I know its still very early in the game but so far I'm pretty underwhelmed by the PharmD curriculum. I feel that my undergraduate degree in Micro/Molex bio provided more of an academic challenge. Yet, as I said its still very early and much can and probably will change. I wanted to know if other 1st year pharmacy students had similar thoughts or impressions? Thanks!
Impression and Questions
- Thread starter Pinser555
- Start date
- Joined
- Jun 23, 2003
- Messages
- 15,455
- Reaction score
- 6,726
Don't worry. When you get into therapeutics and pharmacology, you will hate life.
- Joined
- Jul 11, 2006
- Messages
- 619
- Reaction score
- 62
First year is a cake walk, just wait until P-cology starts.
Im thinking the 2nd year will be more of a challenge. The courses this year don't seem too bad (Physio, Biochem, Pharm). I think taking Physiology, Pathophysiology (2 separate courses), Biochem 1 & 2, and various other courses like virology, immunology, etc in urdergad gave me a pretty good heads up. Seems like the new stuff like med chem, and pk don't really start till year 2.
- Joined
- Feb 27, 2004
- Messages
- 2,641
- Reaction score
- 757
qft.
- Joined
- Feb 24, 2009
- Messages
- 2,130
- Reaction score
- 208
prepare to be underwhelmed.
1st year i studied about as hard as in undergrad and came away with great grades. 2nd year, its harder to be motivated by
professors who are full of themselves for presenting these "gems" of theraputic practice that 90% of us will never use.
If you are okay with just getting passing grades, pharmacy school wont be very taxing. This is supposed to be our program's most difficult semester, and apart from the busy work, seems like im spending less time studying than i did in undergrad. But then again, most of thats probably from no longer caring about grades.
If you have a compulsion to achieve good grades , it will be hard. pretty much because of all the tiny little details they try to trip you up with.
overall im disappoiinted with the quality of education .. there's some good stuff here, but it needs to be organized and delivered in a much different way in order to advance the profession. Pharmacy school could easily be distilled down to a 3 year program I think and still accomplish what it accomplishes now. Or remain 4 years and add more depth and less bull****ting.
1st year i studied about as hard as in undergrad and came away with great grades. 2nd year, its harder to be motivated by
professors who are full of themselves for presenting these "gems" of theraputic practice that 90% of us will never use.
If you are okay with just getting passing grades, pharmacy school wont be very taxing. This is supposed to be our program's most difficult semester, and apart from the busy work, seems like im spending less time studying than i did in undergrad. But then again, most of thats probably from no longer caring about grades.
If you have a compulsion to achieve good grades , it will be hard. pretty much because of all the tiny little details they try to trip you up with.
overall im disappoiinted with the quality of education .. there's some good stuff here, but it needs to be organized and delivered in a much different way in order to advance the profession. Pharmacy school could easily be distilled down to a 3 year program I think and still accomplish what it accomplishes now. Or remain 4 years and add more depth and less bull****ting.
- Joined
- May 21, 2008
- Messages
- 627
- Reaction score
- 2
Sounds like someone just came down with a case of the infamous B's and C's for 100 G's!
- Joined
- Feb 24, 2009
- Messages
- 2,130
- Reaction score
- 208
unfortunately i contracted it a long time ago and seem to have the chronic version .. probably around the time wvu was coming to the same conclusions back when i was in prepharm. It would be nice to be able to enjoy school more.. but 7 years post high school.. I'm just ready to get out.
Seriously am counting the days til school ends. As far as im concerned the best part of pharmacy school is the time I get to spend working.. which, thankfully , is enjoyable enough and motivational enough to keep me going.
Last edited:
- Joined
- Aug 9, 2009
- Messages
- 13,246
- Reaction score
- 201
I feel differently. We have immuno, biochem, pharmaceutics + lab, pharm practice, communications, calculations, and case discussions and it is keeping me busy and intrigued. I study more than I did in undergrad. I will let you know how it goes after my first series of tough exams this coming week (ceutics, immuno, biochem). So far, everything I have learned seems like it will be useful in some way.
- Joined
- Feb 24, 2009
- Messages
- 2,130
- Reaction score
- 208
Pharmacy school is busy. I will second that.
- Joined
- Jul 26, 2008
- Messages
- 366
- Reaction score
- 85
- Joined
- Feb 24, 2009
- Messages
- 2,130
- Reaction score
- 208
i mean 3 regular academic years with summers off. i have a feeling the current 3 year programs are teaching the same stuff as the 4 year programs. I just feel like a lot of the classes particularly first year , could be condensed, run at a faster rate, and eliminate a lot of the stuff that is review by increasing admissions requirements
- Joined
- Feb 22, 2007
- Messages
- 1,445
- Reaction score
- 382
I was pretty much bored out of my mind first year (except for pharmacology). Second and so far third year have been much more interesting, partly because of the classes, but mainly because I sought out more extracurricular/work/research activities. I would never call pharmacy school easy, but as the above posters mentioned, it seems more busy to me than academically rigorous.
They could defiently up the pre-reqs... This is my 5th year of college and their still explaining the lipid bilayer? However I must say that my interview this week with an in-hopsital nuclear pharmacy was very exciting. If I land the job, I think it will make these next 4 years manageable.
- Joined
- Apr 5, 2010
- Messages
- 128
- Reaction score
- 4
Pharmacology and Therapeutics arent as bad as everyone claims in my opinion. I think they are really interesting subjects that play off of one another really well. Now med chem... med chem sucks.
- Joined
- Feb 5, 2010
- Messages
- 3,655
- Reaction score
- 2,814
Should they administer a spelling proficiency exam, too?
MCP's 0-6 curriculum is definitely not all that academically rigorous (is any PharmD program really though? You get a professional degree, not academic one) considering the types of people who inexplicably made it to P2 (or "year 4"), but "wut's a lipid bilayer" aside, you have more of an academic background in biology so I would hope you would find some of P1 underwhelming and even pointless (and at least one course in P2).
On the other hand, I haven't really experienced the "ask about picayune details that no one cares about on exams" phenomenon here so that would be one positive.
