Thanks to her own intelligence and hard work combined with support from mentors and scholarships, Livier Mora is a first-year student at the UCLA School of Dentistry.
Mora, who graduated with her bachelor’s in neuroscience from UCLA, took advantage of campus programs designed to help low-income and Latino community college students aim for professional careers in health care, including the Medicos, Enfermeros y Dentistas Para El Peublo, or MEDPEP, program of UCLA Health and the basic dental principles program at the dental school.
“Even though the students in the MEDPEP program all knew they were interested in a health care career, we didn’t know how to get there,” said Mora. “That program gave you the map. It showed you the main things that you need to do for any school to consider you.”
Prompted by a mentor to consider dentistry, Mora enrolled in the year-long extracurricular basic dental principles program, which offers undergrads lectures on dentistry plus a lab course, in 2019.
“I loved it. It was literally a merger of three things that interested me: health care, using my hands and immense potential for career growth — because you can specialize or you can go into teaching,” Mora said.
Read the full story about Livier Mora on the UCLA Global website.