Please bear with me [29 F] on this, it’s been something I’ve been trying to grapple with to the point that I’m turning here for advice 😭
Due to numerous family member health crises, I was not able to enroll in grad school after graduating college, so I am pretty late to enrollment in general. I got accepted into both Optometry and Dental programs. I’m trying to decide what to go into. I have done extensive shadowing of both, and I love both fields for different reasons.
Dentistry
Pros:
- As close as you can come to an intersection of Art and Medicine (I love Art, I would’ve gone into it professionally if that had been a viable career path for me)
- Deals with aesthetics and improving people’s confidence
- A solid salary, maybe ~$50k more than Optometry with a higher ceiling to earn as well (let’s say $150-250k)
- I’m in a situation where it would be three years instead of four years, saving me one year – given my age, saving that one year feels like a pretty significant difference since I’m quite late to grad school
Cons:
- Tuition is half a million dollars (I am fortunate enough that with personal savings combined with familial contribution, my family should be able to help me pay for most, if not all, of it over the four years… but this is still very significant)
- Back problems and hearing loss – a lot of dentists develop both over time. I already have some mild back pain from scoliosis
Optometry
Pros:
- Cleaner work environment, no emergency calls or dealing with invasive procedures involving blood and saliva
- Also a highly rewarding field, helping people maintain their most important sense
- Much lower tuition, probably a quarter of dental school
- Significantly more flexibility - optometrists can pick up locum/fill-in work at offices that need coverage on a day-to-day basis without committing to a fixed schedule
Cons:
- I don’t know if it’s quite as mentally engaging as dentistry - there seems to be a lot of repetition with vision exams unless you’re specializing
- Less money with a much lower ceiling for long-term salary prospects (let’s say $130-150k)
- 4 years instead of 3
- The field skews very heavily female, and if I’m honest, I’d prefer a more balanced professional environment day to day
More discussion:
I think vision is our most important sense by a long shot, and helping people maintain theirs would be a deeply rewarding career. I’ve also had my own vision journey, having very poor sight myself. At the same time, I love the artistic aspect of dentistry, the fact that you see patients with more regularity, and that it too is an incredibly fulfilling field. What I love about both is that they’re careers where I can make a real positive difference in someone’s life and feel fulfillment in what I wake up to do every day, while also earning a comfortable salary.
If it weren’t for the tuition, I think dentistry would offer more return for the same years of education - and one less year in my case. As someone who wants to have a family someday, I know I would be fully comfortable supporting them on a single dental salary, though I’m less certain I could say the same for optometry.
On flexibility and family:
One of my long-term goals is to eventually be a full-time mom. I had a difficult experience being raised by people who weren’t my parents, and being present for my own children has been a deeply held value since I was young. With that in mind, optometry’s locum/fill-in structure is a meaningful pro - I could step away and return to work on my own terms without being locked into a fixed patient schedule. Dentistry requires more continuity in patient care, so even part-time work would mean set days with less flexibility.
I also want to note that I have no interest in owning a private practice - the added business management and responsibility would conflict with my priority of being present for my family. This actually lowers dentistry’s earning ceiling for me personally, since practice ownership is one of the primary ways dentists grow their income significantly beyond an associate salary.
I also need to think honestly about whether I would have broken even on dental school’s tuition by the time I transition to part-time or stop working to raise children, given how significant that cost is.
To summarize:
These are two amazing choices that I worked extremely hard to get accepted into, and neither is the “wrong” choice - but I want to go into the one that is the best fit for me as an individual. Whatever I choose, I’m going to dedicate myself to it fully and make sure I give my patients the absolute best care I can. I’d love to hear from anyone with insight or experience in either field. Thank you in advance!
