Alumni Spotlight: Vy Le, Dental Hygiene Program Graduate

(September 25, 2025) - Vy Le graduated from Clayton State University in 2021, Summa Cum Laude, with a Bachelor of Science in Dental Hygiene. For her academic achievements, she received the Sigma Phi Alpha Award from the Dental Hygiene Honor Society. She also served as President of the Student American Dental Hygienists’ Association at CSU in 2021.

Vy shared with us that she chose Clayton State for her undergraduate degree because she was very interested in the field of dental hygiene as her career path. “Based on my research back in 2019, there were only two schools in the state of Georgia that offer bachelor’s degrees in dental hygiene. One is in Augusta, which is far away from my house, about 2-3 hours away. And then the second one is Clayton State University, which was very close to my home,” she said.

Another reason she chose Clayton State was the competitiveness of being accepted into the dental hygiene program. “I learned that only 28 people are selected out of 1000 applicants,” according to Vy.  “Being accepted and graduating from the Clayton State program would make me a competitive applicant when I eventually apply to dental school. So that's why I decided to go there,” she added.

Vy says she gained a lot of practical, real-world experience when studying at Clayton State. She said, “The dental hygiene program gave me a strong background and understanding of the dental field. I was able to work with real patients in the clinic, and develop my dental hygiene skills there.”

“The personal relationships Vy developed at Clayton State University also meant a lot to her. ‘I met so many amazing people, including my faculty members and mentors who had a profound impact on my time at CSU including Dr. Thomas, Mrs. Eddy, Mrs. Martin, Mrs. Pyron, Dr. Long, Dr. Lemon, Dr. Barnes, Mrs. Baker, Dr. Zornosa and many more faculty.’” Vy also forged very close bonds with her classmates. “We just became best friends forever. We learned together, studied together, and had lunch together. We would hang together. It was so much fun.”

“I am truly thankful and honored to be a CSU alumna, where I was able to develop strong academic and clinical skills that I continue to carry throughout my dentistry career,” said Vy. “It means a lot to have the opportunity to represent both myself and the program in such a positive way.”

Since graduating, Vy has been working as a dental hygienist for the past four and a half years.

Vy recently moved away from the Atlanta metro area when she was accepted as a student at Lake Erie College of Osteopathic Medicine in Bradenton, Florida. The college’s website describes itself as one of the nation’s largest medical schools and the only osteopathic academic health center in the country. She is currently enrolled in a DMD program, which is a Doctor of Dental Medicine degree.

What attracted Vy to this college’s program was what she described as “a different way of learning here called PBL, a problem-based learning approach. That means you will be more actively learning, rather than starting from PowerPoint and lecturing; we actually read the textbook before coming to class. We are divided into small groups and discuss real patient cases.”

Vy explains that “for the first year we'll learn about general cases such as symptoms that are causing the patient discomfort, and then we'll figure out what happened and potential treatment for that patient. And then from the second year, we'll focus more on issues, specifically experienced by dental patients.”

The Dental Medicine Doctorate program will take her four years to complete. At that point, she can pursue a career as a dentist or consider continuing her education to become a specialist in the field of dentistry.