I participated in the internship last summer in Southern California. It's set up as a 40 hour work week, where 8 of the 40 hours, you meet with the program coordinators at a regional office for whatever activity they set up for the group e.g. training, group projects. The rest of the 40 hours left in the week, you work in store where you do whatever they need you to do. I've been working for CVS since 2004 and was the only one of the interns that have, so I did anything from patient counseling, filling scripts, data entry, ringing at the register, to taking out the trash... hahah. I was treated more as a regular employee than an intern (didn't mind it at all), but I think the other interns mainly stayed at data entry and patient counseling.
As far as housing and pay rate is concerned, it depends on the market you work at and what year intern you are. Also, if you're already a CVS employee and are tech certified with the company, I think you get an extra $1/hour. With me, CVS didn't compensate for housing. I live in Philly and drove out to CA and back and lived with a friend of mine that was there, splitting rent.
If you're offered the position, make sure you get everything straightened out before you go. Make sure that you register as an Pharmacy Intern in the state that you're going to in advance or else it'll be cause some confusion with your pay rate and duties you're allowed to perform.
I participated in the program not to really get experience with CVS, but rather it offered me a chance to work in SoCal and get a sense of how it differed from Philly, because I'm really considering moving there after graduation. I enjoyed it and CA thoroughly.
Michael
TUSP c/o 2009
