, remember now I took it twice!" :).