Is pharmacy school supposed to be hard?

[BelowTheMean]

Well, it isn't so far for me. I am a student at University of Southern Nevada (USN) and so far I have found the material to be extremely easy. I do not listen in lectures, take notes, do anything. However, I am aceing each and every test like nothing. The multiple choice tests are really simple and all this material is like undergrad to me. I don't know but is it going to get harder? Well, I like it like this because first semester is ending and so far it's been like an extended vacation for me since leaving Orange Coast College in May 05. I mean, vegas, parties, aceing tests by just looking over material once. Can't get any better. Is it just me? Or is it really this easy? I am no genius or anything close to it by the way.

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[starsweet]

Wow. Maybe I should apply there.

 

[Smilescali]

Well, it isn't so far for me. I am a student at University of Southern Nevada (USN) and so far I have found the material to be extremely easy. I do not listen in lectures, take notes, do anything. However, I am aceing each and every test like nothing. The multiple choice tests are really simple and all this material is like undergrad to me. I don't know but is it going to get harder? Well, I like it like this because first semester is ending and so far it's been like an extended vacation for me since leaving Orange Coast College in May 05. I mean, vegas, parties, aceing tests by just looking over material once. Can't get any better. Is it just me? Or is it really this easy? I am no genius or anything close to it by the way.

Really? That is strange because my friend who is a first year student at Touro says the same thing! Maybe it is just the first part of the first year that is not very hard. I am curious to see how others respond to this.

 

[Crazy_Norwegian]

Well, it isn't so far for me. I am a student at University of Southern Nevada (USN) and so far I have found the material to be extremely easy. I do not listen in lectures, take notes, do anything. However, I am aceing each and every test like nothing. The multiple choice tests are really simple and all this material is like undergrad to me. I don't know but is it going to get harder? Well, I like it like this because first semester is ending and so far it's been like an extended vacation for me since leaving Orange Coast College in May 05. I mean, vegas, parties, aceing tests by just looking over material once. Can't get any better. Is it just me? Or is it really this easy? I am no genius or anything close to it by the way.

My first semester is nothing like this...we have graduate level biochem, which is a lot harder than it needs to be. One of my friends has a bachelor's in biochemistry and we're going more in depth than any of his previous classes. No mutiple choice questions on those tests, by the way. I'm pretty sure he's getting a B, just like me. My pharmaceutics class is also ridiculously hard--some of my friends are getting 50's and 60's on the exams. For a couple of days before the exams for biochem and pharmaceutics, most of the P1 class seems to live at the library. Sometimes you can't even get a study room--they're all checked out. Our clinical A&P class isn't exactly a walk in the park, either. I got straight A's and had a 99 PCAT coming in, but I'm just hoping to stay above a 3.0 for the year. That's the minimum required to enroll in the combined MBA program.

 

[DHG]

My first semester is nothing like this...we have graduate level biochem, which is a lot harder than it needs to be. One of my friends has a bachelor's in biochemistry and we're going more in depth than any of his previous classes. No mutiple choice questions on those tests, by the way. I'm pretty sure he's getting a B, just like me. My pharmaceutics class is also ridiculously hard--some of my friends are getting 50's and 60's on the exams. For a couple of days before the exams for biochem and pharmaceutics, most of the P1 class seems to live at the library. Sometimes you can't even get a study room--they're all checked out. Our clinical A&P class isn't exactly a walk in the park, either. I got straight A's and had a 99 PCAT coming in, but I'm just hoping to stay above a 3.0 for the year. That's the minimum required to enroll in the combined MBA program.

What school do you go to?

 

[Crazy_Norwegian]

What school do you go to?

Ferris State

 

[CauBePharmD]

Pharmacy is not hard at all. Before the exam, i always get together with a big group to study; therefore, i have no problem with it. Also, on the homework, we always work together;therefore, it saves a lot of time.

 

[Comet208]

Well, it isn't so far for me. I am a student at University of Southern Nevada (USN) and so far I have found the material to be extremely easy. I do not listen in lectures, take notes, do anything. However, I am aceing each and every test like nothing. The multiple choice tests are really simple and all this material is like undergrad to me. I don't know but is it going to get harder? Well, I like it like this because first semester is ending and so far it's been like an extended vacation for me since leaving Orange Coast College in May 05. I mean, vegas, parties, aceing tests by just looking over material once. Can't get any better. Is it just me? Or is it really this easy? I am no genius or anything close to it by the way.

Your class had average GPA of 3.7 and that means a lot and your school requires so many upper level courses. Most 1st year pharmacy courses are review anyway.

