Gopher

Я - студент.
saibot

the dash basically takes the place of the verb "to be"
Yes, it does, but not here. If the subject is a personal pronoun and the predicate is a noun in it's first form (don't know how it's called in English), you shouldn't use the dash. In a few cases you can use it, for example if there's an opposion in the sentence or you want to bring into focus the predicate, but in your case the dash doesn't fit. So

Я студент.

is better