Kaylen Johnson
Dental Hygienist Student

Dearborn Next staff caught up with Kaylen in early October. Read the interview below to learn more about how Kaylen figured out her current path. Kaylen is happy to connect with fellow alumni and offer support as you navigate your next steps! Reach her at jkaylen59@gmail.com.

 

What are you up to now?

As you know, after high school I was attending Regis College Dental Program outside of Boston. During this time, my family moved to Michigan. In dental hygiene school, you need to find your own patients to complete your clinic hours. Because my family moved, I ended up not having enough patients, so I moved to Michigan with them to a different program. Right now, I’m taking the prerequisites for University of Detroit Mercy Dental’s program at Wayne Community College District – the school they wanted me to go to for the prerequisites. I’ll do two semesters here and then transfer to Detroit Mercy Dental.

 

How did you navigate the process of transferring schools?

My first step was to do a bunch of research. I was going through a bunch of different schools to see who had the best options for me in terms of transferring credits. When it came time to find which school to transfer to, I knew I needed to make my decision based on two factors: which school took the most credits, and which school had the best program. Because I had so many college credits from high school – 40 total – I needed to see which schools accepted which credits.

 

To what extent were you able to transfer your credits?

Unfortunately, my dental credits from Regis couldn’t transfer because most dental schools require you to take their specific classes, but almost all my prerequisites transferred over. 

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Where do you see yourself in 2.5 years (6 years after high school graduation)?

Once I finish my prerequisites at Wayne this spring, I’ll have two more years at Detroit Mercy and will graduate with my Bachelor degree in Dental Hygiene in spring, 2026. So, six years after graduation from DSA, I’ll be freshly graduated from Dental Hygiene and starting my first full-time job in my field.

 

What is your hope for your first job out of school?

I want a job that is related to the field that I’m doing. I’m already experienced, so I want some kind of dental assisting job.

 

What are your long-term career goals? 

I don’t want to be a dental hygienist for a long time. I want to get my work experience for about six years, and then go for my Masters so that I can be a professor and teach dental hygienists. I found that I don’t really enjoy playing in people’s mouths, and it’s not something I would want to do for a long, long time. 

 

Who or what has helped you persist on this path?

I would say my aunt because she made sure I had a plan no matter what – she made it a point to discuss with me – she would also ask, “What’s the plan? What do you want to do?”

 

Tell me a little about times when you didn’t know what you wanted to do. How did you proceed from there?

At one point in high school, I didn’t know what field I wanted to do. I knew I was interested in the medical field, but I wasn’t sure where. I was looking into nursing and geriatric nursing, but I don’t like blood or queasy stuff, and a lot of the requirements I couldn’t see myself doing. That made the decision for me. I thought maybe a dentist. But then I found out what they had to do – I'm not yanking teeth or cutting gums! I went to dental hygiene because I could see myself cleaning the teeth before or after the dentist comes in. To be honest, I didn’t know what I was getting myself into because it’s still queasy and gross. I have to do a decent amount of gross things.

 

How did your experience with early college classes in high school shape your trajectory?

It absolutely helped my future. My freshman year schedule at Regis was so insanely lite – it was totally unrealistic for a freshman to have this schedule, but I did. I had done so many prerequisites and that put me way ahead – my weekends started Wednesday or Thursday. Everyone around me wished they’d done early college like I did. So many people said to me that they took AP courses,but they still had to take all these classes and pay for them freshman year.

Did taking early college classes affect your confidence?

Absolutely. Because of the college classes I had, I was really knowledgeable about a lot of things at an early age. It really helped with life skills and critical thinking. Ultimately, knowing a lot of info helps you critically assess things and be able to do the research. As a result of my classes, I was so knowledgeable of certain things. The classes broadened me and made me more of a rounded person.

 

How did your experience in the Computer Science and Health and Life Science Pathways shape your trajectory?

Those classes helped set up the kind of baseline understanding of information I learned again later in college. This meant that by the time I saw this content in college, it was the second or third time for me, and I was much better prepared for it.

 

What advice would you give to younger alumni coming up behind you?

My ultimate advice is actually for current DSA students: take those college courses and take as many as you can that are available to you! It’s free! Once you get to school, it’s not free. And definitely do research about the certain college classes your specific career would need and get those classes done in high school for free. If you don't have a specific career in mind yet, do those core curriculum classes that are required for everyone to do. Get those credits out of the way now. Also, get down any classes that are hard for college students – do them now while you have the tutors and extra help from the early college staff at DSA to help you.