I just discovered today that the local Red Cross offers a dental assistant apprenticeship training program once a year here (military base in Italy). It's all volunteer, and pretty strenuous for being volunteer work. 80 hrs of classes in 3 weeks, no absences allowed or you are dismissed. After that, you have to complete 600 hours of volunteer assistance in 6 months, with the first month being mandatory 40hr/week work weeks. All unpaid. And it doesn't even end with an official license to be an assistant in the states.

Now if I was in the states I would think that was absurd...but here in Italy, I can't work because of SOFA agreements, unless i worked on post, as a janitor or food service worker or something. 60% of the on post jobs have to go to Italians, so there aren't many options left for American spouses. Even the $8/hr jobs are in high demand, and have long wait lists.

My goal is to return to college after Europe and get a dental hygiene degree. That's what I really want to do. I think this might be a wonderful opportunity to get my feet wet and get some hands on shadowing. It's certainly better than staying at home doing chores, or working for minimum wage doing something that I don't care about (like cleaning toilets). This will give me an opportunity to observe the dental field, and ask questions and learn new things each day that will help me in the future.

I'm pretty nervous though because they only accept FOUR students out of about 300 applicants. Four. I hope my passion for oral health stands out but I'm not sure if it will. I'm feeling pretty discouraged before I've even submitted my application.

Anyway, what I'm wanting to know is this:

1.) Will so many hours of volunteering help me when I apply to a hygiene program?

2.) Do you think the effort is worth it?

3.) Are there any red flags I should look out for when doing something like this?

EDIT: It's a lot of effort for me because I live in a small town far away from the base. In order to do this program, I would have to leave my house by 5:30am each day, bike 40 minutes to the place where I can lock up my bike, walk 10 minutes to the bus stop, ride the bus for 45 minutes, ride another bus for 20 minutes, and walk 15 minutes to the health center...just to get there by the time class starts at 8:30 am. In order to do my 40hrs/week volunteering, I would have to do this in January, when the weather is shit. Every day. Not fun.