intensity of pharmacy vs undergrad classes

[kitkat06]

how are your pharmacy school classes structured (please indicate the school you are attending)? Are they primarily lecture then testing of your understanding of the presented material in short answer, MC, essay forms, or something more involved such as presentations, research paper, etc? Are the style of teaching (and testing) dependent on the pharmacy institution you attend, ie 3 vs 4 year school, schools that are more clinically oriented vs research vs community pharmacy? I am trying to have a better idea of the intensity of professional classes relative to one's typical undergrad learning experience (lecture, MC/short answer tests, few research paper, etc)

is pharmacy school much like an extension of undergrad classes, just more voluminous?

Thanks

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[I Lovely Gator]

I attend University of Florida and just finished my 2nd year of pharmacy school. Pharmacy school is nothing compare to undergrad. The volume in pharmacy is massive and the transition (for me) from undergrad to doctorate school is (level of difficulty- from a level 4 to a level 8)... I really enjoy pharmacy school. The exams in pharmacy school compose mostly of MC questions (35-40 questions) within a two hour frame. If you study the material and keep focus-you should be okay! Good luck.

 

[I Lovely Gator]

Also, nearly all of my courses at UF is integrated into clinical pharmacy rather than community. "Patient care" is the center of most classes.

 

[firefighter9015]

I am at University of Kentucky and we have a high volume of material however most of the tests are MC, but we have a thing called blocks. This is where we have all of our tests one weekend a month. This is what makes pharmacy school harder for me. I do fine with only one test to study for, but when I have 7 in one weekend, it kills me!

 

[Requiem]

I go to school in Canada.

The typical test is a majority of Multiple Choice with short answers. Courses like pharmacology, infectious disease, and therapeutics had almost half/half weighting of MC vs Short Answer.

Kinetics is mostly problem solving, similar to a chem or math exam.

Pharmacy school, I don't know if it's because it's "professional school" or theres simply lower #'s, but almost lecture is a powerpoint handout where you follow slide by slide and attempt to add notes to the incoherent fragments.

I've probably had to write about 3-4 papers thus far (just finished second year), those being research papers. There's also research assignments in stuff like Drug Information, Drug Interactions etc. They SUCK.

There's definitely more volume for everyone vs undergrad. 7 courses a semester? death.

In general get ready for pain in the ass multiple choice, often "key"[sp?] type with a) i,ii,iv b) i, ii, iii c) ii, iii d) all of the above e) none of the above.

 

[Moxxie]

In general get ready for pain in the ass multiple choice, often "key"[sp?] type with a) i,ii,iv b) i, ii, iii c) ii, iii d) all of the above e) none of the above.

Multiple multiple exams are starting to suck out my soul. It's hard when you're used to getting A's and you see a D on a test, all because a lot of the answers were "a,b,e & f" but you chose "a,e & f." Ouch. I do believe that I'll be seeing my first ever C this semester.

 

[WVUPharm2007]

I remember while experiencing the didactic part of pharmacy school I wanted to beat my head against a wall numerous times, but in retrospect I really don't think it was all that bad.

 

[DrugDealer]

In general get ready for pain in the ass multiple choice, often "key"[sp?] type with a) i,ii,iv b) i, ii, iii c) ii, iii d) all of the above e) none of the above.

Those are "K-type" questions. Yes, my school (MCPHS) loves them, too! They tell us it is to prepare us for the NAPLEX.

 

[kitkat06]

Are you guys able to do anything much outside of taking classes (does a typical class schedule run from 8am to like 5pm, M - F?), aside from studying your course material, of course. How much time do you guys find you can dedicate to other activities (like job, research, fun extracurriculars)

 

[tungywungy]

I have SOO much free time... I just wish I didn't waste it doing nothing.

 

[kitkat06]

where do you attend, tungy?

 

[kitkat06]

any more input?

 

[pinkyrx]

Pharmacy is far more difficult that undergrad in general, but it really depends on which pharmacy school you go to and which undergrad school you are comparing it to.

For me, the pure volume of material and projects is what was difficult. You have to have great time managment skills or you will quickly get overwhelmed.

I stayed very busy during the week and almost always had my Sat/Sunday completely off with no studying. That is unless I had a huge Therapeutics test on Monday morning. Fortunately our school didn't do the block thing... I'm not sure how students survive that or what the purpose is of doing it that way. Seems very stress inducing!

We did have the K-type questions on many of our exams and they were really awful, particularly in Kinetics. They say they are preparing us for the NAPLEX with those types of questions, but I sure didn't like them.

 

[rxlynn]

how are your pharmacy school classes structured (please indicate the school you are attending)? Are they primarily lecture then testing of your understanding of the presented material in short answer, MC, essay forms, or something more involved such as presentations, research paper, etc? Are the style of teaching (and testing) dependent on the pharmacy institution you attend, ie 3 vs 4 year school, schools that are more clinically oriented vs research vs community pharmacy? I am trying to have a better idea of the intensity of professional classes relative to one's typical undergrad learning experience (lecture, MC/short answer tests, few research paper, etc)

is pharmacy school much like an extension of undergrad classes, just more voluminous?

