Hating school?

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I keep hoping I'll learn to like pharmacy school, but I'm still hating it after three semesters.

Is this normal? I'm just so frustrated by it all the time; terrible scheduling, bad lecturers, bad PowerPoints, and memorization of random trivia (easily forgotten later) to do well on tests. I keep thinking maybe I have a bad attitude about it, but I don't remember my undergrad classes sucking so much.

What do you have to do to learn to love this? Help me!

I also strongly dislike pharmacy school but I figured out that it is what you make of it. Class might largely be a waste of time but there is still a lot you can do outside of class. Work, do research, apply for internships, ect.

I'm having a great time in pharmacy school despite also hating about half my classes.

Originally Posted by radio frequency

I keep hoping I'll learn to like pharmacy school, but I'm still hating it after three semesters.

Is this normal? I'm just so frustrated by it all the time; terrible scheduling, bad lecturers, bad PowerPoints, and memorization of random trivia (easily forgotten later) to do well on tests. I keep thinking maybe I have a bad attitude about it, but I don't remember my undergrad classes sucking so much.

What do you have to do to learn to love this? Help me!

1) this isn't undergrad. It's professional school. Slap yourself to come to reality and then pat yourself for having a problem of luxury that most will never have a chance of facing.
2) people either thrives on challenge /competition or they want to take the path of least resistance. I remember fondly of pharmacy school because it was a competition with defined parameter/goals. If you enjoy playing games and triumph over adversity, maybe you can try think of it that way. Ps. It's ok to complain about the game at the same time.
3) even if you hate it, you can draw comfort in knowing the exact end date. You can endure almost anything if you can see the end of it. Once you enter the workforce, you may not ha even the luxury.

Take a sabbatical.

Go to new York city.

Find a minimum wage labor job

Work a year.

And if you're still hating life in school after that drop out for good.

it is normal.

Originally Posted by radio frequency

I keep hoping I'll learn to like pharmacy school, but I'm still hating it after three semesters.

Is this normal? I'm just so frustrated by it all the time; terrible scheduling, bad lecturers, bad PowerPoints, and memorization of random trivia (easily forgotten later) to do well on tests. I keep thinking maybe I have a bad attitude about it, but I don't remember my undergrad classes sucking so much.

What do you have to do to learn to love this? Help me!

Dude, yes, this is my similar feeling with pharmacy school. My biggest issue is I can't take my professors seriously, they're more like a high school teacher than professor.

At least in undergrad I had professors who had doctorates from IV leagues schools that could talk about their material without a set of notes in front of them. That's what a title of professor should indicate......not an individual who regurgitates their notes on a ppt to a class

Originally Posted by Member 5149

At least in undergrad I had professors who had doctorates from IV leagues schools that could talk about their material without a set of notes in front of them.

Nothing like profs who graduated from the school of hard knocks with a doctorate in intravenous studies.

I hated school and most of my childish classmates. Can you study from home? That's what I did because they were just reading from PowerPoint slides anyway. If important info was given I got it from my friends.

Originally Posted by Its Z

Take a sabbatical.

Go to new York city.

Find a minimum wage labor job

Work a year.

And if you're still hating life in school after that drop out for good.

+1

Although I worked full time through the majority of undergrad, I think the value of a good career really sank in when I took two years off and was working in a different career. I was making good money and had a great lifestyle but the job was not rewarding at all. When I returned to college, I really valued the education a lot more as I knew the value behind a rewarding career.

Originally Posted by radio frequency

I keep hoping I'll learn to like pharmacy school, but I'm still hating it after three semesters.

Is this normal? I'm just so frustrated by it all the time; terrible scheduling, bad lecturers, bad PowerPoints, and memorization of random trivia (easily forgotten later) to do well on tests. I keep thinking maybe I have a bad attitude about it, but I don't remember my undergrad classes sucking so much.

What do you have to do to learn to love this? Help me!

I'm with you on all of this. I keep telling myself that 4 years later, I will have a great job and be able to support my family. I will be a PHARMACIST woooo.

...works for awhile anyways haha.

1. You can do what Its Z suggested and take a sabbatical.
2. You can attend any annual pharmacy meeting depending on your interest ( Clinical= ACCP, Hospital system= ASHP, Community Pharmacy= NCPA) Don't have an area of interest yet? Then go to APhA and explore everything. Listen to some interesting presentations and fall in love with pharmacy all over again! ( that's what I did and it worked for me).
3. Find a professor in pharmacy school or undergrad and talk to them about why you are really feeling that way about school. The sooner you can identify the reason the better your quality of life will be. Good luck!

