# Ep15 Rigo Zavala
# MCC Campus Connections Podcast - Episode 15: Rigo Zavala
## *Podcast Transcript*
**Geovanny Mayorga** 0:13
Hello again, everyone. Welcome to Midwestern Career College Campus Connections. My name is Geovanny Mayorga. I am your host for this particular episode. We are recording from our Evergreen campus today, as we have a special episode where we will be speaking specifically about our dental program, and we are sitting in our dental lab now. We have recorded here before, and I believe we recorded our ambassador episode here. But today, specifically, we will be speaking about our dental program. 
Now, our dental program is held at the Evergreen Park campus. It is a hybrid model program. There is an externship attached to that as well, and you can sit for the certificate which comes with that. 
Now to speak a little bit more in detail about the program is our lead instructor, Rigo Zavala. 
Welcome, Rigo. How are you?
**Rigo Zavala** 1:11
Hi there, Geo. I'm doing fine. Thanks for asking. Welcome to Evergreen dental lab.
**Geovanny Mayorga** 1:16
Yeah, it's always interesting to walk into the dental lab. How are you? How's the summer been?
**Rigo Zavala** 1:24
Not too bad. Summer's been going great. I've tied in a couple of different clubs that have kept me busy and outdoors. Fortunately, we have a tooth club and a running club.
**Geovanny Mayorga** 1:36
Nice. Yeah, those are becoming pretty popular.
**Rigo Zavala** 1:40
They have been helping me keep busy this summer. Unfortunately for my tan, the running outdoors has been helping.
**Geovanny Mayorga** 1:45
Good, good. All right, so we're speaking specifically about the dental program today. So why don't you tell us, first of all, what is your background in all this, and then we'll get into more specifically the dental program here at Midwestern Career College.
**Rigo Zavala** 2:02
Yeah, absolutely. Well, in fact, I've been in the dental field for about, I guess, with teaching, 15 years now, give or take. I started in the clinic setting, and then I worked my way into a dental lab for a while. And from there, I realized how much - or just a lack of knowledge that is out there for new entry positions and people entering into the dental realm, which is how I found myself into the curiosity of finding somewhere to teach. And Midwestern Career College just kind of spoke to me. It's one of the leading programs that are out here in the city, and I am a fan of what we have going on out here. I'm excited to talk about it.
**Geovanny Mayorga** 2:43
Yeah, that's wonderful. Tell us a bit more. Obviously, you've had some experience. How'd you find your way to Midwestern Career College? Where to start? Where'd you get started? What drew you to the dental programs?
**Rigo Zavala** 2:58
Yeah, of course. Well, like I mentioned, I was working in the clinic for a while. Was working in a dental lab. And I think when I was in the dental lab, that's where a lot of my passion for dental started growing and brewing, I should say. The possibility, or the chance, that you would get to improve someone's smile - there's nothing like it, in my opinion. Yeah, I was working in the lab for a while. I found out the interest and the importance of being educated or being knowledgeable of the information, I should say. That's kind of what started drawing me into academia and finding a leadership role in that and teaching. Midwestern was just one of those schools that populated when I was initiating my search. And the more I found out, the more I grew into liking the school, and that's why I started pursuing an opportunity to work here.
**Geovanny Mayorga** 3:53
You know, teaching to me - first of all, I have a teaching degree, and I have worked with several teachers within my family, so I have a soft spot for teaching, and I respect it, because I know it's very difficult to do, and you have to have a passion and patience. Because one of the things in teaching that I don't think every teacher has, or every professor, is an understanding that everybody learns differently. So it's a very tough profession, and I always pay attention to who's teaching, because it's really important how you develop your teaching techniques. So how did you develop your techniques? And what would you say is your philosophy around teaching?
**Rigo Zavala** 4:50
That's a great question. I couldn't agree with you more. I have a lot of family members who are teachers, and it does take a heart. It does take a certain type of person. And coincidentally enough, for me, teaching started around the time that the pandemic started - COVID. It taught me different ways of teaching, in fact, because one of the first years that I started teaching was the spring semester. 
And like you remember, COVID time, the beginning of the year was still normal at that time I started teaching, and I had my first class, I should say. So the first class was completely in person - everything, your lectures, your lab activities. So I had to create a curriculum for this semester that entailed having to be in person. 