 

[Crazy_Norwegian]

Your class had average GPA of 3.7 and that means a lot and your school requires so many upper level courses. Most 1st year pharmacy courses are review anyway.

My class (at Ferris State) had an average GPA of 3.66 and the only difference in pre-reqs (from USN) is that we had an economics class and an extra English class instead of A&P (which we're taking as clinical A&P now). My 1st year pharmacy classes are NOT mostly review, and are for the most part, quite difficult. In fact, my biochem teacher told us explicitly that he is teaching the class as a graduate-level course.

I have been told by many of the upperclassmen at my school that they (meaning the teachers and in part, the administration) make the first semester of school the worst of all the semesters. We just have to try to survive the first two years of school here, and the P3 and P4 years are supposedly much easier. Just my luck that I picked a school that I think has some kind of inferiority complex to U of Michigan. I just hope the overcompensating doesn't lead to my personal breakdown!

 

[38ctk]

a lot of people tell me that pharmacy school is a bit of a joke compared to undergrad. They're not saying that you don't have to study, but they spoon feed you a lot more than they do undergrad.

 

[dgroulx]

I'd say my school is quite a bit harder than undergrad. My only "review" type of course was microbiology and immunology. If I hadn't taken those in undergrad, they wouldn't have been review courses.

 

[Sosumi]

First year is supposed to be a piece of cake. It's meant for people from different backgrounds to catch up to those of us with more advanced backgrounds.

Second year is when you learn the meat of pharmacy school. Lots of material crammed together and it's like one quiz and exam after the other. It's the weed out year for our school.

 

[Fatpharm]

First year is supposed to be a piece of cake. It's meant for people from different backgrounds to catch up to those of us with more advanced backgrounds.

Second year is when you learn the meat of pharmacy school. Lots of material crammed together and it's like one quiz and exam after the other. It's the weed out year for our school.

I'm guessing you go to UMB. Are you able to work and go to school or is it too busy?

 

[Sosumi]

I'm guessing you go to UMB. Are you able to work and go to school or is it too busy?

I work about 10 to 20 hours a week. It's not too busy if you don't have a family to take care of like some of my classmates. Pharmacy school is all about time management. The workload isn't too bad. It can get overwhelming at times unless you schedule yourself efficiently.

At Maryland, we have a saying --"It's a different kind of torture every year." First year is kind of slow trying to get adjusted to school. Second year is a lot of quizzes and exams. Third year is a lot of busy work -- projects, care plan assessments, and other assignments. Fourth year is rotations and too many care plans.

 

[BelowTheMean]

Actually, I know a lot of P2's who are still what i call "vacationing". Yeah, our average gpa is 3.7 but seriously, that's just a number. And for our school, P3 is just rotations and you're done.

 

[bananaface]

a lot of people tell me that pharmacy school is a bit of a joke compared to undergrad. They're not saying that you don't have to study, but they spoon feed you a lot more than they do undergrad.

Um... Wait for medchem?

 

[WVUPharm2007]

P-1 year at WVU is like preschool.
P-2 year is like hell. Patho, therapeutic, med chem, pharmacology all packed into one giant, evil year. This is the reason why so many pharmacists wind up abusing sustances. Trying to cope with year 2.
P-3 year is a mystery to me. I haven't been trying at all, haven't really learned anything, yet I'm still getting good enough grades not to go on probation. I think it's because a lot of year 3 is just rehashed material from year three.
P-4 year should be golden. No tests, just rolling around doing stuff. W00t.

Then!!!!

May 13, 2007 - I'll be free at last, free at least, thank God all mighty, I'll be free at last.

 

[usi]

I'd say my school is quite a bit harder than undergrad. My only "review" type of course was microbiology and immunology. If I hadn't taken those in undergrad, they wouldn't have been review courses.

Dana,
What was the hardest year... and would you say there is a weed out year at UF?

 

[pharmeronadell]

Hang in there, Crazy_Norwegian, WSU is the same way!

 

[gsinccom]

what about schools that have the accelerated 3 year curriculum? Does that make school tougher or more time consuming? I'm suprised to hear so many say Pharm school is easier than undergrad. I've heard all doctoring health proffessions degree programs were tough; is Pharmacy the easiest out of the bunch?

 

[blueclassring]

My pharmacology teacher conveyed to me that the program at any university is very rigorous, and I'm inclined to believe her. I am currently taking a pharmacology class, and the number of drugs that needed to be memorized was immense. But the material isn't too difficult compared so say engineering. The drug mechanisms we studied we pretty easy. I believe that it will be challenging esp. in a three year program.