I haven't been a big fan of all of pharmacy school. We've had some really great professors and classes, some okay ones, and one or two that... well, I didn't think much of the experience. But I've almost always been a fan of pharmacy school in that it's the only way to become a pharmacist. I like learning about drug treatments, diseases, and most importantly how to help people with illness improve their lives the most. I'm currently in my fourth year and have been lucky enough to get some amazing rotation experiences. What helped me get through school the most was that I worked since before starting pharmacy school in a great internship that in my first year taught me more than what I learned in school and motivated me to learn more during my second and third year.

My suggestion: get an internship if you don't have one. Or at least try. Professional meetings can also be very motivating and get you out of the drudgery of classes.

If you hate drugs and can't stand hearing about them, that may be an additional issue. If that's the case, I'd talk to someone you trust and consider an alternate career. I was in molecular biology grad school for over six years (didn't decide to switch to pharmacy until year four), and it was basically obvious to me that research was not the career for me the first month of the program...

I'm actually enjoying what I'm learning in pharmacy school and I enjoy my professors. It's not perfect and I don't particularly like some of the scheduling but overall it hasn't been bad in my opinion. It's definitely much more time and work involved than my undergrad, but that is to be expected.

I was at that point yesterday, hating school wanting to drop out after this semester (Fall of P3 year). But today we got our rotation schedule for P4, and I'm actually really looking forward to it. I've also realized that for the few days I've been on break, I'm a lot happier when I'm not around 95% of my classmates. I used to sit and read their posts on facebook and stress out and now I just laugh. For example, there is this one girl in my class (complains about everything) and the day our rotation selections were due, about a half hour before the deadline, she's finally going through the last page (30 selections) and picking her rotations (having previously spent very little time looking at them). Now, today, she throws this huge fit all over facebook (multiple posts in an hour, profanity included) because she didn't get what she wanted. Seriously? I just had to laugh.

The point being, surround yourself with people that make you laugh and people that you admire. Don't worry about anyone else. Along with finding something you enjoy doing (work, project, etc), you should be fine if you wait it out a little longer.

Thanks. I guess it helps to know I'm not alone in disliking school. I've done some of this stuff already, but I like the suggestion of looking at it like a game. That might improve my learning and my GPA too.

Teaching seems to be a big issue. I think my school has a lot of professors with no idea how to convey information to others. I've enjoyed the classes with good teaching, but we have so many poorly taught classes that it gets frustrating...

I had some word of advice from a random pharmacist who worked at the place I externed. He admitted he hated school too, and he had to go by the mantra, "what is it I have to do to get to point B from point A?" Like my friend's dad who told me he had to take Sanskrit to complete his engineering degree, so much drudgery work!

The sad fact is, at one time, pharmacists became pharmacists thru apprenticeships and not by schooling. Standards passed to get professionals on an even keel (as in, get a degree) versus random work experiences.

I hated school, and the moment I graduated, I was like, I did not ever have to study that hard again (whatever I needed to learn on the job, I learned on the job). CE classes were done without pressure. I could read a health magazine and retain more than I ever did inside a class with exams and such.

Hang in there!

Originally Posted by gambit78

I had some word of advice from a random pharmacist who worked at the place I externed. He admitted he hated school too, and he had to go by the mantra, "what is it I have to do to get to point B from point A?" Like my friend's dad who told me he had to take Sanskrit to complete his engineering degree, so much drudgery work!

The sad fact is, at one time, pharmacists became pharmacists thru apprenticeships and not by schooling. Standards passed to get professionals on an even keel (as in, get a degree) versus random work experiences.

I hated school, and the moment I graduated, I was like, I did not ever have to study that hard again (whatever I needed to learn on the job, I learned on the job). CE classes were done without pressure. I could read a health magazine and retain more than I ever did inside a class with exams and such.

Hang in there!

Honestly, I think we need to go back to those days for medicine, pharmacy, hell most professions. Education shouldn't be a profitable business the way it is right now with ridiculous tuition rates and ridiculous amounts of loans to be taken out.

Let everyone find a pharmacist to apprentice under, you learn from the books by yourself, and the pharmacist helps you apply that knowledge, and in return you work for the pharmacist for minimum pay/no pay. And after that you take the NAPLEX, MPJE, etc.