ADEA 2018 Fall Session Reflection #1

This past October, my colleagues and I had the wonderful opportunity to head to ADEA’s first ever international Fall Session, held in Ontario, Canada. What a great experience it was to be part of this new venture of ADEA into Canada and immerse myself in this dynamic field of education and change. Our UCSF groups had a warm welcome from the cohort of dental students from Toronto and we were lucky to be involved in one of the highest attended fall sessions of ADEA’s Council of Students, Residents and Fellows (COSRF) in years. Last year I was grateful to have the opportunity to attend the Fall Session for the first time, and I left feeling invigorated and feeling very connected to ADEA and our mission as a national organization. This year, I have the pleasure of serving on our District’s newfound cabinet as District Deputy Commissioner, and as such I had a completely different lens going into Fall Session. With a better overall understanding of ADEA, our vision as a District, and our goals and accomplishments as a chapter, I was able to step back and spend more of my time connecting to other students from other schools and personally speak with them about new ways they can continue growing their chapters. I also had such a fun time observing our second-year students from UCSF branch out, network, and progressively see their passion for ADEA grow throughout the course of the weekend. We left with many new ideas for fundraising and improving current events that we hold and created new platforms for collaboration with other chapters nearby. ADEA on the west coast, and in particular within District 11 is continuing to grow, and UCSF definitely continues to set the gold standard. I am so proud of UCSF ADEA for setting such a great example of chapter accomplishments, and happy to see the level of engagement our attendees had throughout the event. I feel confident about the next generation of dental educators, as well as our leadership at the local level for years to come.