Sorry, I've been much more busy this past year because it was my last year in Pennsylvania, so I've been spending a lot of time with friends and my fraternity in addition to rotations and the **** ton of assignments Duquesne gives us. Overall, I enjoyed the program and my four years in Pittsburgh a lot, though a lot of it has to do with how close our class was. Although we were all separated into different groups, we all got together pretty often. I think we did stuff as a class and communicated with each other more than some other years' classes. Most of the lectures are video recorded. Some professors don't do it. Also, the video recordings are usually taken off Blackboard after 1-2 years, so you have a lot of time to review old classes. The program is structured one class/subject at a time. For example, once therapeutics start, you'll be taking CNS for I think 4 weeks or something. Nothing but CNS. Then cardiology for 5 weeks, then psych/neuro for 3 weeks x2 (separated into 2 classes because the traditional weekday class has the first one in one semester, then the second one in the next semester). Every Saturday morning starts with an exam about the previous weekend's material. At the end of each semester, there's a final exam that counts as I think 10% of all of your classes' grades for that semester. This exam is a case written by two very intelligent hospital clinical pharmacists. You have to write up your case then make a presentation and present it to the class. Everyone has to present on the same day and everything has to be turned in before that day, so you can't change stuff between presentations based on what other people did with their cases.
I think most of the classes had the same professors as the traditional weekday class. I joined Phi Delta Chi as the only weekend student and we joked a lot about which program is better, but we agree that they're equal except the weekend class pharmaceutics is much, much, much easier. I got 90s-100s on exams without studying until we had a weekday professor teach us one exam's worth of material, which I studied for and got a 90 on. The only other classes I remember having a different professor than the other kids were cardiology and CNS. Your professors might be different since our cards professor was only there for one year, then they got some other professors to teach it.
Labs and practicals were easy. Looking back, I don't know why I freaked out so much before each practical exam. Each previous exam I had, I did fine on, but I think it's because they tell you that anything from the past can be on the exam, but you can kinda guess what they'll test you on. It's not going to be anything stupid obscure. Pharmacy math was taught in labs, and the professor gave us the information fine, but I don't think she was able to explain how a lot of it works.... Regardless, most of us came out of it alright. We just think it's funny. I think maybe half the professors really suck at posting syllabuses at the beginning of the semester. There have been many times when we would have a class start in November, and we don't hear from the professor or see anything on Blackboard until 1-2 days before the first class. Also, maybe half the professors are terrible at getting grades back in a timely manner. Written exams are excused because I understand how long it takes to grade all of them, but optical mark recognition exams shouldn't take 3 weeks to grade for 30-40 people. So just be prepared to not have any feedback for a while for some classes. Your best bet is to be confident that you're way above borderline passing on anything.
About passing classes, the weekend pathway is very intolerant of failures, including D's. Because of how everything is scheduled out and the prerequisites, you would likely be held back one year if you fail a class, though it depends on which class it is. The weekday students have a little more wiggle room because the curriculum is scheduled so that they can usually retake the class the next one or two semesters with the weekend class, while continuing their weekday classes. I think half of our class had full time jobs entering pharmacy school, so if they had failed anything, they wouldn't be able to make it up during the weekdays.
Administrative stuff is fine. I had no trouble, but I didn't really need anything from them. It's hard to miss a class. I wanted to fly out to my grandfather's funeral one weekend, so I emailed the professor asking if I can be excused. I got an email back from administration saying I have to take the class again. Some people got classes off for weddings and funerals, but the class I needed to take off was only 2 weekends long, so I would have missed half the classes. I think some people might have had trouble with administration when they needed help with some personal stuff I didn't ask about.
I hope this helps you if you did decide on choosing Duquesne's weekend pharmacy class. I hope it also helps anyone else looking for more information about the school. Please feel free to ask any more questions. I'll check a couple of times a week for a while. Still studying for the NAPLEX while I make up some lost time with my parents, brother, and dog. Take care and good luck.
