r/dentastic

I'm 24, based in London, and about to finish a BSc in Human Nutrition at St Mary's University with a merit. I currently work fukltime and I've also got a book on nutrition which i am wokring on slowly bit by bit. But I'm standing at a genuine fork in the road and I'd really value hearing from anyone who's been somewhere similar.

The two paths I'm weighing are applying to a graduate entry dentistry programme or doing a Masters in Human Nutrition. Both routes end, in my mind, at the same place. I want to own a private practice. That's the non-negotiable. It's just a question of which discipline that practice sits in. Worth mentioning that both my parents are orthodontists, so I've grown up around the profession and I'm not romanticising it. I have a fairly clear-eyed view of what the day-to-day actually looks like.

Dentistry appeals for obvious reasons. The job market is strong, the route to owning a private practice is well-established and proven, and the long-term earning potential is in a different league to what nutrition employment typically offers. I also did a year of pharmacy before switching to nutrition, so I have some clinical science breadth and I know I can handle that kind of environment. The hesitation is real though. Dentistry means stopping work entirely at a point where I need to support myself financially, and there's a genuine relocation risk if I don't get into a London school. My partner has a career here and moving away would be a serious cost to us. It would also mean putting everything I've built in nutrition on hold, possibly permanently.

The nutrition masters keeps me in London, lets me work alongside it, and builds directly on the momentum I already have. The honest weakness is that the employed job market is thin and the path to a private clinic, while possible, is far less defined than walking into a dental associate role and saving to buy into a practice.

I'm not looking for someone to decide for me. I'm specifically looking for anyone who came from a health science or nutrition background and crossed into dentistry, or who seriously considered both and can talk honestly about what they weighed up and what they didn't see coming. Even a fragment of that experience would be useful.