Concerned Student need advice

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PharmStudent813

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TL;DR - Is there any hope for my future career aspirations considering my lack of effort? What can I do to improve myself and my current standing?

I am currently a 2nd year student and I have serious concerns about my future.
I have always been a pretty smart guy and concepts have always came to me relatively easily so I was always happy just skating by. I failed a few classes in undergrad and was never really concerned because I understood the concepts I was just too short sighted to see the impact of not actually trying. Fast forward to pharmacy school. During the first semester of P1 year I failed a class and had to take a remediation exam to pass. This was a wake up call for me. Something made me realize that this was not a joke anymore. This is my future career. I could be using this knowledge to save and change lives instead of being selfish and living for the weekend.

Since then I have been taking my classes a little more seriously and improved my grades and my time management skills. I feel like I'm just now starting to put my all in and care about getting A's instead of just barely making it (I think my GPA is ~3.2). But I feel like it is too little too late. I am not involved with any organizations and have done no community service. I blame not being involved on the fact that I live an hour away from my university so after 4-6 hours of class plus the 2 hours of driving every day I am pretty exhausted after all of this and do not feel like doing community service (but maybe these are just excuses). I do work at a retail pharmacy every Sunday. Saturdays are my only day off which I use to blow off steam and typically study for 1-2 hours unless I have a big exam upcoming then I might study for 5-6 hours.

Any advice would be greatly appreciated.

Side note: I have always desired to work in drug discovery or manufacturing but unsure how to get my foot in the door. Do I specialize in something? Is there a place to volunteer to see if it really is for me?

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Well, 3.2 will definitely get you a PharmD degree, and once you have your degree & are licensed, very few people will care what your GPA is. Definitely keep studying.

If you want to work in drug discovery, you would need a Ph.D.

Pharmacy employers generally don't care about community service you have done, but certainly the more you interact with other people, the more connections you make, the more likely a connection will lead to a job after you graduate.
 
Find out if there are any research assistant opportunities at your school that are aligned with your future career goals.
 
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Thanks for the advice and the confidence boost. I think sometimes I can just get a little stressed out with everything and lose my positive outlook.
 
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