Advice Please!!!!

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hollynbaby

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Okay, so I recently decided to go to pharmacy school instead of medical school and I have no idea what I'm doing.

I need some/any/all advice...

What is pharmacy school like? What are some good schools? What should I expect? What classes do I need?

Sorry, it's a little different from medical school, so I'm lost... 😳
 
Not to sound like a broken record.... but...

/broken record

There's a nice, long, comprehensive FAQ at the top of this forum, try looking there for your answers. They talk about schools, what to expect, how to get there, yada, yada, yada.

/broken record
 
hollynbaby said:
Okay, so I recently decided to go to pharmacy school instead of medical school and I have no idea what I'm doing.

I need some/any/all advice...

What is pharmacy school like? What are some good schools? What should I expect? What classes do I need?

Sorry, it's a little different from medical school, so I'm lost... 😳

a reason u decide go to pharmacy school because medical school is harder to get in! is that right!! be realistic
 
RascalCA4Life said:
a reason u decide go to pharmacy school because medical school is harder to get in! is that right!! be realistic

i'm not sure what you meant by this comment...

but my whole life i've wanted to go to medical school, and was never exactly sure why. no one in my family is a doctor and my goals were so specific...i wasn't open to new ideas in medical doctor specialities, let alone anything else related in the medical field.

HOWEVER this summer i spent working in a retail pharmacy as a pharmacy technician and i loved it and that is my main reason for choosing pharmacy school. it's something i enjoy and gives me a greater sense of security and happiness than the thought of medical school did.
 
KUMoose said:
Not to sound like a broken record.... but...

/broken record

There's a nice, long, comprehensive FAQ at the top of this forum, try looking there for your answers. They talk about schools, what to expect, how to get there, yada, yada, yada.

/broken record

i spent all last night looking through the FAQ and it helped a little... I guess I mainly want to know what to expect as far as course load, expectations, etc.
 
hollynbaby said:
I guess I mainly want to know what to expect as far as course load, expectations, etc.
The best sources of info for your questions are the websites of the schools in your state. Take the time to go through them all. They will tell you pre-requ's required, semester courseloads, how they schedule internships, links to pcat info, etc etc etc. When you see the coursework for each semester you can then read through the syllabuses for each class and get a pretty good idea of what you would be doing in each. I even went so far as to look at course schedules used for registering and wrote out what a typical weekly schedule would look like (days & times for each class, etc.).

The sites will also give you minimums for gpa & pcat scores required. Just understand that these are much, much lower than what is required to actually get accepted. Happy hunting!
 
These forums are meant to be helpful to new people. I think everyone here was new to the forums at some point, and there is no need to make people feel bad about changing their decision, when you know nothing about the factors motivating that change.

Anyways, Pharmacy school, from what I can tell so far, is a lot of chemistry. A lot. So it helps to like that, most definetly! You get a lot of hands on experience, as your last year is primarily clerkships, and possibly you get earlier exposure than that. There are tons of opportunitites in pharmacy... you can do clinical specialties, industry, clinical trials, retail, ambulatory, etc. There are many opportunities to figure out what aspect is right for you when you do your clerkships.

I think some of the main differences between pharmacy and medical school is that you have less anatomy/physiology in pharmacy, and a lot more physical pharmaceutics and medicinal biochemistry. Beyond that, I dont really know.

Be aware that pharmacy school admissions is extremely competitive. There are tons of good schools, but all the programs are slightly different so it is best for you to do a lot of research to find out what program works for you. Best of luck with your decision. If you have any specific questions, ask! Its the only way to find out. There are many people here who would be happy to give specific info about there schools.
 
caligirlpharmd said:
These forums are meant to be helpful to new people. I think everyone here was new to the forums at some point, and there is no need to make people feel bad about changing their decision, when you know nothing about the factors motivating that change.


🙂 thanks for being so accepting!!!
 
PharmDeb said:
The sites will also give you minimums for gpa & pcat scores required. Just understand that these are much, much lower than what is required to actually get accepted. Happy hunting!
What is usually more useful is when the schools list the average GPA and PCAT scores of their most recently accepted class...Then you have a much more realistic idea of what it's going to take to get in.
 
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