How hard is Pharmacy School?

[max xam]

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I know this has been asked a lot of times but I want to ask my own little questions in this thread. In undergrad you had office hours and tutors, but in Pharmacy school will you have office hours and help or is all on your own? Any tips on how to study and succeed?
Are oral presentations make or break you in pharmacy school? Do you have to do really good on the oral presentations because i suck at public speaking and I don't want to fail because of that. I can communicate well when we are talking 1 on 1.

I'm 16 and a junior in high school. I just want an idea of what it will be like.

 

[max xam]

Also, if you land an interview are you pretty much accepted if you don't screw up?

 

[rxtech2012]

No, interviews do not mean you are basically accepted. Plenty of people get interviews but still get rejected.

 

[rxtech2012]

What I would do is as soon as you are able to get a job in a pharmacy, try to become a certified tech to get some experience and figure out if pharmacy is what you want. From my experience in working in the pharmacy and what I have observed is that being a pharmacist is more than knowing the science, it also helps to be a people person and enjoy what you do.

 

[MrsAppleseed]

In my experience, pharmacy school has proven to be about 30% drugs and about 70% jumping through hoops to ensure that you aren't a complete and utter idiot (including presentations), and can make the general public believe you aren't an idiot. I'm dead serious.

To answer your actual question, nothing in pharmacy school is hard conceptually, it's just the volume of material that is suffocating. You probably won't fail out of pharmacy school because you suck at presentations, although you will fail if you don't complete the requirements of the course, including a presentation. Required or not, take a public speaking class, because every single rotation will likely require more than one presentation.

 

[wusop2013]

I find pharmacy school to be one of the most difficult things I have done in my life. Then again, I'm not a kid with little relative responsibility from a house of good status like the vast majority of people that go to pharmacy school. That being said I am fighting my way through and start final rotations in 6 months. It is not easy, you HAVE to be good at memorizing a lot of material that sounds the same. Although there are plenty of 'hoops to jump through' as someone else said as well.

If you are a parent or someone with other bigger responsibilities than just living and breathing pharmacy then I recommend developing a support group at your school in the beginning so you don't get left behind.

 

[type b pharmD]

Youre worrying too early about public speaking.

Most scientist type people suck at this. It just takes lots of practice, but you'll learn that as long as you can get some information out to the listeners, you'll be fine. It is much lower pressure than giving a motivational speech, for example.

Best way to think of public speaking is to see it as an opportunity for you to share something you know that you care about with other people. That's really all it is.


Pharmacy school itself is easy compared to other tracks (engineering, computer science, math, chemistry), it doesnt require much complex thinking, so you won't get lost as long as you put in the time necessary to get busy work done.


Pharmacy school is more busy work than conceptual and critical thinking work. Which makes it easy if you just want to put in the time and get the degree. Difficult if you have a low tolerance for BS though. But pharmacists need a pretty high tolerance for BS to practice in the real world.

 

[bw6]

Youre worrying too early about public speaking.

Most scientist type people suck at this. It just takes lots of practice, but you'll learn that as long as you can get some information out to the listeners, you'll be fine. It is much lower pressure than giving a motivational speech, for example.

Best way to think of public speaking is to see it as an opportunity for you to share something you know that you care about with other people. That's really all it is.


Pharmacy school itself is easy compared to other tracks (engineering, computer science, math, chemistry), it doesnt require much complex thinking, so you won't get lost as long as you put in the time necessary to get busy work done.


Pharmacy school is more busy work than conceptual and critical thinking work. Which makes it easy if you just want to put in the time and get the degree. Difficult if you have a low tolerance for BS though. But pharmacists need a pretty high tolerance for BS to practice in the real world.

I don't know about saying it is conceptually less difficult than computer science.. Keep in mind that a lot of the background science required P1 and P2 year are graduate level science classes. I know plenty of medicinal chemistry and biochemistry PhDs sitting through the same classes as me.

I also have my BS in Biochem + molecular bio and can tell you that a lot of the material is conceptually on par with 400 level and even 500 level grad biochem courses I took. But when it comes down to it, pharm school conceptually never gets more difficult than senior or low graduate level science - it is just a hell of a lot more information. The volume of info can overwhelm you, but I doubt you will struggle understanding it if you can make it through upper level undergrad stuff (which is still far more conceptually difficult than computer science, I sincerely hope you meant computer engineering or material science).

 

[type b pharmD]

I don't know about saying it is conceptually less difficult than computer science.. Keep in mind that a lot of the background science required P1 and P2 year are graduate level science classes. I know plenty of medicinal chemistry and biochemistry PhDs sitting through the same classes as me.

I also have my BS in Biochem + molecular bio and can tell you that a lot of the material is conceptually on par with 400 level and even 500 level grad biochem courses I took. But when it comes down to it, pharm school conceptually never gets more difficult than senior or low graduate level science - it is just a hell of a lot more information. The volume of info can overwhelm you, but I doubt you will struggle understanding it if you can make it through upper level undergrad stuff (which is still far more conceptually difficult than computer science, I sincerely hope you meant computer engineering or material science).

Yes I get comp sci confused with EE and Comp Engineering 🙁 One of them is really hard I thought. Not talking about learning how to write code and set up an IT department.

 

[Outwork505]

I'm 16 and a junior in high school. I just want an idea of what it will be like.

You have a very long road ahead of you, I wouldn't worry about the difficulty of earning a Pharm.D at this point. Just saying.

Keep working hard.

 

[Sugoi Travis]

I will jump for joy if pharmacy school is taught in small class settings (less than 200 people), but still having office hours and such for the professor.

 

[bw6]

I will jump for joy if pharmacy school is taught in small class settings (less than 200 people), but still having office hours and such for the professor.

Every school I know is like this.

My class is ~120 for lectures and split into ~15 person group for labs and all that good stuff.. And this is at a university with 55,000 undergrads. Pharmacy is pretty small wherever you go.

 

[Twentytwelve2]

Every school I know is like this.

My class is ~120 for lectures and split into ~15 person group for labs and all that good stuff.. And this is at a university with 55,000 undergrads. Pharmacy is pretty small wherever you go.

Yeah, our class is 104 and we are split into 10-11 persons per group for assignments. Sometimes, I forget how small it is because I am sitting in the same room for so long that it feels so big lol

 

[bw6]

Yeah, our class is 104 and we are split into 10-11 persons per group for assignments. Sometimes, I forget how small it is because I am sitting in the same room for so long that it feels so big lol

Yeah I hate not constantly changing locations like I did as an undergrad. It's so small that you know pretty much everyone in your class. I would say it is like high school but even my graduating class in high school was almost 600. About 1/5 that size.

Pharmacy is relatively tiny at most schools.