life in pharm school

[futurepharmd33]

Advertisement - Members don't see this ad

I am currently in undergrad and i am just wondering how pharmacy school is compared to undergrad? what are the classes like? do you still have time to do hobbies (i.e. playing piano and working out) thanks 🙂

 

[Guilded_Age]

It was a blur of booze and lots of yellow notepads for myself. Not an incredibly fond time in my life.

 

[Jibby321]

I am currently in undergrad and i am just wondering how pharmacy school is compared to undergrad? what are the classes like? do you still have time to do hobbies (i.e. playing piano and working out) thanks 🙂

You stay pretty busy. I still make time for the gym and hobbies though. Can't study all the time. You'll go insane. It's not super hard. Just a lot of stuff all at once.

 

[dblock05]

Can do alot of your hobbies still if you have good time management. Pharmacy school is not impossible or that hard.

 

[Sugoi Travis]

Pharm school is easier than undergrad for me. Volume of work (usually busywork) is higher, but that's about it.

 

[PharmyOfNone]

The biggest difference for me was having class most of the day, every day. I really missed being able to sleep in once or twice a week.

 

[Digsbe]

Honestly I find pharmacy school to be much more challenging. Undergrad was hard, but I didn't have to spend 30+ hours a week in class and then an additional 30+ studying or working on busywork projects. The material isn't impossible, but courses like pharmacology and pharmacotherapy felt to have much more dense material than compared to undergrad courses (and I did take many upper-level science classes and made A's in a handful).

You still have time for life, but at least for me I know there are weeks where I've pretty much done nothing but school, sleep and study.

 

[RxStudentatUB]

Honestly I find pharmacy school to be much more challenging. Undergrad was hard, but I didn't have to spend 30+ hours a week in class and then an additional 30+ studying or working on busywork projects. The material isn't impossible, but courses like pharmacology and pharmacotherapy felt to have much more dense material than compared to undergrad courses (and I did take many upper-level science classes and made A's in a handful).

You still have time for life, but at least for me I know there are weeks where I've pretty much done nothing but school, sleep and study.

Don't forget to fit in daily fitness during your school/sleep/study cycle! =] There is always time for exercise and fitness.

 

[Digsbe]

Don't forget to fit in daily fitness during your school/sleep/study cycle! =] There is always time for exercise and fitness.

I must say I neglected that. Since starting pharm school 3 years ago I've gained 10 pounds (working on dropping 15-20 now) and rarely exercised (managed to go jogging 3 days ago though haha). Don't even get me started on the lack of sleep, I recently went 36 hours without sleep a few days ago and 24 a week before due to school. Many night I get like 3-4 hours and work in my bed until I fall tired enough to sleep. Don't neglect personal health, it costs you dearly in other areas and you should be well rounded. It's easy to not do that though and I'm a chief offender of that haha.

 

[GoldfishPharmD]

I didn't find it all too challenging. The first year was basically filler classes like into to pharmacy, pharmacy history, professional communications, there were like 3 hard classes my first year of pharmacy school that took a lot of effort. Second year was harder because of all the pharmacotherapy stuff we had. Third year was better than second year for me and then 4th year was a breeze.

 

[PharMed2016]

Depends on everyone's background going into pharmacy but it honestly wasn't hard. I think I put in about 50-60 hours a week (including class time) and did very well. I was able to have hobbies, hangout with friends, and even work as an intern during the weekends.

 

[Son_Goku]

Depends on everyone's background going into pharmacy but it honestly wasn't hard. I think I put in about 50-60 hours a week (including class time) and did very well. I was able to have hobbies, hangout with friends, and even work as an intern during the weekends.

Sorry; can't compute.

 

[Jibby321]

I must say I neglected that. Since starting pharm school 3 years ago I've gained 10 pounds (working on dropping 15-20 now) and rarely exercised (managed to go jogging 3 days ago though haha). Don't even get me started on the lack of sleep, I recently went 36 hours without sleep a few days ago and 24 a week before due to school. Many night I get like 3-4 hours and work in my bed until I fall tired enough to sleep. Don't neglect personal health, it costs you dearly in other areas and you should be well rounded. It's easy to not do that though and I'm a chief offender of that haha.

