Berenice Quinto could take the heat, but she still wanted out of the kitchen.
After high school, Quinto worked briefly as a cook in a restuarant but was unhappy and wanted a better career for herself.
"I was working horrible hours, getting paid terrible. It was not worth me having sleepless nights so I had to come back to school and do something about it," she said. "I cried a lot. It was painful. I burned myself a lot. I have battle scars all over my arms so it was a good decision at least for me, a better decision."
After graduating from American Career College-Los Angeles, Quinto has been working as a dental assistant for nearly a year. Quinto said she loves her new field and wished she could go back to tell herself she was making the right choice to enroll at American Career College's dental assisting program.
"I would tell myself not to stress out and that everything might be hard at first but it's totally fine," she said, "because when you're done it's going to be totally worth it, totally worth it.
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How is life as a professional dental assistant?
I love my field. I love what I do. I love helping people. I love what we have to do every day, going through emergencies sometimes. You don't know what's gonna come through the door at the end of the day so it's always fun, you never know.
What's the hardest part about dental assisting?
I don't think anything's hard about it. If you just put your mind to it, you're fine with everything. You have to be very outgoing to be able to talk to a lot of patients and different kind of personalities so there's nothing hard about it.
How did you hear about ACC?
My friend actually came in first for the optical technician program. She came in first and then she told me how she was having a good experience so I came in, but I didn't want to go into optics because I find touching peoples' faces gross.
Says the person who puts their hands in people's mouths?
I feel much more comfortable like that! The doctor puts them to sleep sometimes, they won't bother you. But I decided to be a DA instead of doing optics, but because I heard from my friend is how I found out about the school.
How different is life, now that you are working?
Now I can take care of my mom. She wasn't working for a couple months. I was able to take care of her. I got a car. Yes! I bought myself a car. I'm taking a trip soon because I started working and I can pay for trips now when I couldn't pay for them before. I'd borrow money from parents and that's embarrassing.
What do you want people to know about ACC?
(Externship coordinator) Raquel Valle in Career Services is awesome. She never forgets who you are, well maybe just me because I bug her. I don't know (laughing). But she never forgets who I am. Whenever I need something I know I can always email her, call her and she's always been there. The teachers, my teacher Miss (Vanessa) Aguilar, she was awesome from the beginning. She always helped us out with everything. She always told us what to expect outside of school and she was always making class seem like we were already working. So ACC was pretty good. Everything's awesome about ACC. The people I met, we're still all friends, we still hang out, so it's really fun.
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