For current pharmacists or graduates: please help with school decisions.

This forum made possible through the generous support of SDN members, donors, and sponsors. Thank you.

PediAut

Full Member
10+ Year Member
Joined
Jun 18, 2013
Messages
14
Reaction score
0
Touro California, California northstate, or Keck Graduate institute. Which will you choose and why?

They are all in California. Touro and CNSU are in northern, and KGI is in southern. I have been accepted into one and still have interviews for the other 2. These are the only 3 schools I am interviewing for.

Members don't see this ad.
 
I would choose for engineering school. There will be no jobs left by the time you graduate and you will owe hundreds of thousands of dollars in debt. Even if you do get a job, you will have to be a corporate slave and hate your job.
 
None of them. They are all too expensive. As SpartanLaser said, switch to finance or engineering instead.
 
Members don't see this ad :)
Among those three, Touro. Though my experience with students from Touro and CNCP is limited, Touro grads seem to have better clinical knowledge. KGI is a new school, so you might want to stay away as you don't know how it will turn out.
 
None of them, aren't they all in the 40-50k/year just for tuition? Definitely stay far far away from Keck since they are new and may have issues coming up with good rotation sites for you.
 
  • Like
Reactions: 1 user
Touro is the most established out of the three and has a larger rotation network to include Sharp in San Diego. Not sure of the others.
 
  • Like
Reactions: 1 user
Never heard of them.
 
I would choose for engineering school. There will be no jobs left by the time you graduate and you will owe hundreds of thousands of dollars in debt. Even if you do get a job, you will have to be a corporate slave and hate your job.

@SpartanLaser - so even as a pharmacists, you wouldn't recommend someone to go into pharmacy?
 
Among those three, Touro. Though my experience with students from Touro and CNCP is limited, Touro grads seem to have better clinical knowledge. KGI is a new school, so you might want to stay away as you don't know how it will turn out.
KGI seemed promising, as the students also receive a graduate certificate along with the PharmD degree. You are right about Touro's clinical experience, and it it the most established out of the three schools
 
Members don't see this ad :)
Why do you say computer science?

Computer science graduates, especially software engineers, are in extremely high demand right now. You can earn far more than a pharmacist can as a software engineer without having to take out $200k+ loans and lose 4 years of earning potential only to graduate with poor job prospects. Many software engineers start out with $100k+ after 4 years of college or even without college. Pharmacist starting salaries are falling below $100k due to the saturation.

Your job prospects are a lot better in computer science. Contrary to popular belief, H1Bs and outsourcing are not taking away available jobs because more jobs are being created than the H1Bs (capped at 65,000/year) can fill. Computer science majors usually receive multiple job offers or more before graduation, whereas in pharmacy, you can consider yourself lucky if you get even 1 in an undesirable location/setting.

That being said, pharmacy is a poor investment compared to other fields including finance, engineering, physician assistant, and of course computer science. That is especially so since the schools you listed all cost over $40k/year in tuition. Current pharmacists (and pharmacy students) discourage others from entering pharmacy because the work environment has become terrible over the last few years, tuition and student debt continue to rise, and there is no job security as new pharmacy schools continue to pop up with no end in sight.
 
Last edited:
I'd go to the most established school unless there is a significant difference in tuition, then just go to the cheapest. If you are going to end up in 200k+ worth of debt you might want to seriously consider moving out of state. Some schools have the same tuition for OOS applicants and are still significantly cheaper than the numbers mentioned here.
 
Last edited:
Computer science graduates, especially software engineers, are in extremely high demand right now. You can earn far more than a pharmacist can as a software engineer without having to take out $200k+ loans and lose 4 years of earning potential only to graduate with poor job prospects. Many software engineers start out with $100k+ after 4 years of college or even without college. Pharmacist starting salaries are falling below $100k due to the saturation.

Your job prospects are a lot better in computer science. Contrary to popular belief, H1Bs and outsourcing are not taking away available jobs because more jobs are being created than the H1Bs (capped at 65,000/year) can fill. Computer science majors usually receive multiple job offers or more before graduation, whereas in pharmacy, you can consider yourself lucky if you get even 1 in an undesirable location/setting.

That being said, pharmacy is a poor investment compared to other fields including finance, engineering, physician assistant, and of course computer science. That is especially so since the schools you listed all cost over $40k/year in tuition. Current pharmacists (and pharmacy students) discourage others from entering pharmacy because the work environment has become terrible over the last few years, tuition and student debt continue to rise, and there is no job security as new pharmacy schools continue to pop up with no end in sight.

Perhaps but not everyone has a mind to be a good programmer while it is not that difficult to be a "good" pharmacist.
 
Computer science graduates, especially software engineers, are in extremely high demand right now. You can earn far more than a pharmacist can as a software engineer without having to take out $200k+ loans and lose 4 years of earning potential only to graduate with poor job prospects.
Most software engineers don't work for yahoo/gooogle/facebook etc..
 
  • Like
Reactions: 1 user
Perhaps but not everyone has a mind to be a good programmer while it is not that difficult to be a "good" pharmacist.

But you can easily outsource coding/programming to India. Haven't completely figured out how to do that with pharmacy yet with all the laws/legal hurdles in place.
 
Computer science graduates, especially software engineers, are in extremely high demand right now. You can earn far more than a pharmacist can as a software engineer as long as VC's are tripping over themselves to fund unicorns with no business model and burn rates faster than the Nazis taking a torch to textbooks

Fixed that for ya.
 
Fixed that for ya.

At least they have VCs to throw money at them at every boom cycle. We, on the other hand, have schools trying to make every penny off us (via tuition) and employers squeezing us for every bit of work possible while cutting salaries. Our employers are in turn experiencing lower PBM and insurance reimbursements. No one wants to reimburse us for our pharmaceutical care, MTM, and provider status.
 
Last edited:
Most software engineers don't work for yahoo/gooogle/facebook etc..

Those Silicon Valley positions are pretty unicorn and saved for the best of the best or in some fortunate cases well-connected. Even without obtaining such a position in Google or Apple, a degree in software engineering is far more flexible and efficient in this time and age than a "doctorate" in pharmacy.
 
I see VC largess every damn day...I don't know about you, but I'd still take going into a pharmacy program over software engineering any day at this point. Maybe if it were 2006 pre-.com boom v2.0 I'd have a different story...actually, no, PharmD c/o 2010 was a pretty sweet time to graduate.

Better yet, get a software engineering degree as an undergrad + prerequisites to pharmacy school, maintain skills & do consulting/projects on the side. Best of both worlds.
 
Top