Advice for switching majors?

[xiaf717]

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Hello all. I am a 21 year old Neuroscience major at the University of Pittsburgh. I applied to Pitt for pharmacy, but one thing lead to another and during my freshman year I decided to major in Neuroscience (and go on to grad school to do research). I am going to be starting my senior year in a month, and I am very disappointed in the neuro department because I have been unable to find research experience even though I have been actively talking to professors and emailing others since my sophomore year. Another factor is that I have my doubts on my future as a PHD in Neuroscience in respect to job placement and happiness.

So that being said, I have a 3.93 Cumulative GPA but have no experience in Pharmacy. I plan on graduating with a BS in Neuroscience next spring. What should I be doing now, and this semester if I want to attend pharmacy school fall 2010? Would I pretty much need to take a year off to get experience working/take the PCATs since I am just starting from scratch now?

 

[Maxpwer222]

Hello all. I am a 21 year old Neuroscience major at the University of Pittsburgh. I applied to Pitt for pharmacy, but one thing lead to another and during my freshman year I decided to major in Neuroscience (and go on to grad school to do research). I am going to be starting my senior year in a month, and I am very disappointed in the neuro department because I have been unable to find research experience even though I have been actively talking to professors and emailing others since my sophomore year. Another factor is that I have my doubts on my future as a PHD in Neuroscience in respect to job placement and happiness.

So that being said, I have a 3.93 Cumulative GPA but have no experience in Pharmacy. I plan on graduating with a BS in Neuroscience next spring. What should I be doing now, and this semester if I want to attend pharmacy school fall 2010? Would I pretty much need to take a year off to get experience working/take the PCATs since I am just starting from scratch now?

You probably have all the pre-reqs done. So all you need to do is take the PCAT to be honest. I got into pharm school with no pharmacy experience. You could take the PCAT and get applications out this year if you take the PCAT asap. Your gpa is basically perfect and depending on how you do on the PCAT you can get in anywhere.

 

[crazybob]

doing some shadowing helps so that you can see what a pharmacist does and how the pharmacy runs. they like to ask that kind of stuff on the interviews.

 

[themulya]

You don't need to take anytime off from school. What you need to be doing now is looking at schools you want to apply to. You should make sure that you can complete all of each schools prerequisites before either the spring of '10 or summer of '10 (some school have deadlines by when all prereqs must be taken). Once you've made that list, start your applications! You should start your applications this month.

You also need to register ASAP for the October PCAT if you want to apply to all schools. You could take your PCAT in January, but I know a few schools that do not take that score. As for studying, do you feel like you know the material? I'm a believer in that you either know the material or you don't. 2 months of review will definitely help, but if you don't think you know the material asked you're going to do poorly and you might want to take a year off to relearn it.

You can try to volunteer at a pharmacy if you want experience, but if you can show that you're using your free time to volunteer or research or something valuable, experience is not always needed.

 

[xiaf717]

Well the problem is that I dont have very good extracurriculars at all. Girl friend/hobbies have taken up my spare time for the most part. I havent volunteered anywhere since early highschool, I've had a summer job but other than that I only have been doing odd jobs (like yard work and helping people out with lab research under the table).

It just seems very stressful that if I want to go through with this I will have to go from nothing to taking the PCATs in 2 months, as well as trying to find experience/letters of recommendation before december (deadline for Pitt). All the while trying to maintain my only selling point (my GPA) for my fall semester which is loaded with biochem and advanced neuroscience electives.

 

[themulya]

Well the problem is that I dont have very good extracurriculars at all. Girl friend/hobbies have taken up my spare time for the most part. I havent volunteered anywhere since early highschool, I've had a summer job but other than that I only have been doing odd jobs (like yard work and helping people out with lab research under the table).

It just seems very stressful that if I want to go through with this I will have to go from nothing to taking the PCATs in 2 months, as well as trying to find experience/letters of recommendation before december (deadline for Pitt). All the while trying to maintain my only selling point (my GPA) for my fall semester which is loaded with biochem and advanced neuroscience electives.

Well this is all very dependent on you. I just wanted to give you a broad overview of what you should be doing now if you did want to apply for Fall 2010. If you don't feel like you're ready to apply then don't. Personally, I'd say give it a shot if you can, but plan your next year like you'll get rejected. If you get in woohoo! you save yourself a year, if not, no harm done.

 

[xiaf717]

Well this is all very dependent on you. I just wanted to give you a broad overview of what you should be doing now if you did want to apply for Fall 2010. If you don't feel like you're ready to apply then don't. Personally, I'd say give it a shot if you can, but plan your next year like you'll get rejected. If you get in woohoo! you save yourself a year, if not, no harm done.

Thanks a lot for your opinions. Sorry to make it sound like I thought you were being forceful, I was just stressing out a little bit last night haha. I'll take everything you said into consideration.

 

[diastole]

Well this is all very dependent on you. I just wanted to give you a broad overview of what you should be doing now if you did want to apply for Fall 2010. If you don't feel like you're ready to apply then don't. Personally, I'd say give it a shot if you can, but plan your next year like you'll get rejected. If you get in woohoo! you save yourself a year, if not, no harm done.

I did this. I applied to just one school because I was ready for that one but then I went about preparing for the next cycle. I took the PCAT in January and starting volunteering in a pharmacy in March and was planning on getting a real tech job in the summer. I ended up getting into my school and saved myself a year but it was good to have a plan in place in case I didn't. The only down side is that I never even tried to get into my first choice.