Ellisa's non-traditional path to dentistry [Show summary]

Ellisa Soberon, a dental student at UCLA with a nontraditional path to dentistry, shares her insights on the dental school admissions process and life at UCLA.

What makes UCLA School of Dentistry unique... and the perfect fit for this dental student! [Show notes]

So, you want to go to dental school? Let's hear from a UCLA dental student how she got in and how she likes it.

Our guest today, Ellisa Soberon, is a first-year dental student at UCLA Dental School. In 2014, Ellisa earned her bachelor's from UCLA in environmental science with a minor in geography and environmental studies. She worked mostly in business between completing her undergraduate education and starting dental school. 

Can you tell us a little bit about yourself, your background, and where you grew up? [1:48]

I grew up in a small town in Northern California called Alamo, about 40 minutes away from San Francisco. I grew up as an only child to two Asian-American immigrants, one from South Korea, my mom, and my dad, who came from the Philippines. I grew up as the only Asian-American in a predominantly white neighborhood. It was a great experience, honestly. I worked really hard in high school and was always an inquisitive person, and always had a love for the sciences. That carried over when I went to UCLA.

It was interesting growing up with two unique cultures that are very different. I didn't really know many other people who had that unique blend of different cultures growing up. Our Thanksgiving dinners were always really interesting. We always had Korean dishes, Filipino dishes, and American, and I feel like I was really lucky to have all three growing up.

As an undergrad, you majored in environmental science and then worked in business. How did you move from those pursuits to dentistry? They seem pretty far apart. [4:19]

I've always had a love for sciences. I really struggled in undergrad figuring out what I wanted to major in. I was undeclared for two years, and finally my counselor looked at me and said, "Hey you're approaching your junior year and you need to declare a major." My roommate was actually an environmental science major. I had not even given that major a thought. I thought that the classes that she was taking were super interesting, and I still had a love for science. So I thought, you know what, I'm just going to go for environmental science. And I'm glad I did. I honestly learned a lot with that major, and it's incredibly relevant today.

But in all honesty, I ended up choosing a career in technology and business right after graduation, purely because I needed a career. I needed a job after I graduated. So I stuck with that for about four and a half years before I thought, well, is this something that I really want to do for the rest of my career? I thought about it. I had what I like to call my quarter-life crisis, where I went around asking people, “How did you decide that you wanted to become X, Y, or Z?” And through talking to a lot of different people, I had a very honest conversation with myself and thought, I still want to go back to my roots which is the sciences. I ended up talking to my own dentist,