Pre-Pharm junior year

[SupplyDemand]

Advertisement - Members don't see this ad

Hi everyone, I joined this forum with the hope that you might be able to give me some feedback on a potentially unusual idea. I just finished my sophomore year of college, majoring in economics. My plan has been to go into a field like finance, but I am wondering if that's really something I want to do, especially with the poor market for those jobs.

As a result, I'm thinking about pharmacy school, but I am going into my junior year with almost none of the requirements done. Luckily, econ requires a bit of math, so I have that done, with okay grades in those courses, and I've taken a ton of writing-based humanities. I would still have all my chem, bio, and physics to do, though. Would it be possible for me to get into pharmacy school as an econ major, if I do all the pre-pharm courses in my next four semesters? I go to a highly-ranked college, so that might help my application, although it also means I'll have to work hard to get As in organic chem, etc.

Thanks in advance for your advice!

 

[smercer]

So why go from Finance to Pharmacy?

What do you know about Pharmacy, besides that pharmacists dispense meds?

How do you like science?

How long what you thought about swapping to pharmacy?


As far as getting in, once you surpass all the min. requirements you can get accepted. Now you need to understand that many schools would question the sudden shift of focus from Econ to Pharmacy. Thus you would probably want to get plently of shadowing/work experience in a pharmacy to show that you have more desire.

I mean, when I read your post, the first thing that popped into my mind is that you were on the Yahoo Finance page and saw a link on the side about "BOOMING HEALTHCARE JOBS." I would hope you have better reasons then what you posted.

 

[smercer]

Req. for pharm. schools are usually all core classes tallying up to about 60 or so hours of credits. That is the minimum, but about 70% of incomming pharm. students have a BS. Thus once you pass those 60 hours of the courses they require you can begin applying, but you should continue to aquire more upper level science courses.

Making an A in Gen chem I and II is cool, but they like seeing stuff like A's in 3000 and 4000 level courses more. All of which are not in the minimum requirements.

Also to your job outlook point. At the moment a quick browsing of the forums will show you that not everyone is finding jobs as a pharmacists. Not saying it will not change, but if job out look is a deciding factor it should be considered before you put too much effort going in a completely different direction then the one you are currently in.

Science and health care are not synonymous. Yes healthcare uses science and is based on science, but there is a huge difference between being a scientist and being in health care.

My true advice is to take as many science courses as you can. If you like math then Chemistry/physics will be a good science for you to look at. If you kinda suck at math then Bio might be better.

I have been looking at pharmacy for years. I have over 7 years experience in pharmacy. I completely understand having a drive for science. I love science. My 2 favorite subjects have been Bio. Chem and Micro Biology. Understanding the basics of life is very interesting to me. I know that pharmacy uses both of sciences to a great extent and I have even considered the possibility of going to Grad. school in Bio. Chem or Micro instead of going for pharmacy. For me the deciding factor is that pharmacy gives me a bit more openess. Yes I may not find a job anywhere, but I could. Also I'm not so sure I am all to thrilled to be writing journal articles the rest of my life.

 

[dahwsi]

My .02? The course difficulty and the difficulty between your major and Pharmacy (or health related fields in general) are much more difficult! PLEASE make sure it is something you really want to do before running after the bus and jumping on until you've gone to far to turn back