 

[gsinccom]

the three year program I refer to is USN. The first poster on this thread commented on how easy it is. hmm???

 

[Smilescali]

the three year program I refer to is USN. The first poster on this thread commented on how easy it is. hmm???

What may be easy to some may not be for others. I thought calculus was easy while others think it was the hardest class. I think O-chem is very hard, while others just loved it and thought it was breeze.

 

[gsinccom]

What may be easy to some may not be for others. I thought calculus was easy while others think it was the hardest class. I think O-chem is very hard, while others just loved it and thought it was breeze.

my opinion for hard is how much time it takes. Ochem was the most time consuming class I had but it wasn't really that hard when you consider intellectual challenge of it all. I am pretty well rounded and pick up most things well (although I would never have gone into art or engineering). How time consuming is pharm school? and pharm school at USN? How much time is spent in class? How much time is spent outside of class studying? Can you work part-time or have a family life outside of school or is pharm school as terrible as MD school?

 

[Smilescali]

my opinion for hard is how much time it takes. Ochem was the most time consuming class I had but it wasn't really that hard when you consider intellectual challenge of it all. I am pretty well rounded and pick up most things well (although I would never have gone into art or engineering). How time consuming is pharm school? and pharm school at USN? How much time is spent in class? How much time is spent outside of class studying? Can you work part-time or have a family life outside of school or is pharm school as terrible as MD school?

I do not attend USN. I have applied there for the Fall 2006 class. All of your questions are subjective and you will most likely get very different answers to all of those questions from a variety of pharmacy students. I think that USN is 4-5 days a week from 8-3 pm year round with breaks every so often. Someone posted a schedule on SDN awhlle back. Do a search there is a lot of info on this program.

 

[kwakster928]

hmmm i cant say for the other schools but I found my course work to be doable yet challenging. it is not supposed to be easy. if you are getting As without any effort, it is either because you are supersmart, or your teacher is really nice to you. but you shouldn't have an attitude like i really dont have to know this because it is not on exam, or i shouldn't study this much because it is too easy. soon or later that attitude will bite you in your rear. obtain as much as you can. you will be needing it when you are ready to practice.

 

[bananaface]

How about if I work my butt off and still get crappy grades?

 

[ndearwater]

Does any current pharmacy student feel that without their electives, they would be burnt out? I'm wondering because I'm considering the joint MBA program and I know it replaces your electives. Seems like a great way to avoid too much overlap but a pharmacist I know said, "Newsflash! You will NEED the break that your electives give you! You better think hard about this."
Should I be scared?

 

[Requiem]

Well, it isn't so far for me. I am a student at University of Southern Nevada (USN) and so far I have found the material to be extremely easy. I do not listen in lectures, take notes, do anything. However, I am aceing each and every test like nothing. The multiple choice tests are really simple and all this material is like undergrad to me. I don't know but is it going to get harder? Well, I like it like this because first semester is ending and so far it's been like an extended vacation for me since leaving Orange Coast College in May 05. I mean, vegas, parties, aceing tests by just looking over material once. Can't get any better. Is it just me? Or is it really this easy? I am no genius or anything close to it by the way.

Well you sir, are part of a weak program. Whether you're trolling or not, I don't care but I can tell you if it's true, that's not a respectable program. I go to pharmacy school in Canada, where the average GPA of acceptance was roughly 3.80, and I'm doing 7 courses. A full course load is considered 5 courses. Even people with degrees who are in my program find their courses challenging (they have a briefer workload this semester as some courses may be dropped because they've completed them before.)

I can tell you that if you "looked over material once", you would not "ace" tests. You actually would not even pass tests here. For a hard course, such as pharmaceutics, my class prepares roughly 3-4 days in advance, with a lot of studying.

There is one similarity however: lectures are generally not important. A lot of lectures can easily be missed and learned on your own, most of the material is learned that way. It's also simply because there's such a sheer volume of material it'd be impossible to cover all of it in the classroom, so we basically do 50-60 PP slides per class.

 

[ultracet]

Does any current pharmacy student feel that without their electives, they would be burnt out? I'm wondering because I'm considering the joint MBA program and I know it replaces your electives. Seems like a great way to avoid too much overlap but a pharmacist I know said, "Newsflash! You will NEED the break that your electives give you! You better think hard about this."
Should I be scared?

we only had 1 elective our 3rd year..... (2 if you just really want to take them)

so no everyone burned out
our joint MBA program just was night classes and some summer classes....

it didn't take the place of anything we had... they did double work

i can't imagine what the guy who is in the pharmd/pa program does... i'm assuming the same as he had to take all of our classes.... maybe they let him out of some over there

 

[dgroulx]

Does any current pharmacy student feel that without their electives, they would be burnt out? I'm wondering because I'm considering the joint MBA program and I know it replaces your electives. Seems like a great way to avoid too much overlap but a pharmacist I know said, "Newsflash! You will NEED the break that your electives give you! You better think hard about this."
Should I be scared?

