Making Decisions

Cassidy Chambliss

Comp 1

Professor McGriff

2/23/2020

There are times in life where we have to make a decision. Each path leads to an-

other decision, wether it be something small like making dinner or figuring out a career

path. The decision I am faced to make involves my career. I am attending college to

become a Dental Hygienist. Dental Hygienist is a dental worker that specializes in

cleaning teeth. Dental Hygienist has the option to work full time or part time. Since I am

pursuing a career in that field I am trying to figure out wether to work part time or full

time. There are many differences between the two like salary, location, and ability to

travel; Hopefully by the end of this essay I will have made my decision of being a part

time or full time dental worker.

Part time Dental Hygienists obviously don’t have many hours, So they probably

don’t make a lot of money. Salary these days mean a lot, to get anywhere you need

money. A part time Dental hygienist’s average annual salary is $66,133 a year, average

monthly salary is $5,511, and the average per hour salary is $32. The average part time

dental hygienist only works 1 - 3 days a week, so hours could vary. When working part

time, generally you have fewer benefits than a full time dental hygienist, and it depends

on where you go. Some places differ in benefit options.

 Not to mention, Part time dental hygienist location is very important. Typically

speaking when you first graduate collage with your dental hygienist degree you would

probably would want to start local until you have enough money to go somewhere else.

I would probably start in Crescent city or Palatka where I have a couple places to

choose from that aren’t far way and would be a good starter. Crescent city and Palatka

average salary both range from $22- $34 an hour since they are small towns. But if I

were to go somewhere like Jacksonville, I would be making anywhere from $34 to $45

an hour since it is a well known city. The only thing about working part time is if you

want a lot of hours you would have to put your application in many different dental of-

fices.

With that being said, Part time dental hygienist would require a lot of driving. If you

work at many different Dental offices you will more likely be on the road a lot more then

you would like. But if you didn’t work at many dental offices and only worked a couple

of days out of the week, you would have more free time. Working part time you get to

choose the days you want to work. Meaning you could have Thursday all the way to

Sunday off. Meaning if you have a family you would be able to spend more time with

them. You could also make time for traveling. If I were to work part time, on my days off

I would either play with my dogs, visit family, or work on my house.

As you can see part time has its perks but, full time has just as much but maybe

more than part time. Full time Dental hygienists definitely makes more money than a

part time dental hygienist. The average full time dental hygienist annual salary is

$78,166 a year, average monthly salary is $6,514, and the hourly salary is $38. As you

can see full time dental hygienist make much more than a part time. This means it also
comes along with more benefits. The specific benefits depend on what the dental of-

fice offers but it will definitely more than the part time option. With full time comes with

3-5 days a week, and you don’t get to choose what days you would like to work. With

full time you don’t have much time to socialize or do the things you would need time

for.

In addition to being full time, you only work in one location. So you might have to work

a lot but you probably don’t have to drive as much, and it will always be the same. You

save gas, money, and time when only working at one location. Also when working at

one location the days will be consistent, you will always know what days you’ll be

working and they will typically be the same each week. You won’t have to worry about

when the next time you can work or try to collect more hours so you can pay for bills.

Along with working in one location you probably could live close to it and not really

have to waste much gas at all.

With that being said, full time might have less driving time and saving money, but you

don’t get a lot of travel time. Like I had mentioned before, working full time takes up

most of your time. So if you don’t have much going on in life and you love to work then

full time would be great. With full time you might get weekends off or a couple of week

days off so you could accomplish some things in life. You might have some benefits

where you can have a vacation leave, but some dental offices are different. Being a full

time dental hygienist doesn’t make a lot of time for vacations with family, most people

who have a family work part time.

Overall, part time and full time has many pro’s and con’s. It really depends on what life

style you have, wether or not you would decide rather to go part time or full time. After
looking into both part time and full time I personally would choose to be a full time

Dental Hygienist. After viewing all the information, I came to realize that I liked what full

time had to offer. I know when I first start out I would love/need the money for living,

then maybe after awhile when I have settled I would change it to part time. It would

honestly go based off of my life style and what would suit me the best for that time.