Bachelor of Dental Surgery (BDS) personal statement example

Personal statement example

There is a boy of about ten who comes into the cold store where I work on Saturdays and buys the same chilled sachet of chocolate drink three or four times between morning and evening. For months I noticed him only because he always paid in exact coins. Then, while studying the oral cavity in biology, I read about the Stephan curve. It shows that plaque pH falls within minutes of a sugar exposure and can take half an hour or more to recover. Enamel begins to dissolve below a pH of roughly 5.5. I realised that the way the boy spread his drinks across the day probably mattered as much as the amount of sugar in them. That small connection between a textbook graph and a customer I see every week is a large part of why I want to study dentistry.

After that, I wanted to know how much sugar our most popular drinks actually contained. I copied the nutrition labels from thirty products we stock, including soft drinks, malt drinks, yoghurt sachets and juices, and converted the grams per serving into teaspoons. Some products gave values per 100ml and others per pack, so I had to standardise them before comparing. My chemistry teacher checked my calculations. I compared the results with the World Health Organization's advice that free sugars should provide less than ten per cent of daily energy intake. Several single bottles came close to a child's whole daily allowance. I made a simple poster with stacked sugar cubes beside each drink. The headteacher of the primary school near my house allowed me to put it up and to explain it to one class. The children were most interested in the malt drinks, because many of them had assumed they were healthy. I cannot say whether anyone changed their habits, but the class asked good questions. The exercise also taught me to be careful with numbers before presenting them to other people.

My subjects support this interest in different ways. Biology has given me the structure of teeth, the role of saliva and the basics of how bacteria such as Streptococcus mutans ferment sugars. Chemistry helped me understand acids, buffers and why fluoride makes enamel more resistant. Physics surprised me. When we studied levers and forces, I began to think about how chewing loads the jaw, and why a tooth might fracture under pressure applied at an angle. I am aware that I have only a school-level view of these ideas, and I look forward to learning them properly.

The cold store has taught me things that matter in any job dealing with the public. I handle money, keep the stock records for drinks and talk to dozens of people every shift. Some are in a hurry and some are elderly customers who like to chat. I have learned to stay patient and polite when I am tired, and to explain prices clearly without making anyone feel foolish. My employer now trusts me to open the shop alone on Saturday mornings.

Outside school and work, I sing tenor in my church choir. Learning harmony parts has made me a better listener, because I have to hold my own line while hearing everyone else's. I also play draughts with friends most evenings. The game rewards planning several moves ahead, and I find that habit useful when I organise revision.

I understand that dentistry demands steady hands, sound science and the ability to put anxious patients at ease. I have not yet worked in a clinic, so I know there is much I do not understand about the profession. What I can bring is curiosity that I have tested with a real project, reliability that my employer depends on, and a genuine interest in the people who sit in the chair. I would like to spend the next years learning how to look after them properly.