How much did you study in pharmacy school?

[ldiot]

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Hi. I'm a first year pharmacy student and was wondering how many hours a day/week is typical to study in pharmacy school. I'm in my 5th week of classes and honestly so far it seems much easier than undergrad. My undergrad was difficult and I never studied, so maybe pharmacy school just seems easier because I am studying every day.

We have been having weekly quizzes in OTC and pharmaceutics and I am yet to miss a question on a single quiz, while the class average is around 75-80% each week. We have our first actual exam coming up next week in anatomy and everyone keep going on and on about how much they studied/need to study. I just feel like I'm missing something because the class seems easier than the A&P I took in undergrad. Yes, the material is in a higher volume BUT it is in less detail.

Maybe I shouldn't complain since I'm studying and it's paying off (so far), plus I know second semester will be a lot more difficult with biochemistry. Anyways, what was your experience? How much did you study a week? When did classes become a challenge?

In undergrad I never studied until 1-2 days before an exam (if I even bothered studying at all). So far in pharmacy school I have been averaging around 4-6 hours a day. My roommate is a medical student and I feel like a slacker watching him study 8-10 hours every single day lol.

 

[blackwolf2000]

Everyone's study habits are different so you can't really compare two people. I do agree though, I found pharmacy school easier than undergrad, partly because I worked all through undergrad. I didn't work at all in pharmacy school so I had more free time to study and graduated with honors and a higher GPA than in undergrad. It did leave plenty of time for extracurricular activities, especially on the weekends if no big tests were early in the week. I had a classmate friend who studied almost non-stop but he was a real nerd and a never made anything but A's since junior high.

 

[confettiflyer]

Pharmacy school was a LOT easier than undergrad for me. I didn't work in undergrad but averaged 24-32 hrs/week interning during pharmacy school. I usually resorted to cramming the night before a test and passed fine, with some casual reading and discussion in between with my study group (but mostly Netflix).

I feel that most people who needed to study more didn't have as challenging of an undergrad experience. Everyone's different though.

 

[blackwolf2000]

Pharmacy school was a LOT easier than undergrad for me. I didn't work in undergrad but averaged 24-32 hrs/week interning during pharmacy school. I usually resorted to cramming the night before a test and passed fine, with some casual reading and discussion in between with my study group (but mostly Netflix).

I feel that most people who needed to study more didn't have as challenging of an undergrad experience. Everyone's different though.

Nothing in pharmacy school came close to being as difficult as undergrad Physical Chemistry.

 

[ldiot]

Nothing in pharmacy school came close to being as difficult as undergrad Physical Chemistry.

I took physical chemistry and also immunology and biochemistry basically taught at a graduate level. I think it's a bit of an advantage... I get the feeling that most of my class didn't experience this kind undergrad of difficulty.

 

[Son_Goku]

Hi. I'm a first year pharmacy student and was wondering how many hours a day/week is typical to study in pharmacy school. I'm in my 5th week of classes and honestly so far it seems much easier than undergrad. My undergrad was difficult and I never studied, so maybe pharmacy school just seems easier because I am studying every day.

We have been having weekly quizzes in OTC and pharmaceutics and I am yet to miss a question on a single quiz, while the class average is around 75-80% each week. We have our first actual exam coming up next week in anatomy and everyone keep going on and on about how much they studied/need to study. I just feel like I'm missing something because the class seems easier than the A&P I took in undergrad. Yes, the material is in a higher volume BUT it is in less detail.

Maybe I shouldn't complain since I'm studying and it's paying off (so far), plus I know second semester will be a lot more difficult with biochemistry. Anyways, what was your experience? How much did you study a week? When did classes become a challenge?

In undergrad I never studied until 1-2 days before an exam (if I even bothered studying at all). So far in pharmacy school I have been averaging around 4-6 hours a day. My roommate is a medical student and I feel like a slacker watching him study 8-10 hours every single day lol.

Lol what? You call that easy?

Sounds like pharmacy school is a challenge for you. I only study day before the exam and still cruising.

 

[Amicable Angora]

Okay for real guys since this is becoming an e-peen thread, you don't need to seriously study until P2 year. Study as long as you need to maintain your standards or just pass.

And if you do wanna compare, compare with that studious med student who studies 8-10 hours... Does he need that much? Probably not but he'll be more competent for sure.

 

[SuccessOverStruggling]

I think it depends on what kind of learner you are. I'm not good at memorizing so I struggled a lot with both school and Naplex.

I found med chem, pk, economics easier and I liked calc and physics better than upper level bio.
If you are a good memorizer, pharmacy will be a cake walk.

 

[Sugoi Travis]

I didn't study much at all during my first year of pharmacy school. It was pretty much Undergrad 2.0 for the most part. Once the therapeutics/pharmaceutics classes started coming in during second year, my study time ramped up quite a bit.

 

[anon89]

I studied pretty much everyday. I took a week to prepare for each test and we had tests every week soo...

I'm not one of those people that can just cram 3-4 tests worth of material into my head for one test though, so it wasn't too easy for me.