And then, well, five weeks into the program, everything got shut down, and we had to go completely online, which embedded in me a whole new system of having to teach, which is an online, complete program. So having just finished the lesson plan for an entire semester in person, you can imagine just the little conundrum that I had, or a little difficulty I had to transition over. 
That worked out for me for the end of the semester, and then, coincidentally enough, at the end of that semester, we turned hybrid, so I had to restructure my lessons again so that I can have both an in-person portion and online portion. 
So throughout this entire time, it was just a lot of learning - learning what works, what didn't work, while I'm in the process of it, but also incorporating this philosophy that was kind of brewing, which is, how do I engage the students? Because that's something that really was really important to me. If you're not engaged in the classroom, there's no - you're not going to be in session. Focus is really important. 
So that was one of the big things that I wanted to focus on - focusing on hands-on skills, and then just the engagement that the students need to have through different avenues, interests, hands-on, like I just mentioned. Some students learn through video. So it's really engagement for me. I need to make sure that you're interested in this and want to continue coming to the class. That is one of my big philosophies.
**Geovanny Mayorga** 7:08
Yeah, specifically, and I believe I've spoken to this before, when you're dealing with medicine and the medical field, it's extremely important that you know what you're doing, because you can really impact someone's life if it's not done correctly. So talk a little bit about our program. Obviously, I said in the intro, it's housed here at the Evergreen campus. How many months is the program?
**Rigo Zavala** 7:44
It stretches out roughly over a year with an internship opportunity, which is really like an internship, but we call it an externship. Students are in the classroom for about 50 weeks out of the year. And again, this is a hybrid program, so two days of the week we're online, two days out of the week we're in person. 
I like the setup just because initially online, it helps them retain or helps them become familiar with the topic that's going to be discussed that week. We have other activities where it's group discussions, breakout rooms, different PowerPoints, breakdowns of the chapters that I like to do. 
And then when it comes to the classroom portion, well, the students are already engaged from what we've been talking about, what we've been buzzing about, what we're going to be doing in the classroom. 
And then once we get to the classroom, I mean, it's all hands-on deck. Everyone's running around here. I mean, you saw earlier, students are everywhere. Hands-on is the most important thing. I try to push that engagement. 
So that does help out that hybrid opportunity for the students to be at home halfway through the week, studying and relaxing at home while handling their things that they need to handle at home. And then the days you have to be on campus, well, it's just the three, four hours out of the day when you're on campus. 
So it does give a lot of flexibility, a lot of breathing room for the student. That's what the program has, a little bit that hybrid situation.
**Geovanny Mayorga** 9:11
Yeah, yeah. We're in the middle of our new student orientations now. I know we didn't necessarily start a new dental cohort yet, but talk a little bit about what that initial few weeks would be for the students, what the culture is like. Set that up for any prospective students looking for a program to go to.
**Rigo Zavala** 9:37
Oh, yeah, of course. Well, we do offer two programs, two options, I should say - one in the morning for a morning class and one for a night class. So depending on your schedule, if you're working or have something going on during the day, you can fit in one of those schedules. 
Currently our new program doesn't start till October, so we are in the works for getting a new group coming in. In fact, as it stands, October is typically our morning start with the classes, morning groups, morning cohort, and then in April is when we tend to have our night cohort, or night classes that are coming in. 
Typical setup for the beginning is pretty much familiarizing yourself with everything because it is new. I do understand that for a lot of students, so I do give room to warrant yourself with the online platform of learning and an in-person platform, that hybrid that I was mentioning about. So the first couple of weeks, students are kind of just getting familiarized with everything. 
We're learning a lot of the fundamentals that come into dental. You're also learning a lot of the back information of these dental chairs that I have behind me, because it's important to have those fundamentals set up. So for the first I want to say five weeks, we are learning a lot of what dental is and how it's incorporated. 
After that, that's when we start coming into the classroom. We start learning more. And it goes fast, because as soon as the students are able to come into the classroom setting, that's when I want to make sure you're learning as much as you can learn with the small amount of time that we have here. 
