Should I do it?

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amin196

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Hey all,

I'm currently a HS senior and I have a huge decision to make. I have been accepted to a six year pharmacy program at St. John's University (in Queens, New York). In addition, just recently I won a scholarship that will cover five out of six years of the PharmD program (it will cover everything, tuition, room, board, costs). I've been hearing bad things about the field of pharmacy, new schools opening, saturated market, wages going down, etc. In addition, I don't know very much about the pharmacy department at St. John's and their website doesn't help much either, nor does it talk about graduate hiring rates. I feel that this is an opportunity of a life time, I can get a PharmD in only six years, and only walk away with about 40k in loans. What is your opinion on this? Does anybody know about St. John's pharmacy program?

Thanks!
 
Hey all,

I'm currently a HS senior and I have a huge decision to make. I have been accepted to a six year pharmacy program at St. John's University (in Queens, New York). In addition, just recently I won a scholarship that will cover five out of six years of the PharmD program (it will cover everything, tuition, room, board, costs). I've been hearing bad things about the field of pharmacy, new schools opening, saturated market, wages going down, etc. In addition, I don't know very much about the pharmacy department at St. John's and their website doesn't help much either, nor does it talk about graduate hiring rates. I feel that this is an opportunity of a life time, I can get a PharmD in only six years, and only walk away with about 40k in loans. What is your opinion on this? Does anybody know about St. John's pharmacy program?

Thanks!

Plenty of people here might be able to tell you about St. John's.

Have you thought about going to undergrad first to experience college for yourself and then applying to pharmacy school? What about getting a BA or BS and then starting pharmacy school?
 
Plenty of people here might be able to tell you about St. John's.

Have you thought about going to undergrad first to experience college for yourself and then applying to pharmacy school? What about getting a BA or BS and then starting pharmacy school?

The scholarship that I got doesn't usually pay for professional degrees (the only exception is an accelerated six-year PharmD program, which it will cover five/six years), so if I take the BS/BA route, then I'll be stuck taking out loans for pharmacy school anyways.
 
There are a lot of negative pessimistic people out there so don't let them persuade you from pursuing what YOU want to do.
Even the pharmacist I shadowed at the military told me that pharmacy would have been a good choice if this was the year 2000.
If you go looking for bad news, then that is all your going to get.

With that said, according to U.S. News Best Jobs 2012:

Pharmacist #3 in U.S. News Best Jobs 2012
Overall Score: 7.6
Number of Jobs: 69,700 Median Salary: $111,570
Unemployment Rate: 5.5% Job Satisfaction: MEDIUM

The number one job being RN and two being software developer.

Take that offer!
 
Hey all,

I'm currently a HS senior and I have a huge decision to make. I have been accepted to a six year pharmacy program at St. John's University (in Queens, New York). In addition, just recently I won a scholarship that will cover five out of six years of the PharmD program (it will cover everything, tuition, room, board, costs). I've been hearing bad things about the field of pharmacy, new schools opening, saturated market, wages going down, etc. In addition, I don't know very much about the pharmacy department at St. John's and their website doesn't help much either, nor does it talk about graduate hiring rates. I feel that this is an opportunity of a life time, I can get a PharmD in only six years, and only walk away with about 40k in loans. What is your opinion on this? Does anybody know about St. John's pharmacy program?

Thanks!
Do it. That is an amazing scholarship offer. You'll have so little debt after this program (based on your scholarship), that you'll more than likely be ok even with a slight lack of jobs right now (as you will graduate in six years, it's hard to tell what the job market will look like at that point in time).

Congratulations, you must have worked hard! 🙂
 
One more reason I think you should take them up on this offer: even if you discover pharmacy isn't for you in the long run (always a reasonable thought when you have to decide on a career while still in high school), you'll have a PharmD and be able to pay off your loans quickly when you graduate. Your income will also allow you the flexibility to pursue further education at a later point in time if you want to work in a different field. Even if salaries drop to 80k, with just 40k of debt, you'll be happy as a clam.

One note: don't ever trust journalists (like US News) to get anything right about jobs other than their own. RNs have been having a really tough time with jobs, and I have trouble believing their statistics. For more up to date statistics, look to see if your state Board of Pharmacy or state pharmacists association has any statistics on job numbers, unemployment, wages, etc. Also check out Drug Topics magazine (free online; Google it), which does stories on the numbers from time to time.
 
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Do it. That is an amazing scholarship offer. You'll have so little debt after this program (based on your scholarship), that you'll more than likely be ok even with a slight lack of jobs right now (as you will graduate in six years, it's hard to tell what the job market will look like at that point in time).

Congratulations, you must have worked hard! 🙂

I would definitely do it!

It's basically an almost paid for education and the first two years are basics anyway. If you decide you want to do something else and find pharmacy is not for you, that's totally fine. You'll have a Pharm. D. and can go back to school to do something else if you wish. Totally different story if you had to take out massive amounts of loans at private schools.
 
Hey all,

I'm currently a HS senior and I have a huge decision to make. I have been accepted to a six year pharmacy program at St. John's University (in Queens, New York). In addition, just recently I won a scholarship that will cover five out of six years of the PharmD program (it will cover everything, tuition, room, board, costs). I've been hearing bad things about the field of pharmacy, new schools opening, saturated market, wages going down, etc. In addition, I don't know very much about the pharmacy department at St. John's and their website doesn't help much either, nor does it talk about graduate hiring rates. I feel that this is an opportunity of a life time, I can get a PharmD in only six years, and only walk away with about 40k in loans. What is your opinion on this? Does anybody know about St. John's pharmacy program?

Thanks!
Opportunity of a lifetime. It would not be a smart decision to pass this up.
 
Nah, don't do it. Go to a school where you do not need to take out student loans and are 100% guaranteed a job upon graduation.
 
Nah, don't do it. Go to a school where you do not need to take out student loans and are 100% guaranteed a job upon graduation.

Makes as much sense as the question, so yeah, definitely. . . I mean, go to St. John's.
 
Yeah, I think I will. Thanks for all of the advice!
 
It would seem foolish to me NOT go this direction. The talk about pay going down is pretty much pervasive in all disciplines. The anesthesia sub-forum is stuffed with such talk and people hoping to get a radiology residency are saying the same thing. There's no guarantee that you'll be making mad bank in 10 years, but it's highly doubtful that you couldn't pay that debt off in short order if you really buckled down and controlled expenses upon graduating and getting a job. You could be debt-free in a year.

If worse came to worse, you could apply to medical school after paying of the little debt you had in a year or two if you didn't like what you were doing all that much.
 
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