Advice for freshman starting pre reqs?

[lovepink896]

Hello, I graduated high school early ( December 20, 2013 ) and I am going Oklahoma State University and I am going to start my first 7 hours on January 13, 2014. BTW I'm living at home with my parents.. I am also taking a pharmacy technician class at a technical school and I will be done with that in May. Anyways... I reallllyy want to be a Pharmacist!!!! So I am taking two years of pre reqs at OSU then I will apply to OU once I have all the requirements that I need. If I get rejected then I will finish my bachelors and apply again but I doubt I'll get rejected because I am a hard worker. ANYWAYS! I am also shadowing every Saturday at an independent pharmacy and hopefully that will turn into a job once I turn 18 which is in April. I am also going to get involved in affiliations and doing volunteer work.. and blah blah blah. ( If you want to skip the boring intro of my life then just follow your eyes down to here ) Okay now to my main question ...!! The two classes I am taking this spring are Intro to Biology and Intro to psychology! Do any members of SDN have an advice or tips for these two classes? Please tell me what you recommend and any stories..! Thank you !!! Also please make sure to comment and advice with any other classes!

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[Jibby321]

Hello, I graduated high school early ( December 20, 2013 ) and I am going Oklahoma State University and I am going to start my first 7 hours on January 13, 2014. BTW I'm living at home with my parents.. I am also taking a pharmacy technician class at a technical school and I will be done with that in May. Anyways... I reallllyy want to be a Pharmacist!!!! So I am taking two years of pre reqs at OSU then I will apply to OU once I have all the requirements that I need. If I get rejected then I will finish my bachelors and apply again but I doubt I'll get rejected because I am a hard worker. ANYWAYS! I am also shadowing every Saturday at an independent pharmacy and hopefully that will turn into a job once I turn 18 which is in April. I am also going to get involved in affiliations and doing volunteer work.. and blah blah blah. ( If you want to skip the boring intro of my life then just follow your eyes down to here ) Okay now to my main question ...!! The two classes I am taking this spring are Intro to Biology and Intro to psychology! Do any members of SDN have an advice or tips for these two classes? Please tell me what you recommend and any stories..! Thank you !!! Also please make sure to comment and advice with any other classes!

Should be a cake walk. Good luck!

 

[cuddlefish78]

Take your prerequisite courses seriously and get good grades

 

[Verduchi]

Try to get the highest grades possible in gen.bio, and gen. chem. Really try to understand what is going on from a conceptual stand point with all your math and natural science courses rather than just memorization.

Intro. to Psych. is easy just a lot of reading. Try to get the reading done before in class exams. Intro to bio. I am assuming is a first semester course in general bio. if you excelled in hs biology you should do well, and even better if you had the AP bio class in hs.

Bio. and gen. chem are very challenging courses at my school, they don't even want you taking those classes unless you had the AP class. Organic chem even worse, but the rigor pays off I guess as our schools average on the Organic ACS exam is in the 80th percentile compared to a national average of 50.

 

[jasscript]

I agree with the other posters. I was accepted to OU last month. They do prefer students who have a bachelor's degree...approximately 76% of the 2013 class held one. They also strongly prefer students to take diverse upper level courses such as biochemistry and molecular cell biology. I'm not saying you have to take this classes to get in. However, if you don't make straight A's right out of the gate with your basic prereqs you might consider taking some upper level courses. They just want you to know you stuff.

 

[isanders]

I agree with the other posters. I was accepted to OU last month. They do prefer students who have a bachelor's degree...approximately 76% of the 2013 class held one. They also strongly prefer students to take diverse upper level courses such as biochemistry and molecular cell biology. I'm not saying you have to take this classes to get in. However, if you don't make straight A's right out of the gate with your basic prereqs you might consider taking some upper level courses. They just want you to know you stuff.

I second this, and I was accepted to OU last month as well. From my talks with the director of admissions at OU, not many people at all get accepted with only two years. To be honest, at this level in people's careers everyone is a hard worker. You have to make yourself stand out. Like Jasscript said most people already have a bachelors degree and upper level courses. You only have two years and basically only pre-reqs so you're at an immediate disadvantage. To even be considered you will have to have near perfect grades and a great pcat score. At latest you'll have to take the PCAT during your second year of college, which will make it very tough to do well on pact considering you haven't even learned all the material covered. Two years is very little time to get all the pre-reqs in, and you will be lacking in other areas of academia most likely from only focusing on science pre-reqs. For the very few who do get accepted after only two years, they often feel overwhelmed because they have not had the upper level science classes or lab experiences that most of the other students have had. I hope this gives you a more realistic look of how pharmacy school has become more competitive and students must do more to make themselves stand out.