Hi. I was wondering if you can tell me a lil bit about the school. So it's a quarter system, and you are require to take 12 units/quarter? Do you have the options of taking any courses or is everything planned out for you? Can you list some of the elective courses too? Pleaseee this would help me a lot.
Your schedule is pretty set, like the previous poster said, and the # of classes you can 'test out of' are pretty limited... Biochem, Physical Chem, and a few others IF you meet their criteria. AFTER your 2nd year there are no courses you can test 'out' of, period.
Here is a link to the sample calendars which give you an idea of what your daily schedule will look like: this is fall of first year, but if you click around you can find schedules for winter, spring, and for other years, as well.
P1 refers to Pharmacy Year 1, P2 refers to Pharmacy year 2, etc.
You do NOT have the summer off between you 3rd and 4th year, as you will be on your rotation (the rotation site is assigned later, you can be anywhere from SF to San Diego to Fresno to Davis to OC to PaloAlto/SouthBay.) We start our rotations in April of our 3rd year, and graduate in May of our 4th year (so a little earlier than when we usually finish classes in June.)
http://pharmacy.ucsf.edu/pharmd/students/schedules/2006/2006q1y1.pdf
http://pharmacy.ucsf.edu/pharmd/students/schedules/
(Link to all the older schedules.)
Depending on the pathway you choose (see the pharmacy.ucsf.edu website for more info on the 'pathway') you will need anywhere from 12 to 16 (or so) elective units. Some are ONE UNIT elective lunchtime classes where you bring your lunch and listen to a lecture and take a small quiz (for attendance), or they also have weekend electives (Friday PM and Saturday all day).
Some elective meet 2 hours/week, and they are TWO units each.
You have about two years to complete the electives, so it's enough time.
The electives I took include:
Student AIDS Forum (Friday PM and Saturday all day)
Integrative Health forum (same as above)
Cancer chemotherapy (2 hours/week with 2 quizzes)
Herbal therapy (lunch hour elective)
Introduction to pathways (2 hours/week)
Violence and Society (Friday PM and Saturday all day)
HIV elective (lunch hour elective)
Actually, you can see all the electives offered at the same website that I listed above. see the "Fall electives" tab, for example.
We are also offered the chance to take some electives with the med school, which is on yet another calendar. We are on a different academic calendar than they are though, so it can cause some scheduling issues.
hth!
