Advice Needed

[sbomb]

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Hi everyone,

I'm new to this forum. I'm currently undecided about going into the health profession for several reasons. 1.) I don't know if I have the grades for it and 2.) I don't know if my intentions for going into a health field are legitimate.

I got a B.S. in Electrical Engineering at UCLA with a 3.40 GPA and currently have a 3.51 GPA as a masters student at UCLA in Biomedical Engineering. I'm planning on taking another year to finish up the pre-health undergraduate requirements and hopefully try to bring my grad GPA higher.

The motivation for going into health are pretty straightforward. I want job stability, job flexibility, and a decent salary. I've interned in a hospital and I can see how helping people can be a rewarding career. But I am more driven by my interest in science more than the humanitarian part of it to pursue health. I've heard that you shouldn't go into medical school purely for the money and prestige as 8 years + of studying isn't worth it unless you really want to help people. So I thought maybe pharmacy which takes half the time and requires less patient interaction and is less competitive to get in than med school would be a better fit for me. I've considered doing pure engineering as a career, but I don't think I have a true knack for it and plus I don't want to work in a cubicle all my life. I don't know if my reasons for wanting to go into health are shallow or not. But it seems practical to me. Any feedback would be helpful. Thanks!

 

[ButlerPharm.D.]

I don't think you should even give pharmacy school another thought if your main reason for wanting to be a pharmacist is, "So I thought maybe pharmacy which takes half the time and requires less patient interaction and is less competitive to get in than med school would be a better fit for me." Based on your post, I would reconsider the reason or reasons that you want to go to pharmacy school. Finish your masters and then decide if you really want to go to school for another 4 years.

Best of luck.

 

[imkim01]

Hi everyone,

I'm new to this forum. I'm currently undecided about going into the health profession for several reasons. 1.) I don't know if I have the grades for it and 2.) I don't know if my intentions for going into a health field are legitimate.

I got a B.S. in Electrical Engineering at UCLA with a 3.40 GPA and currently have a 3.51 GPA as a masters student at UCLA in Biomedical Engineering. I'm planning on taking another year to finish up the pre-health undergraduate requirements and hopefully try to bring my grad GPA higher.

The motivation for going into health are pretty straightforward. I want job stability, job flexibility, and a decent salary. I've interned in a hospital and I can see how helping people can be a rewarding career. But I am more driven by my interest in science more than the humanitarian part of it to pursue health. I've heard that you shouldn't go into medical school purely for the money and prestige as 8 years + of studying isn't worth it unless you really want to help people. So I thought maybe pharmacy which takes half the time and requires less patient interaction and is less competitive to get in than med school would be a better fit for me. I've considered doing pure engineering as a career, but I don't think I have a true knack for it and plus I don't want to work in a cubicle all my life. I don't know if my reasons for wanting to go into health are shallow or not. But it seems practical to me. Any feedback would be helpful. Thanks!

Everything you are desiring such as job stability, job flexibility and a decent salary can be obtained through pharmacy. Money shouldn't be a sole factor but if pharmacy career fits for your needs, just do it. It is all about what you want to do and what you are expecting from it. However, try to do some shadowing first because you may hate it so much.

 

[storyhill2]

Hi everyone,

I'm new to this forum. I'm currently undecided about going into the health profession for several reasons. 1.) I don't know if I have the grades for it and 2.) I don't know if my intentions for going into a health field are legitimate.

I got a B.S. in Electrical Engineering at UCLA with a 3.40 GPA and currently have a 3.51 GPA as a masters student at UCLA in Biomedical Engineering. I'm planning on taking another year to finish up the pre-health undergraduate requirements and hopefully try to bring my grad GPA higher.

The motivation for going into health are pretty straightforward. I want job stability, job flexibility, and a decent salary. I've interned in a hospital and I can see how helping people can be a rewarding career. But I am more driven by my interest in science more than the humanitarian part of it to pursue health. I've heard that you shouldn't go into medical school purely for the money and prestige as 8 years + of studying isn't worth it unless you really want to help people. So I thought maybe pharmacy which takes half the time and requires less patient interaction and is less competitive to get in than med school would be a better fit for me. I've considered doing pure engineering as a career, but I don't think I have a true knack for it and plus I don't want to work in a cubicle all my life. I don't know if my reasons for wanting to go into health are shallow or not. But it seems practical to me. Any feedback would be helpful. Thanks!

I would say that your motivations aren't good, but that they are similar to most of the pharmacy students I know. I actually was under the same impression as you were when I first started pursuing getting into pharmacy school. It wasn't my reason for choosing pharmacy, but I thought it was easier to get in to than medical school. Now that I've been through the process and have been accepted I don't feel the same way. My buddy is trying to get into med school and I scored 30% higher than him on PCAT (he too MCAT) and he beat me by a little on our GPA (3.67 vs 3.74 something like that). We both applied at the same University, him at Med school and me at Pharm school. After the whole process is over it ends up that he is probably getting accepted to med school and I probably won't get into pharm school (I got in some place else though). I don't know how it could be any harder to get into pharmacy school, I had to beat out 1400 other people for 65 spots. I am not all knowing, but from my experience it doesn't seem easier to get into pharmacy school. Another thing is when it's all said and done I'm going to have been in school for 9 or 10 years too. Something to chew on.
Joseph Stephens Broten