So that fundamental time I do take my time with. I want to make sure that that fundamental is set. Because once we get into the classroom, like I mentioned, it just - we have to go. We have to go to the next skill, practice the next skill, because that's really what the pace is like in a dental office. The next patient's here. We have to provide the best care for this person. How can we do this right? And that's what we cover, and that's what we go through.
**Geovanny Mayorga** 11:28
The program is a certificate level program, that's right?
**Rigo Zavala** 11:33
It is a certificate level program. When the students are complete - when students complete the program - fortunately, since we are a testing center now with Pearson, we can have our students go to the actual testing center, get certified. If they pass their test, they'll be certified with a certificate to work anywhere in the US.
**Geovanny Mayorga** 11:59
Yeah, that's awesome.
**Rigo Zavala** 12:01
It is nice. It's nice to have that flexibility. Because, I mean, we never know where life is going to present, and a student having that option to go anywhere with what they've been working on.
**Geovanny Mayorga** 12:07
As technology advances, like anything right, we have to keep up with our technology, and I think we've made efforts to also teach students new technology. What new technology are we using?
**Rigo Zavala** 12:28
I'm so glad you said that. Like everything is advancing all the time. It's funny, and I wouldn't say hard to keep up with, but it does present a challenge to try to keep up with the latest things. Fortunately for us, we did enhance our digital - I'm sorry, our x-ray processing system. We are now digital, so students can practice real-time x-ray taking skills. 
We've also incorporated dental-related software in the classroom. Students can present treatment plans. Students can learn about different ways to administer or different ways to help out patients when they come into the clinic, to establish a more real-life experience. 
I like to say that all the time in the classroom - the real world - because as much as we teach here, the textbook version, everything how it should be broken down. But most of academia always misses that part of what the real world is going to present, right? And for the students here, having that technology is what the real world has around us. With AI advancing and a lot of technology advancing, to disservice not having that connection here. 
So yeah, absolutely, fortunately, the school is able to provide that for the students. X-rays, I can't stress that enough. With the digital x-ray system, it's like the best thing that we have right now. Yeah, absolutely.
**Geovanny Mayorga** 13:43
And that sets up the students for, like you said, real world practice, real world jobs. What type of skills are they going to learn? What type of skills you and the adjuncts go over to ensure that they're prepared to go into an office and, you know, represent, obviously, what the program taught them.
**Rigo Zavala** 14:03
Yes, yes. We did touch on the real world and academic portion. We tend to blend those here with our adjunct instructors and myself. When I teach the students, I teach the textbook version of what something needs to be like. But then you also try to throw in those experiences, those things that you don't really pick up on or learn about until you're actually in the field. 
I.E., one of the biggest things I find students struggling with is saliva. It's funny how we practice with our mannequins here. Our mannequins don't actually have saliva. They're just able to move around. So when a student's able to sit down with me, for instance, or have another student sit down and practice what it would be like to actually have a patient, it just completely changes things in the experience. 
We teach a lot of different courses here, which include chairside assistant. What do we do right next to the patient? There's a lot of anatomy classes we take. We teach a lot of pharmacology classes, because we do need to make sure that the student is well-rounded when it comes to working in something in the medical field. Just because we're talking dental, doesn't mean that the rest of the body isn't incorporated into it, right? 
Our circulatory system is connected to all of our teeth. There's some school of thoughts that are out there that I teach in my anatomy class too, that how everything's connected and organs connected to each one of our teeth, and how does that help us diagnose a patient? Or how can we help treat a patient when we see them? So there are a lot of different classes that we offer, and all of them - and I should say most of them, not all of them - are geared with that real world experience to have blended together.
**Geovanny Mayorga** 15:37
Do we have - I know, obviously we've had several cohorts already. Do we have any success stories, community involvement that we currently do? Our students do?
**Rigo Zavala** 15:47
There's a few students - well, at least a group that I've started with - have reported an employment opportunity already. They're working somewhere. In fact, a lot of them, when they're going through their externship experience, halfway through the process, because of the real world experience we're teaching here, they're able to get a job before they even finish their hours that they need to get. 
My previous group, I think I had six of them that went out, and all six of them got their job opportunity, which is really great to hear. Even before finishing the program, these students already had a job already lined up for themselves. Yeah. It speaks to what they're learning here, to what we're teaching the students.
