This study attempted to ascertain how incoming dental students initially defined selected aspects of their learning environment and how these definitions changed over a period of a year. Specifically, the study attempted to determine changes in student attitudes toward themselves, their faculty, their classmates, and their occupation. The subjects, 24 students at the School of Dentistry of the Medical College of Georgia, were administered questionnaires during orientation week at the end of the first semester and at the end of the second semester. Other research techniques included interviews, document analysis, and field observation. In terms of self-perception, the students moved toward a closer conceptualization of themselves as dentist by the end of the year. Very little modification took place in the students' perceptions of their classmates and faculty. The first year of dental training did, however, affect the students attitudes toward dentistry as measured by their perceptions of the important characteristics of a good dentist and their judgments of the disadvantages of dentistry. (AF)