OzTREKK Student Blog: I’m heading to Griffith Dental School in Australia!

So, I’m from Calgary. And Calgary has winter… and snow…. But you know where there’s no snow? AUSTRALIA!

My name is Brittani and I am starting dental school in February 2020 at Griffith Dental School in Australia’s beautiful Gold Coast. I literally couldn’t be more excited. I have always wanted to live in another country, but I never expected it to be Australia. How did I even end up here? Well, it’s a long story, but definitely worth the read if you’re considering studying abroad, moving to Australia, and/or becoming a dentist!

I always knew I wanted to work in the healthcare industry, but I never knew which field. I decided that pharmacy would be a really good stepping stone for anything in healthcare and so, in Grade 10, I started night school at SAIT Polytechnic in Calgary in their Pharmacy Assistant program. I graduated from both high school and SAIT in 2015. I then entered my undergraduate degree at the University of Calgary the following fall.

I worked part time in pharmacy throughout my entire undergraduate degree and began to realize that pharmacy was not really for me. So, in my undergrad, I started to really focus on getting into dental school.

As anyone who has ever wanted to apply knows, dentistry is incredibly difficult to get into in Canada. Limited spots, thousands of applicants, DATs, 4.0 GPA, volunteering, research experience… the list just goes on. I started to feel as though I would never be good enough to get in here. Many of my friends also felt the same way.

In my first semester of my third year, I had a complete meltdown when I called the University of Alberta and found out that the competitive GPA for in-province students was 3.87. Based on the way they calculate GPA, I knew that I had no chance of getting in. As well, almost every school in Canada has an in-province bias where they reserve a majority of their seats for in-province students, leaving only 2 or 3 spots for out-of-province students. So I figured if I couldn’t get into U of A, I would have slim to no chance of getting in somewhere else. I literally cried for about 3 days because I thought my dream of becoming a dentist was over. After the end of my 3 day pity party, I was walking though MacEwan Hall at U of C and I saw a booth with a big sign that read “Want to Study Dentistry?” and in my head I was like, yes, please!

It turned out that that booth was a company called OzTREKK that specializes in sending students over to Australia for professional degrees. Although still not easy to get into by any means, Australia has quite a few international student spots. I took the brochure and immediately called my mom. I remember the conversation going something like this:

Me: “Hey mom, uh, so, uh you probably won’t like this, but uh, I think I wanna go to Australia for dental school.”
Mom: “Oh, uh okay. Well, uh that’s really far you know.”
Me: “Uh, yeah, but like.., it seems cool. And I could be a dentist.”
Mom: “Yeah, but like, that’s really far.”
Me: “Okay, cool. Bye.” *squeals internally*

At the time, I had no idea that this would actually be something realistic for me. It just seemed like a light at the end of the tunnel that I thought was closed.

Brittani 🙂

Be sure to check out Brittani’s blog, “Destination Dentist“!

Studying dentistry at Griffith Dental School

Brittani will be studying at the amazing Griffith Dental School! state-of-the-art, special-purpose dental facilities and modern laboratories, including a commercial dental lab in a new $150-million purpose-built Griffith Health Centre.

You will have the opportunity to undertake community placements in state schools, rural and remote communities and in Indigenous and aged care. Completing Griffith’s Bachelor of Dental Health Science and the two-year Master of Dentistry program provides the education and skills you need to apply for registration as a dentist!

Program: Bachelor of Dental Health Science/Master of Dentistry
Location: Gold Coast, Queensland
Next available intake: February 2021
Duration: 3 years & 2 years
Application deadline: TBA. For the 2020 intake, applications closed July 20, 2019.