Compare your senior undergraduate year to your first year in pharmacy school...

[ethyl]

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How much more difficult is the first year compared to the last year of a bachelors program? I'm a senior now and my study habits have matured year by year as the classes got exponentially harder. For those of you in pharmacy school, did your study habits drastically change?

 

[dgroulx]

How much more difficult is the first year compared to the last year of a bachelors program? I'm a senior now and my study habits have matured year by year as the classes got exponentially harder. For those of you in pharmacy school, did your study habits drastically change?

My senior year, I took 19-20 credit hours per semester all of which were science classes with labs. My first year of pharmacy school was about the same in regards to the amount of time I put into studying. It got worse each year after that.

I'm loving hurricane Wilma because now I have a day to actually get ahead on some projects.

 

[ethyl]

holy cow, 20 credits? I've always been content with the usual 12-13. 😳

My house is leaking from Wilma and my puppy has do her business. 🙁 I don't want her to fly away.

 

[b*rizzle]

holy cow, 20 credits? I've always been content with the usual 12-13. 😳

My house is leaking from Wilma and my puppy has do her business. 🙁 I don't want her to fly away.

It must be different everywhere. UNC only lets you top out at 18 hours without an advisor's approval. I know NC State's limit is higher. The most I've ever had was 16 hours in a semester, and that was more than enough for me. This semester I have 15 (3 4-hour classes and 1 3-hour class) with 2 labs, plus 20-25 hours of work each week and chemistry fraternity things (gotta love being on exec board).

I would welcome a break like that. I was useless over fall break, since I worked 45 hours in 5 days.

 

[dgroulx]

It must be different everywhere. UNC only lets you top out at 18 hours without an advisor's approval.

My advisor was the department chair and we figured out a way that I could graduate with my biology degree a year earlier. I had to go summers, too. The point is that 20 credit hours is about equal to the first year of pharmacy school.

Ignore pharmacy school credit hours for courses. That just tells you how many lectures there are per week, not the number of assignments and projects you will have to do for each class.

 

[ButlerPharm.D.]

I'd have to agree with dgroulx, in pharmacy school the credit hours are determined by how many lecture periods there are in addition to labs/recitations. So a 5 hour class may meet 4 times a week and have one recitation period.

 

[OSURxgirl]

Or it could be like my school and a 3 or 4 credit class actually meets 5 to 7 hours per week. Take therapeutics: 4 credit hours= 3 one hour classes, plus one three hour case discussion = 6 hours.

Or practice lab, which is 3 credit hours ( 2 hours of lecture + 3 hours of lab=5 hours)

Basically they do this to keep our credit hours under the max of 20 and make it look like they are not overloading us, but they actually are.

 

[ButlerPharm.D.]

OSURxgirl, I know what you mean. The recitations are 3 hours long so technically ours works out the same way, but what can you do!!!

 

[organichemistry]

Or it could be like my school and a 3 or 4 credit class actually meets 5 to 7 hours per week. Take therapeutics: 4 credit hours= 3 one hour classes, plus one three hour case discussion = 6 hours.

Or practice lab, which is 3 credit hours ( 2 hours of lecture + 3 hours of lab=5 hours)

Basically they do this to keep our credit hours under the max of 20 and make it look like they are not overloading us, but they actually are.

is this really any different than undergrad where you take a 3 hour class that is linked with a 3 hour lab and get 4 hours credit?

 

[DHG]

What, exactly, is a "recitation?" Thanks...

 

[ButlerPharm.D.]

Recitation consists of group work activities where you reiterate the concepts you have learned in class during the previous week.

 

[DHG]

Recitation consists of group work activities where you reiterate the concepts you have learned in class during the previous week.

Thanks!