<p>My dentist/husband says a one-year online dental assisting course would be a huge waste of time, just get your schooling done. He and the other dentists in his practice prefer to train their own assistants rather than hire one from a training program and it wouldn’t be worth it to have an assistant for a short time. He’s had the same assistant for 20 years. The best thing to do would be find a dentist that will let you shadow him/her or do an unpaid internship or get a job in a dental lab. My kids have worked in his office doing things like pouring up models, trimming temporaries, chairside assisting, cleanup and running errands. They get paid but he wouldn’t pay anyone else to do it because it’s stuff other people can do that he is already paying. A couple other kids we know who want to go to dental school are doing unpaid internships with an organization in town who provides dental care to people who can’t afford it. I can’t remember the name of it but I’m sure there are organizations like that all over the country.</p>