 

[shnisaka]

P1 here! I study 2 days before the exam. I am making 3 A's and the rest B's in my classes. I have been trying to change my studying habit and do better but nothing is working for me. I have tried taking notes during classes. I have tried summarizing after classes are finished. I have tried studying after classes. None of the previous proved to have any impact on any of my grades or understanding of the material. I tend to learn by listening to the Dr. and doing what is asked for me to do such as taking a quiz or working on homework.

 

[Swishers]

My school had tests on Mondays most of the time. I wouldn't do anything on Monday through Wednesday except go to class and make up for lost time with my friends. Thursday and Friday is when I made sure all my notes were in order. Then I spent 6 to 8 hours a day on Saturday and Sunday trying to learn as much as my brain allows for the Monday exam. I'm horrible at memorizing huge amounts of information, so I got a B or B+ in most of the therapeutics classes.

 

[Digsbe]

I don't know how others got away with studying so little. We had mandatory attendance, and you were typically scheduled to be in class 30 hours a week or so. We'd have therapeutics exams every 2 weeks, 2 hour exams that were roughly 65-85 questions long and about 50% case-based. For other classes we had block exams. Some things were easier, some harder. I know for most therapeutics courses I had to study about 40 hours per test, pharmacology was somewhat similar. It felt like I was always studying for something.

 

[Amicable Angora]

I don't know how others got away with studying so little. We had mandatory attendance, and you were typically scheduled to be in class 30 hours a week or so. We'd have therapeutics exams every 2 weeks, 2 hour exams that were roughly 65-85 questions long and about 50% case-based. For other classes we had block exams. Some things were easier, some harder. I know for most therapeutics courses I had to study about 40 hours per test, pharmacology was somewhat similar. It felt like I was always studying for something.

Pharmacy school in the past was considerable easier than it is now. Also, the chances of running into people exaggerating/straight up lying about their schools is a possibility as well.

 

[pharmerjohn]

Hi. I'm a first year pharmacy student and was wondering how many hours a day/week is typical to study in pharmacy school. I'm in my 5th week of classes and honestly so far it seems much easier than undergrad. My undergrad was difficult and I never studied, so maybe pharmacy school just seems easier because I am studying every day.

We have been having weekly quizzes in OTC and pharmaceutics and I am yet to miss a question on a single quiz, while the class average is around 75-80% each week. We have our first actual exam coming up next week in anatomy and everyone keep going on and on about how much they studied/need to study. I just feel like I'm missing something because the class seems easier than the A&P I took in undergrad. Yes, the material is in a higher volume BUT it is in less detail.

Maybe I shouldn't complain since I'm studying and it's paying off (so far), plus I know second semester will be a lot more difficult with biochemistry. Anyways, what was your experience? How much did you study a week? When did classes become a challenge?

In undergrad I never studied until 1-2 days before an exam (if I even bothered studying at all). So far in pharmacy school I have been averaging around 4-6 hours a day. My roommate is a medical student and I feel like a slacker watching him study 8-10 hours every single day lol.

It’s only so easy because you didn’t challenge yourself. It’s all about the approach. Here’s what you should do to spice it up: treat pharmacy school like it’s a limbo dance. Hear me out, start off by studying less than what you’d normally study, and continue to decrease the amount of study time while still maintaining good grades. Or you can go real hardcore and skip to no studying altogether. Like the popular limbo song, the mantra should be “how low can you go?” The goal is to hit zero study time, but negative is even better. Try it out!

 

[confettiflyer]

The key is setting up a solid study group ahead of time, allocating lectures appropriately, and distilling it down to single-page study sheets by certain deadlines. My group had this down to a science and would be able to BEGIN cramming 12 hours before an exam looking only at 5 pages/size 8 font sheets.

I was responsible for a few lectures each course/each semester and would get note taking support for it. It was pretty damn beautiful. Divide and conquer, we were all able to accomplish other outside things because of this (work, research, travel, etc...)

Not having mandatory attendance helped, though. I would schedule things/work during class. It's all about efficiency.

 

[Silvermist]

I didn't take much science in undergrad, so I had to work like crazy to keep up during the first semester of pharmacy school. I felt like a complete *****, everyone around me kept telling me how easy everything was for them and how they didn't need to study. I had to constantly reinvent my study habits to keep up with a variety of different types of classes I had never taken before. I admit-- I cried a lot of nights. I felt stupid and barely eked out As.

Fast forward a semester or two ...

All of a sudden things were a lot more intense for *everybody*. None of our classes were a joke for anybody anymore. All of my classmates who thought things were so easy in the beginning and not having to study or repeatedly reinvent and hone their study skills like I had been all of a sudden were falling behind. Out of the entire crew I hung out with during my first year and a half in pharmacy school only **one** person got into Rho Chi:

Me.

After that whenever I would be at a forum or meeting or anything where there were a lot of first years, I would always tell them to not slack off first semester just because they felt confident, because things will get harder and it helps to at least go through the motions of creating study strategies before you have to. I don't think any of them ever followed my advice...