**Geovanny Mayorga** 16:29
Cool. That's awesome. Also our culture - I know that we have, you know, four campuses in the Chicagoland area, and then we've expanded to Ohio now, so we have multiple campuses, and each campus has a different culture. Each campus is different. 
And I know that here at Evergreen, Evergreen Park, there's a lot of functions, student functions that happen, but you're also involved in clubs. 
Talk a little bit about those clubs, what you do, what they do, what it's all about.
**Rigo Zavala** 17:06
Oh, thanks. Um, honestly, the reason why I started the clubs is that I recognize that having a leader or having someone push a group forward is really important, and it tends to lack a lot in a lot of settings. Sometimes, I mean, most friend groups have the one friend that initiates everything - "We're going here, we're doing this or doing that." I like to challenge my students to be the leaders all the time. Have one person be the leader. And I've learned that having social clubs, having group gatherings, having ambassadors helps these students develop these learnings or these leadership skills, to be the person that stands up right away in the middle of the classroom to explain what the topic is, or from different ways to just show their leadership. 
Because of that, I started a tooth club that meets every bi-weekly with the students so they can practice a little bit more of their own skills. But this also gives an opportunity for the upperclassmen and the lower classmen to meet in a classroom where they're both equally sharing the skill. It's not the "Oh, I've already gone through the classes that you've gone through." It's more of a "Let me help you so you can see what I've learned through this time. Let me gain this leadership role." 
It's as much of a service for the upperclassmen as much as the lower classmen, because those lower classmen are learning this skill that the upperclassman is teaching them, and then they get to bring this back to the classroom where they say, "Oh, I spent extra time about this. I know what we're doing here. I've gained this confidence to be the leader in this task now." So it does help the students create this leadership role outside of the dental lab. 
I've also started a running club with the college. The club meets on Saturdays. We meet on the weekends. Saturday mornings, we'd run down the river, the river walk, I should say, and this is all gearing up for our 5K that we have coming up in October.
**Geovanny Mayorga** 19:03
So nice.
**Rigo Zavala** 19:04
It's nice to also have the opportunity for other programs to join us, because it's not just the dental group. It's our medical assistant group, it's our ESL group. It's just having that opportunity for other leaders to start forming and honing in confidence to bring back to the classroom.
**Geovanny Mayorga** 19:24
Nice, that's wonderful. I think that gives our prospective students a good idea of what our program is like. In closing and talking about our dental program, what would you like - what are some of the key points that prospective students should take away from the information for them to be able to make a decision to come to Midwestern Career College?
**Rigo Zavala** 19:48
I think something that's important for students to track when they're looking into a program is to make sure that it speaks to them. It's something that they're looking for. It's something that's going to help them grow. And you won't find another place like that. Here we have so many opportunities for students to grow, not only in the classroom, but through different programs. We have different ambassador programs, different running clubs, different trajectories that students can get. 
So it's not just finding a program, it's finding the school that you're going to be right at. Midwestern Career College is that school.
**Geovanny Mayorga** 20:22
I believe so. And I've said this in the past, that there are a lot of institutions that students can attend, but they're all different. You know, four-year college, university is going to be different than a two-year college. Two-year college and career schools like Midwestern Career College have a place because every student, like I said, learns differently, needs different attention, different needs, and everybody has to find essentially where they're going to fit and find those goals. 
And you know, Midwestern Career College does fit that, you know, that model for a lot of students. So want to thank you for speaking about the dental program. I know you've done a lot for our program, and obviously started the, you know, the running club, as well as the tooth club, which we didn't have in the past. 
So that really helps, as I spoke about culture. And those additionally help, whether it's, you know, by virtue of being a student, for those students to feel the effect that us as an institution hopefully will have on them for their success. So want to thank you for taking the time to speak about our dental program today. And anything else before we leave?
**Rigo Zavala** 21:52
No, just thanks for having me. The pleasure is all mine. Hopefully I can talk a little bit more next time.
**Geovanny Mayorga** 21:56
Absolutely, absolutely looking forward to that. Want to thank all the listeners for tuning in and listening to us speak specifically about our dental program. So I will speak to you on our next episode. Thank you, everybody.
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August 22, 2025 (recording) November 18, 2025 (Spotify)