wisdom teeth are unnecessary... they do not help with chewing your food, and are, in a sense, just there... hence the name "wisdom teeth".
in some people they are impacted, as shanifaye already mentioned... in others, they will come in wrong - if you actually look at the xray/pannorex of an adult's mouth, you will see that the wisdom teeth tend to be situated wrong, i.e. they are 90 degrees out of orientation, so that when they come in, they are not in the right position. and in those people that the wisdom teeth are not impacted, and will not come in wrong, again, wisdom teeth are not used for chewing food.
with all of that said, in a sense, wisdom teeth can be seen as a disaster waiting to happen... hard to brush, harder to floss... generally just hard to clean. you can have your wisdom teeth taken out prior to all of this... or you can wait to develop a cavity, and then have the teeth taken out... i'll let you guess which option will cost more (the latter in case you didn't want to guess
).
i had all of my wisdom teeth taken out when i was 16... the surgery was fine, given enough pain killers (tylenol #3- tylenol with codeine is good enough for most people)... was playing football 3 days later in 100 degree heat.
in the hands of an experienced and capable oral surgeon, you'll be just fine. make sure you irrigate the areas of surgery well after every meal (if it's not supplied to you, get an irrigating syringe) using warm water, a teaspoon of salt, and a little bit of mouthwash. that mixture is an antibiotic (majority of bacteria cannot stand a high salt content) and pain reliever (warmth of the water stimulates blood flow to the area, which means reduced time of swelling, helps bring white blood cells to the area to fight any bacteria...). keep using the mixture with the irrigating syringe until the areas are completely healed, which should be about 3-4 weeks.
just one med student's opinion (who happens to have 3 dentists and 1 oral surgeon as good friends
).