 

[DoNtGIvEUp]

I would say that your motivations aren't good, but that they are similar to most of the pharmacy students I know. I actually was under the same impression as you were when I first started pursuing getting into pharmacy school. It wasn't my reason for choosing pharmacy, but I thought it was easier to get in to than medical school. Now that I've been through the process and have been accepted I don't feel the same way. My buddy is trying to get into med school and I scored 30% higher than him on PCAT (he too MCAT) and he beat me by a little on our GPA (3.67 vs 3.74 something like that). We both applied at the same University, him at Med school and me at Pharm school. After the whole process is over it ends up that he is probably getting accepted to med school and I probably won't get into pharm school (I got in some place else though). I don't know how it could be any harder to get into pharmacy school, I had to beat out 1400 other people for 65 spots. I am not all knowing, but from my experience it doesn't seem easier to get into pharmacy school. Another thing is when it's all said and done I'm going to have been in school for 9 or 10 years too. Something to chew on.
Joseph Stephens Broten

hi, pliz tell me why wouldnt get acceptted when u have that GPA!

 

[acetyl]

LIke he said, he applied with 1400 other people and 3.67 isn't that hot when a lot of them have 4.0's. It's all in the reference frame you're looking at. I bet that was at one of the California schools.

I think your motivations are fine man. Some people will say things like the first person who posted but they may not know what it's like to be in the real world as you are about to experience. Whatever professional school you try to get into is going to be hard so please don't think that pharmacy is easy. I know plenty of really really smart pharmacists who know more about medicine than many doctors. I would suggest taking all the required classes for both and taking both entrance exams. Your grades are fine and see how your grades and test scores compare to the averages of schools you'd like to go. Here at UK, the average composite PCAT score is 86 percentile and GPA is ~3.6. While you're taking the classes try to get some volunteer experience in a pharmacy so that you can see what pharmacists do on an average day. You may not want to do that all day long. I want to be a pharmacist, but I still think the MD is a better degree. Either way, you're going to be working hard.

 

[rxlynn]

Hi everyone,

I'm new to this forum. I'm currently undecided about going into the health profession for several reasons. 1.) I don't know if I have the grades for it and 2.) I don't know if my intentions for going into a health field are legitimate.

I got a B.S. in Electrical Engineering at UCLA with a 3.40 GPA and currently have a 3.51 GPA as a masters student at UCLA in Biomedical Engineering. I'm planning on taking another year to finish up the pre-health undergraduate requirements and hopefully try to bring my grad GPA higher.

The motivation for going into health are pretty straightforward. I want job stability, job flexibility, and a decent salary. I've interned in a hospital and I can see how helping people can be a rewarding career. But I am more driven by my interest in science more than the humanitarian part of it to pursue health. I've heard that you shouldn't go into medical school purely for the money and prestige as 8 years + of studying isn't worth it unless you really want to help people. So I thought maybe pharmacy which takes half the time and requires less patient interaction and is less competitive to get in than med school would be a better fit for me. I've considered doing pure engineering as a career, but I don't think I have a true knack for it and plus I don't want to work in a cubicle all my life. I don't know if my reasons for wanting to go into health are shallow or not. But it seems practical to me. Any feedback would be helpful. Thanks!

Well, I can't imagine that you would like retail pharmacy because it is constant helping people. But, if you like the science side maybe you could become a PharmD that works for a drug company - there are a lot of careers there that don't require constant interaction with people. There might also be government opportunities (FDA, NIH, etc.) although they will not pay nearly as well to start as retail pharmacy. My sister chose to do a PhD instead, and her career has been focused on drug formulation. I think you should take a hard look at how much (or little) you like the research aspects of science. For me, I love the science classes and the subject material, but I only got about 9 months into a PhD in chemistry before I decided that I had no business pursuing a research degree. Also, a little soul-searching will help you when it comes time to apply. Saying or writing that you decided to choose pharmacy over medicine because you were unsure about patient contact is not going to get you admitted. However, a well-thought out response of how a PharmD will help to futher your specific career goals is more likely to be viewed favorably.

Bottom line, there are certainly a lot of alternative careers you could pursue with a PharmD, just know that you will have to suffer through a lot of rotations and time in school that you may not enjoy and it might be a bit harder to find a good position when you graduate.

Good luck.

 

[sbomb]

Hey guys, thanks for the feedback. I can understand what ButlerPharm.D. is saying about my motives being not strong enough. I've been interning at a hospital for over a year now and watching doctors perform diagnosis etc. While I'm sure that most of them do care about people, it also seems to me that they've realized how much being a doctor is about hospital bureacracy and protocols as opposed to the idealized version of doctor most undergrads think that they will become. Most doctors seem to me either a little calloused or bitter and probably not what they thought they wanted to be. Aside from this reality, it is also true that I won't get in with my current motivations interview time and I'm definitely not going to try to BS my way through it. I haven't gone through the pharmacy rotation in the hospital yet. I'm just going to finish up the pre-health stuff next year, keep the option of pharm/med school open, but start looking for a job. Maybe if I'm more inspired in the future and have more of a grasp of the real world, I'll either attempt the pharm/med school option or just do something else.

 

[crossjb]

sbomb, you're academic background and GPA are impressive. UCLA is a cut above. You can definitely get in.

Just make sure you really want to. Don't discount med school as an option.