Nov 4
Vol. 8 Issue 1
EDITORIAL
An unexpected D1 year by Parnian Salehi, class of 2023 Spring semester of first year was going to be fun according to the upperclassmen! We were promised that after finishing a difficult semester packed with grueling didactics like biomedical sciences in the fall, we would get to finally pick up a high-speed hand piece and start to eagerly-and rather amateurishly- drill into our first plastic teeth. Operative was THE course that class of 2023 was looking forward to. After all, this class made us feel like real dentists. Then COVID came. At first, it started as daily emails we would receive from the school, informative but not too worrying. All classes were going according to the schedule and dental school was in full session. We were taking our usual two or three tests every week, and nothing seemed out of the ordinary. In Operative, we began to work on maxillary teeth, which required us to use mirrors for indirect vision; boy, was that tough! My friends and I even started to plan the group’s March/April birthdays. We had already decided where we were going, what we were eating, and of course the wish-list was the first thing that was completed! Then the school emails became more serious…more alarming. Yes, COVID-19 was spreading like wildfire. The Friday before spring break almost felt like an untimely goodbye. After all, it was only mid-March! We knew we were switching to online classes, but no one knew for how long. We had a lot of questions about our didactics tests, preclinical requirements, and our general safety, but there were no definite answers. So, we did what we do best as a class; we looked at the bright side, did our best, and gave our 100%.
Webex classes were not so bad. Some were funny even! Personally, I got to go on many house tours and met so many adorable pets that I would not have met in real life. I saw several tired faces, who had just rolled out of bed for 8 a.m. classes! However, proctored exams added an extra level of unnecessary stress. It definitely did not help that my mom once walked in on me during a test to give me a sandwich. Even though classes were online, dental school was still time consuming as ever. However, after two-three weeks of online classes and tests, most of us had acclimated to the new situation. My only regret was missing my friend’s birthday celebration. So, we decided we would throw a Webex birthday party! One of us baked a cake, the other drew a cake, another wore a party hat, and we all lit a candle. Then we all held the candles up to the screen, and once the birthday girl made her wish, we blew the candles out! It was in that moment that I realized that COVID may have put us all in quarantine, halted most activities, and ruined our semester, but it couldn’t break
Pre-pandemic views
our spirits to accomplish the things that matter.
