By Chad Suissa​

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Our first year feels like it was eons ago, the time when classes such as Embryology or Head and Neck Anatomy gave us heartburn and headaches. It was our first taste of dental school, an adjustment to long hours at 433, late nights, and taking advantage of the free coffee to push through dozens of lectures. For some of us, it was a relatively easy adjustment, for others like me, it was an incredible challenge. It was a taste of failure in most instances, where I had to sit down and reevaluate my game plan of sorts to undertake the copious amount of information we were required to digest. It meant asking for help, something that can be hard in a place where we hold ourselves to such extreme standards of success. We work in an environment where falling behind can be catastrophic, and the challenge will only grow greater as we push through into this new fall semester.