EARL ARMSTRONG: The different career positions in the dental field are - You have your dentist. You have -  and dentist is the main guy. Then you have a dental hygienist, which is if you've been to any dentist or dentist office usually the person cleaning your teeth is the dental hygienist. And then they also have the dental assistant. The dental assistant, which is what I am,  is you are assisting the dentist or hygienist in whatever processor you're going to be doing. And that may require you to suctioning, that may require you fixing materials, you can do a lot to assist the dentist - kind of like a nurse for a dentist in a sense. You're basically the dentist's right-hand man in a sense. Basically when you're an assistant you're just an assistant and you're gonna be doing that assistance. But if you wanna do - I like assistant but I want to clean teeth - well I can go out for the hygiene program then. That's another different, separate program you'd have to do. Or I like assistant, but I want to became a dentist. Then you have to go to dental school - that's a whole different program. Or if you wanna become a specialist and have a specialty then you have to get into the specialty school. So there is a lot of different steps. But this is the first step if you wanna get into that field. You're gonna have to need either a certificate or a degree for dental assisting for sure. You may have to do some prerequisites, but it's not like you're getting a - it's a certificate program, so it's not like you're getting your bachelors or associates - you can work towards that, but this is a certificate. So how long would it take for one person to get finished? I would say probably six - seven months. 
	
EARL ARMSTRONG: If you're looking at something that's long term - that is gonna be more stable - cause like at a factor if the economy's not good I could get fired, I could get laid off for however amount of time they feel. Where is particular field, that's not gonna happen. People need their teeth worked on, fixed all the time. So that's one of the good things about the dental field is that it's not going anywhere. The starting salary for assistants - it would be anywhere between ten to fifteen an hour, or ten to twenty an hour depending on where you go and depending on the office. And then as you get more experience and as you work more it will go up. 

EARL ARMSTRONG: I would say in a junior, senior year of high school what they would start to do maybe next time you go to your dentist to get your teeth clean like tell them - tell the receptionist, tell the assistants, tell the dentist that you're interested in doing this - can you show me some things, or can I come in here one time to kinda get an idea of what this is. That would be one thing. Course wise, defiantly like anatomy or science. If you're gonna be doing some kind of reception work, defiantly like a computer class because everything is on computers now. Usually when you're an assistant you're the first person that the patient will be interacting with. So it's good to know - you don't have to talk a lot with them, but it's good to have some communication skills. Me personally I'm a people's person I like talking to people I like getting to know and meeting people and that is a good thing about this where you're gonna meet a lot of people and it's a good feeling to know this person broke their tooth - you got them in - you and the doctor fixed it because though even if the doctor does the majority of the work but you are also his assistant you are also there working and helping him.