should never strive to become mediocre! As others stated do the best you can and get all you can out of your education, you are certainly going to pay for it! Plus you dont want your coworkers-Hygienist to exceed your own knowledge..hint hint* Doctors are our leaders and we follow their lead.Best wishes to you* You should definitely give your best effort in dental school for every class. You will be using this knowledge for the rest of your career and this will be the best time to learn it. Dental school is very competitive so you have to work hard to keep a respectable rank. While grades don't perfectly correlate with aptitude, there definitely is a correlation. Additionally, I don't agree with the belief that only clinical classes matter. Without a strong foundation in the sciences a dentist cannot properly diagnose or treatment plan. Without these skills, hand skills are useless. I can tell you I didn't always work hard for every class in school. I was a middle of the road student along with my social life and student leadership. Since getting out into the real world of dentistry, there are quite a few things I wish I was better at. I'm perfectly happy with my hand skills and my patient interaction skills, but man, sometimes I wish i didn't have to pretend to need something in order to dip out of the room to look up a medication I am unfamiliar with. Sometimes as I read an