I didn't get to take any electives until my 3rd year. We only had 7 other classes, so why not throw on an elective? My elective is an in-depth medicinal chemistry class. It's not really a break from pharmacy.

 

[rxforlife2004]

Well, it isn't so far for me. I am a student at University of Southern Nevada (USN) and so far I have found the material to be extremely easy. I do not listen in lectures, take notes, do anything. However, I am aceing each and every test like nothing. The multiple choice tests are really simple and all this material is like undergrad to me. I don't know but is it going to get harder? Well, I like it like this because first semester is ending and so far it's been like an extended vacation for me since leaving Orange Coast College in May 05. I mean, vegas, parties, aceing tests by just looking over material once. Can't get any better. Is it just me? Or is it really this easy? I am no genius or anything close to it by the way.

I don't think so...This thread makes USN look very stupid and low standard, and you're one of the future graduate there. I don't think anyone would just do nothing and pass the exam. People usually deny that they study because they don't wanna be called as "nerds".

Anyway, by far, I do think first year is way easier than second year at USN. But it doesn't mean first year is a joke. I had a rough time with pharmacology. This year, I took a look at your first pharmacology exam( with Dr. Ziance), and yes, it is a JOKE comparing to the exam last year that we had. Don't know why this professor is so easy on you guys....But watch out for 2nd year....I guarantee that you have to study 3-4 times harder than last year in order to pass the assessment. I've been there....and don't be surprised when you have to take a couple remediations....I've seen people who never failed last year and consistanly "made" 2-3 summer schools already...

 

[jamboo54]

I'm actually a little surprised at how much less difficult pharmacy is than I thought it would be. I am doing less work right now than I did in undergrad - but I did a lot more work in undergrad than most others did. I'm assuming its supposed to get more difficult later in the year. I will admit that it is a lot of material and that if you leave it to the day before the test you might get a little stressed. But the thing that makes it easy is that the material is spoon fed to you. All exams so far are based off of the lecture notes and we don't have to read any textbook. I found out the best way to learn the material is to pay attention in class so you get that exposure to the material before you start memorizing everything.

I go to MWU-CPG and we have tests 2 times a week which leaves about 2 days to study for each test (there are random days when we don't have tests though so u can play catch up on those days if you want). So far I haven't had to study over the weekends (I'm a big fan of not studying on weekends so I like to get all my work done on weekdays and then relax on weekends). I say I put in about 8-10 hours studying for each test spread out over the 2 days - not including time spent in lectures. The test averages for most of our classes are around mid 80s unlike undergrad where averages were like 60s.

I think another reason pharmacy school is easier than I thought is because we don't have labs and lab writeups like undergrad. I really hated those ochem lab writeups.

 

[TyrannosaurusRx]

Well you sir, are part of a weak program. Whether you're trolling or not, I don't care but I can tell you if it's true, that's not a respectable program. I go to pharmacy school in Canada, where the average GPA of acceptance was roughly 3.80, and I'm doing 7 courses. A full course load is considered 5 courses. Even people with degrees who are in my program find their courses challenging (they have a briefer workload this semester as some courses may be dropped because they've completed them before.)

I can tell you that if you "looked over material once", you would not "ace" tests. You actually would not even pass tests here. For a hard course, such as pharmaceutics, my class prepares roughly 3-4 days in advance, with a lot of studying.

There is one similarity however: lectures are generally not important. A lot of lectures can easily be missed and learned on your own, most of the material is learned that way. It's also simply because there's such a sheer volume of material it'd be impossible to cover all of it in the classroom, so we basically do 50-60 PP slides per class.

Average entering GPA for USN is 3.7, so it's not exactly much lower than that of your school. I'm sure some of your classes are easier than others. USN is on the block system (meaning they do the same # of classes per semester, they just focus on one at a time), and this the OP's first year. It's quite possible that the first classes have been easy ones, and only having to focus on one easy class = having an easy time. I guarantee there will be blocks when the OP will not feel the same way, and will probably be under measurably more pressure than you are at any given time. That's just the way the block system works. Personally, I love it, whether it's lots of pressure or not-so-much pressure. I have to strongly disagree that it's simply a matter of being "part of a weak program."