research or pharmacy

Started by motivatednow
Get help with your application

Use all the free resources available to you from SDN: articles, guides, expert advising, forums discussions, and school research.

Browse articles Compare schools My application plan Read Interview Feedback
Practice for interviews Ask an Advisor
M

motivatednow

Full Member
10+ Year Member
Hi,
i would like to hear people's opinion on this. I need to choose between keeping my part-time pharmacy job and a new research position I have been offered.
Any opinions?!
 
Last edited:
If you've been at your pharmacy job for a decent amount of time, I'd change to research as long as you're really interested in doing it. At least that's what I would probably do.
 
Passion4Sci said:
Are there any other variables involved?

Pay, hours, anything like that?
Click to expand...


I would be doing full time research as a full time employee. I have been at the pharmacy for about a year as a part-time employee
I'm trying not to include pay and benefits, i'd rather look at which one would give me the best experience.
 
motivatednow said:
I would be doing full time research as a full time employee. I have been at the pharmacy for about a year as a part-time employee
I'm trying not to include pay and benefits, i'd rather look at which one would give me the best experience.
Click to expand...

Depends on what you want to do. Ultimately, Pharmacy schools focus on practicum more than research and the majority of newly minted PharmD work in retail, person to person type environments, not laboratories.

That said, you have worked in a Pharmacy now for a year or so, and that's pretty good to say, "Hey, I have a feel for this, time to try something else." I get that... And if you can afford the time and such with your studies to work full-time then I'd say go for it.
 
FYI, Kaplan's book "Get into Pharmacy School" lists these schools as the top 25 research institutions:
Ohio State Uni
Purdue Uni
SUNY-Buffalo
Uni of AZ
UCSD
UCSF
Uni of CO
Uni of FL
Uni of Ill. - chicago
Uni of Iowa
Uni of Kansas
Uni of Kentucky
Uni of MD
Uni of Michigan
Uni of Minnesota
Uni of Miss.
UNC-CH
Uni of Pittsburgh
Uni of Southern Cali
Uni of TN
Uni of TX
Uni of Utah
Uni of Washington
UNi of Wisconsin-Madison
Virginia Commonwealth Uni

So if you were interested in applying to any of these, I think research experience may help you out.
 
motivatednow said:
Hi,
i would like to hear people's opinion on this. I originally had planned to keep my part-time pharmacy job and a new research position I have been offered. Unfortunately the system will not allow me to do both and I was not aware of this. Therefore, I must decide between the two. Which should I choose.
I will be doing research in a chemistry lab related to drug discover. I plan to apply to pharmacy school.
Any opinions?!
Click to expand...
Definitely research. What you will doing in drug discovery is so much more interesting and better for your resume. Good luck w/ your decision.
 
So, if my experiments work out and I can write my thesis in time, I'll be finishing with a PhD in molecular biology and starting pharmacy school in the fall at the University of Washington. In my lab, there's a woman who's an MD who's finished her residency and will now be starting a fellowship in our lab. We just had a conversation the other day that one advantage of doing a PharmD or MD over a PhD is you can do both clinical and research, whereas with a PhD, you can only do research.

If you're interested in research, I'd try it out before pharmacy school so if you can see if it's for you. And the University of Washington does have amazing research, both in molecular biology and in pharmacy.

If you really like research, you might even want to consider the PharmD/PhD route.
 
motivatednow said:
Hi,
i would like to hear people's opinion on this. I originally had planned to keep my part-time pharmacy job and a new research position I have been offered. Unfortunately the system will not allow me to do both and I was not aware of this. Therefore, I must decide between the two. Which should I choose.
I will be doing research in a chemistry lab related to drug discover. I plan to apply to pharmacy school.
Any opinions?!
Click to expand...

I will go for pharmacy
 
I had research experience for about two years as an undergraduate in molecular biology, but I stopped in order to gain pharmacy experience.
I am applying to some research schools (UCSF), but grades are not that great. I'm applying to pharmacy school this year and was possibly considering the pharmD/PhD route, but i'm not too sure about it. Only because I think i will have a problem getting in.
 
Last edited:
I think most schools allow you to add on the PharmD/PhD route after you have been in the PharmD program for a year or 2. I've seen some schedules of the PharmD/PhD route (b/c I'm interested too) and you don't really do anything for you PhD until your 3rd or sometimes 4th year.
 
Well, I worked in a pharmacology lab doing diabetes research for 10 years and then started pharmacy school...the research was great experience, but in my opinion, very boring work. Don't get me wrong, I'm better for having done it, it was a great learning experience and I had the chance to publish some papers, but ultimately it's an unstable job due to funding cuts and grant money competition. Granted, I only had a B.S., so having a PhD will obviously pay more. I currently work in a hospital inpatient pharmacy and I like it a lot better...it depends on the person. If you like being part of the system in a fast paced environment, then pharmacy might be right for you...but if you like directing your own work at your own pace, then maybe research is for you.
 
motivatednow said:
I had research experience for about two years as an undergraduate in molecular biology, but I stopped in order to gain pharmacy experience.
I am applying to some research schools (UCSF), but grades are not that great 2.9-3.0. I'm applying to pharmacy school this year and was possibly considering the pharmD/PhD route, but i'm not too sure about it. Only because I think i will have a problem getting in.
Click to expand...


I hate to be blunt, but I think you need to start worrying about your GPA. You are going to have a hard time getting in to a top pharmacy school like UCSF with a 2.9, especially their dual PharmD/PhD program... Working in a lab sounds exciting on paper, but its incredibly boring and unless you make good use of your time publishing and such, a complete waste of time (talking from experience). Unless you rocked the PCAT and are retaking classes you screwed up in, I think you are going to have a hard time getting in this cycle.
 
If I where you I would go with the one that paid better because they both seem like good things for Pharm admissions - which is your goal. The research does seem like it would give more of an edge though. I talked with one pharmacist who discouraged me from doing the whole pharm tech thing as I was content in my current job which allowed me to do patient care. She pointed out that she had never and many of her class mates had never worked as a tech prior to pharmacy school.
 
+0.5👍
generally, i would agree, getting into UCSF with a 2.9 will be really tough, but i've seen it before. but you better bring something real special to the table.

im interested in pharmacy and research as well, which really limited the number of pharmacy schools i applied to. besides ucsf, you can also look into ucsd, which is also a research-intensive, and very gpa-competitive, pharmacy school.

ret09 said:
I hate to be blunt, but I think you need to start worrying about your GPA. You are going to have a hard time getting in to a top pharmacy school like UCSF with a 2.9, especially their dual PharmD/PhD program... Working in a lab sounds exciting on paper, but its incredibly boring and unless you make good use of your time publishing and such, a complete waste of time (talking from experience). Unless you rocked the PCAT and are retaking classes you screwed up in, I think you are going to have a hard time getting in this cycle.
Click to expand...
 
I really appreciate the honesty. I do understand that my GPA is crap and that's why I couldn't decide which is better in the long run. I know it's going to be hard to get in this cycle, but I'm hoping for a miracle hahahaha. Any Suggestions for improving my application??????
 
Last edited:
You must log in or register to reply here.