I make time for sleep. I'm in bed by no later than 11 and up by earliest 7. Sleep>school>gym them throw about 8-16 hrs a week working and that's my life in school. But like I said in a earlier post...you stay busy with all the bs you have to do. But you have to find what works for you.

 

[Dred Pirate]

Pharm school is easier than undergrad for me. Volume of work (usually busywork) is higher, but that's about it.

yup - this was me - I worked more, but had better time management skill - instead of screwing around during the day, I worked during the day which left time for fun at night

 

[ramizlol]

So you guys are saying you can't work full time while being in pharmacy school?

My current schedule is 5 classes(18 credits) and 45-50 hr of work per week.

Classes
Pathology(graduate class)
Orgo 2
Orgo lab
Calculus 1
physics 1

I'm doing fine in all my classes

 

[Dred Pirate]

So you guys are saying you can't work full time while being in pharmacy school?

My current schedule is 5 classes(18 credits) and 45-50 hr of work per week.

Classes
Pathology(graduate class)
Orgo 2
Orgo lab
Calculus 1
physics 1

I'm doing fine in all my classes

exactly - I did it without issues

 

[Lexington2012]

Look at the attrition rate. A lot of people try but just can't make it happen. Every class also has a few more that barely manage to pass.

 

[PharmtoCS]

Look at the attrition rate. A lot of people try but just can't make it happen. Every class also has a few more that barely manage to pass.

Some people I know have fallen behind, and a few have failed out because they insisted on working through school. The attrition rate will most likely rise as admission standards drop and more students are accepted when they are not cut out for pharmacy school.

 

[y0ssarian87]

So you guys are saying you can't work full time while being in pharmacy school?

My current schedule is 5 classes(18 credits) and 45-50 hr of work per week.

Classes
Pathology(graduate class)
Orgo 2
Orgo lab
Calculus 1
physics 1

I'm doing fine in all my classes

At my undergrad, the courses were scheduled at regular times. For example, OChem was MWF from 12-1 (or whatever). At my pharmacy school, schedules change drastically from week to week. We must refer to an online calendar to know where to be. This makes it logistically tricky to schedule regular work. Additionally my inpatient pharmacy only schedules students if they can work full 8.5-hour shifts that start at either 7am or 2:30pm. Due to these restrictions, I've found it difficult to work more than 17 hr/week (on weekends). Though. At the same time, I rarely work less than 17 hr/week.

In addition to work, I do research in a lab at school, and that takes up a good chunk of time. But I can schedule that in chunks between classes. I can go in, set up a quick assay, and let it run. Of course, that's not paid though.

And as for the difficulty of pharmacy school, I think someone said it earlier, but pharmacy school is NOT harder. If anything, it's easier. The amount of material is what makes it difficult, but it forces you to stay on top of everything.

 

[Lexington2012]

The water tastes the same coming from a water fountain or a firehose.... But you are going to have to make some changes to sip from a firehose.

 

[Dred Pirate]

At my undergrad, the courses were scheduled at regular times. For example, OChem was MWF from 12-1 (or whatever). At my pharmacy school, schedules change drastically from week to week. We must refer to an online calendar to know where to be. This makes it logistically tricky to schedule regular work. Additionally my inpatient pharmacy only schedules students if they can work full 8.5-hour shifts that start at either 7am or 2:30pm. Due to these restrictions, I've found it difficult to work more than 17 hr/week (on weekends). Though. At the same time, I rarely work less than 17 hr/week.

In addition to work, I do research in a lab at school, and that takes up a good chunk of time. But I can schedule that in chunks between classes. I can go in, set up a quick assay, and let it run. Of course, that's not paid though.

And as for the difficulty of pharmacy school, I think someone said it earlier, but pharmacy school is NOT harder. If anything, it's easier. The amount of material is what makes it difficult, but it forces you to stay on top of everything.

