General Chemistry & Calculus necessary?

[10yearslater]

I have a business degree and have been out of college for about 9 years. I did take general chemistry, biology and calculus about 10 years ago. I called USN admission and they said they will accept those classes towards my pre reqs, but can someone let me know how important these classes are towards Pharm School -- and should I retake all of them now? It will take me at least a year to do so. Any comments and opinions will be greatly appreciated.

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[WVUPharm2007]

Just brush up on pH and pKa and you'll be fine in the chem department. Calculus is basically unneeded. You need to understand some calculus based concepts to completely get pharmacokinetics, I guess.

 

[pharmk011]

I think you'd be fine not taking them as long as you don't need to take the PCAT. Gen chem is covered heavily on the PCAT and there's some calc.

 

[Rumplestiltazepam]

I would just buy a PCAT preparation book and learn the gen chem concepts in there as some review or buy a gen chem for dummies book and glance it over. If you have taken calculus then you should be fine when they reintroduce some small calculus concepts. You we need to understand some acid base and pka stuff for Ochem.

 

[rxlynn]

I have a business degree and have been out of college for about 9 years. I did take general chemistry, biology and calculus about 10 years ago. I called USN admission and they said they will accept those classes towards my pre reqs, but can someone let me know how important these classes are towards Pharm School -- and should I retake all of them now? It will take me at least a year to do so. Any comments and opinions will be greatly appreciated.

Mine were older than that, and I didn't retake anything. Just go into it knowing that you will have to do significant review of all three if you plan to take the PCAT and do well. I personally felt like I really needed to do well on the PCAT, just to prove to the admissions comms. that I still had the ability and knowledge of the basics even though I had been out of school awhile. If you don't have to take PCAT for your schools, then I would think you just need to brush up on the basics of bio and chem before you start your first year of pharmacy school.

 

[piyi]

Agree with the above posters. Especially since USN does not require the PCAT, all I would do is brush up a little on your acid-base chemistry for ochem. I wouldn't bother with the calculus. I took it seven years ago and can't remember any from it. So far it has not been a problem.

 

[lvp0021]

Unless you want to work in clinical, it should not be a problem as long as you do the things people suggested above.