I have been successfully working as a dental chairside assistant for five years now, and quite often, I get friends asking me 'what it takes to become a dental assistant?'. I graduated high school in 2000, but decided not to go immediately to college. I knew I wanted to go into the dental field, but was unsure how to get my foot in the door. I wasn't able to find any offices that offer on-the-job training. Most required prior experience, or at least graduation from a dental assisting training program and I had none of that. So I figured I should enroll at a private college in the dental assistant program. From there, I earned an Associate's Degree and gained hands-on experience in the general aspects of dental assisting. When I graduated, I found a full time job at a local office. The first few months at this office were hard work, mostly because I was still unfamiliar with dentistry and I lacked the experience. But after the first three months went by, I got settled in completely and it all became much easier.