Thanks

I have found the first year to be harder than undergrad in a lot of ways, but not as difficult as my master's in chemistry. I agree with the other posters - volume is probably the main issue. There's just a lot of material covered, and there's not much opportunity to stop in the middle if you aren't getting it. It's really important to not get behind, and to seek help quickly if you feel like you aren't catching on. So, from that point of view, I feel like it just has a lot less leeway in terms of time than undergrad.

However, conceptually I have found it much easier than my chemistry masters degree coursework, at least so far. That might be partly because I had been working in a pharmacy for almost 6 years before I started school, so I didn't really have to spend time studying for drug quizzes and such.

 

[tungywungy]

where do you attend, tungy?

I go to the University of Oklahoma. The course load is the hard part but if you study at least 3 days before the test, that's more than enough to pass. But then again, if I worked harder at the beginning, I wouldn't be worrying so much about finals this week. Finals week is busting my balls and I'm already lacking sleeeeepp.

 

[kitkat06]

this is a silly question: what exactly is a block system? is that the same as a quarter system? (my undergrad was a semester system)

 

[longnguyen]

Pharmacy courses are conceptually not very difficult or challenging.
If you have a very good memory, the 1st & 2nd year should be a piece of cake. You just have to practice a lil bit with clin pharmcokinetics. I used to work full time, but have plenty of time to study during the 2 first years at UF. Year 3 requires much more time to study.

 

[rxlynn]

this is a silly question: what exactly is a block system? is that the same as a quarter system? (my undergrad was a semester system)

Some schools (while being on a semester system) also teach certain classes in a block, which just means that you attend the class multiple hours on multiple days of the week, and therefore you complete a semester length class in less than a semester's time.

For example, my past semester had three blocks - first one was a 4 hour class, second one was a 4 hour class, and last one was a 3 hour class. We also had 7 more hours overlaid with that - but those classes only met 1 day per week. So, in January we started the first block - when it got to the end in Feb, we took the final for that class, then it was done, etc.

I had done both semesters and quarters before - to me, the blocks are sort of like quarters on steroids. It's just a lot of material very fast.

 

[Moxxie]

Some schools (while being on a semester system) also teach certain classes in a block, which just means that you attend the class multiple hours on multiple days of the week, and therefore you complete a semester length class in less than a semester's time.

For example, my past semester had three blocks - first one was a 4 hour class, second one was a 4 hour class, and last one was a 3 hour class. We also had 7 more hours overlaid with that - but those classes only met 1 day per week. So, in January we started the first block - when it got to the end in Feb, we took the final for that class, then it was done, etc.

I had done both semesters and quarters before - to me, the blocks are sort of like quarters on steroids. It's just a lot of material very fast.

Ah, then ISU also has a modified block system. Starting in the P2 year, we take all of our pharmacotherapy in "modules" - 2-3 hours/day, 4 days a week. For instance, our first module next fall will be renal/pulmonary.

There is a module exam every other Friday and a "final" once every 4 weeks - even though sometimes there is more than one final per module. So once a month you get an exam and a final on the same day - sometimes on up to 80 hours of lecture. I think that it will work well for learning things about one system all at once, but upperclassmen have mentioned that the course load can get rough.

 

[azpixie]

what do you prefer? quarter vs. semester vs. block systems?

 

[rxlynn]

Ah, then ISU also has a modified block system. Starting in the P2 year, we take all of our pharmacotherapy in "modules" - 2-3 hours/day, 4 days a week. For instance, our first module next fall will be renal/pulmonary.

There is a module exam every other Friday and a "final" once every 4 weeks - even though sometimes there is more than one final per module. So once a month you get an exam and a final on the same day - sometimes on up to 80 hours of lecture. I think that it will work well for learning things about one system all at once, but upperclassmen have mentioned that the course load can get rough.

That's interesting - I think Mercer works pretty hard to make sure that we don't have more than one exam in the same day. However, if your block is short, then you generally end up having a major test at the rate of almost 1 a week. I spend a lot of time on the weekends studying, because the test time (unless the professor wants to take up class time giving a test) is on Monday.

 

[Fatpharm]

I think the difficulty of pharmacy school depends on how hard your pre req classes were. I graduated with a BS in Micro and I feel that the classes I did for my undergrad were more challenging than my first year of pharmacy school. I rarely had any multiple guess tests in undergrad so I had to study harder.

 

[ZpackSux]

Didactic study in Pharmacy is not conceptually difficult. It's straight forward.

But I feel some mid to upper level undergrad chemistry and math courses are much more difficult than any pharmacy course.

 

[drugs]

I was commented for being blunt and hurt others feelings

But here is my point of view. If you are looking for A's, be good to your fellow seniors, which ever school you attend to. You get the sources and study material If you are lucky most of the times even questions from old exams. The key is to know how to find and butter up the right person.

If you want to KNOW your stuff, read read read, be a nerd and have some fun outside the school. Defnitely you will pass the program not with better grades BUT you be having an idea what goes on real world.