I never had that issue with class times being all over the place. We had regular hours just like undergrad.

My hospital was great working with me (I actually had two jobs at the hospital, 1/2 inpatient, 1/2 outpatient, but they were excellent in working with interns and the varied hours. My current hospital where I work, treats all interns just like regular techs. The only students that work here generally work weekends on a set schedule.

I was also allowed to do some narc inventory stuff completely on my own schedule (come in for a couple of hours here and there as long as the word got done, I could do it at 3 am if I wanted to)

 

[y0ssarian87]

I never had that issue with class times being all over the place. We had regular hours just like undergrad.

My hospital was great working with me (I actually had two jobs at the hospital, 1/2 inpatient, 1/2 outpatient, but they were excellent in working with interns and the varied hours. My current hospital where I work, treats all interns just like regular techs. The only students that work here generally work weekends on a set schedule.

I was also allowed to do some narc inventory stuff completely on my own schedule (come in for a couple of hours here and there as long as the word got done, I could do it at 3 am if I wanted to)

Yeah, the erratic schedule isn't actually that bad. Just makes it difficult to schedule work during the week.

At my hospital, we (the students) are essentially techs, too. There is a pilot project that recently started where pharmacy performs med rec for patients within 24 hours of admission. Med rec is done by techs, so I've had the opportunity to interact with several patients, despite having an inpatient tech role. That's been interesting, but honestly I don't feel like I'm learning much from the tech work anymore.

 

[intekmdma]

So you guys are saying you can't work full time while being in pharmacy school?

My current schedule is 5 classes(18 credits) and 45-50 hr of work per week.

Classes
Pathology(graduate class)
Orgo 2
Orgo lab
Calculus 1
physics 1

I'm doing fine in all my classes

You'll do fine at Kaiser if you are on the west coast

 

[RX2090]

I worked 32 hours a week, went out with my girlfriend once a week, went to the gym twice a week, played video games, watched tv.... It really isn't that hard. You can't go nuts and study all day, you will go bat**** insane. You need "me" time. At the same time though, make sure you know your **** for the exams.

Oh, and DO NOT go to the classes that don't require mandatory attendance and if the professor just reads off of the slides. You will catch up on major sleep time, which will benefit you in the long run.

 

[HelpfulPharmer1]

I am currently in undergrad and i am just wondering how pharmacy school is compared to undergrad? what are the classes like? do you still have time to do hobbies (i.e. playing piano and working out) thanks 🙂

You will have answers from both sides: easy and hard. Work and don't work.

Overall, the common fact is:

You will have to pay a lot to sit in pharmacy school, pay way more money to sit in pharmacy school.

Many Accepted Pharmacy Students did fail to the point of being kicked out of pharmacy school and still owed a lot of money. If you want to start again, most pharmacy schools I have heard will require you to restart from entry level of year 1. Why? Each school mostly designed their own classes that are not considered equivalent to other schools.

Now, the bar of pharmacy school is higher than undergrad. Failed student will likely owe over 50 thousand dollars and restart from entry level of new pharmacy school.

In summary, you will have answers from both sides: easy and hard. Work and don't work. With 50 thousand dollars at stake, I will hunt and beg the failed students for advice to avoid being a failed student myself. Guess what? most of them are not here to give advice. Anyone has a link about advice from a failed student so others will not fail, please share. Thank you very much.

I would tread the water of pharmacy school carefully with lots of sacrifices for at least 4 months before I know I can relax on studying and find work.

 

[deleted158872]

Honestly I find pharmacy school to be much more challenging. Undergrad was hard, but I didn't have to spend 30+ hours a week in class and then an additional 30+ studying or working on busywork projects. The material isn't impossible, but courses like pharmacology and pharmacotherapy felt to have much more dense material than compared to undergrad courses (and I did take many upper-level science classes and made A's in a handful).

You still have time for life, but at least for me I know there are weeks where I've pretty much done nothing but school, sleep and study.

i find pharmacy curricula vary greatly from school to school. check up on individual school's curriculum. some are very rigorous. some are very relaxed.