-
CycleTrack and SDN are teaming up to make medical school admissions more transparent and accessible! Read the announcement to learn how we’re supporting the future of CycleTrack’s free application-tracking tools .
Strategies on how to discourage students from going into pharmacy
Started by PharmtoCS
Get help with your application
Use all the free resources available to you from SDN: articles, guides, expert advising, forums discussions, and school research.
Why are you on this board? Are you DIPEA?
A bigger question is how do we discourage students from going into CS, Engineering and Finance. They could make better money managing a Taco Bell or In-N-Out without the loans.
Advertisement - Members don't see this ad
D
deleted885753
Why do you wanna discourage them?
Well, we could just tell them what a sh#tshow the profession is....errrr...
So we don't have more people like Hedgehog coming in here constantly talking about how they can't find a job and they want to go to CS boot camps.
Don't drive fancy cars?
Haven't we seen that facts and data don't matter to people? What is the point anymore.
Nothing really needs to be done at this point, pharmacy schools oversupplied the market and it is now self correcting. When I attended school almost everyone there had heard about pharmacy from a family member or family friend who was a pharmacist. That supply of students is probably completely gone now.
Smart ones already know, dumb ones won't listen. Any effort will be wasted, so all strategies are equally useless.
It's not self-correcting because there are many confounding factors that will influence the supply/demand curve:
- Pharmacy schools changing (lowering) their admissions standards and identifying new markets to target (high schools, community colleges, heck AUHS recruits at Comic Con) to artifically create higher demand
- Continued influx of thousands of foreign grad pharmacists and/or international students looking to go into pharmacy school/gain employment as a pharmacist who have 0 concept of what the U.S. job market is like
Unless those two things can also be controlled, relying on the "market to correct itself" is just futile thinking.
The whole higher education system is a bubble fueled by easy loan money. While there is easy money to be had, nothing will change.
In more seriousness, more effective methods might involve playing on pre-pharms' fears since facts apparently don't matter. Each pre-pharm will likely have a thought that will trigger a fight or flight response. Examples may include:
Disappointing their families by being $200k+ in debt and unable to find a job
Possibly having to move away from their families, hometown, or desired saturated city to the middle of nowhere, indefinitely, so they can hold a job
Horror stories of grads having to declare bankruptcy because they couldn't find a job (I think there was a poster named Angela1234 couldn't find a job for years)
Disappointing their families by being $200k+ in debt and unable to find a job
Possibly having to move away from their families, hometown, or desired saturated city to the middle of nowhere, indefinitely, so they can hold a job
Horror stories of grads having to declare bankruptcy because they couldn't find a job (I think there was a poster named Angela1234 couldn't find a job for years)
Advertisement - Members don't see this ad
And begging in every other thread for any opportunity that is not retail.
Give speeches at PPA chapters explaining the reality of being a pharmacist
Any potential applicant that even puts in 1% of the due diligence that researching a future career entails would immediately realize this is a dead end.
Someone with the username "PharmtoCS" is giving me a hard time for not wanting to work in retail pharmacy?
how's the maintenance on the GT3RS? On my GTR it's ridic ...
That all goes out the window when they see humble brag threads about million+ net worth and pharmacists with GTRs here.
We don’t want more students to end up like you.
How much did you pay for you gt3rs? What year?
It's too bad student loans aren't discharged upon declaring bankruptcy.
they can be.
Can as in it is a very very minute possibility? Sure. I guess you could say they "can" be. We also have a better probability of being hit by a meteor.
Smart ones will filter themselves out.
Dumb ones will still go no matter what. Vanity and gambling are things for younger generations.
Dumb ones will still go no matter what. Vanity and gambling are things for younger generations.
There's at least 29 millionaires on this forum.
Of course they are going to pharmacy school
Of course they are going to pharmacy school
D
deleted885753
Deciding your career path is a choice. You should do your research before diving in.
I don’t feel any need to discourage anyone. Do your homework regarding current conditions, and if you still feel comfortable going into Pharmacy school, go right ahead. Who am I to tell anyone what not to do?
I don’t feel any need to discourage anyone. Do your homework regarding current conditions, and if you still feel comfortable going into Pharmacy school, go right ahead. Who am I to tell anyone what not to do?
Advertisement - Members don't see this ad
Probably have a better chance of becoming a pharmacist than having student loans discharged.
There is a ring of truth to it. I personally chose a career path where a layoff is not a matter of 'if', but a matter of 'when'. However, I went into it fully understanding that it will be the case, and making sure I am prepared to deal with layoffs when they hit. So far, I have survived three without being axed and was axed twice. Both times ended up better than before. However, far too many people a) make choices without doing due diligence and b) (which irritates the heck out of me) want someone else to shoulder the responsibility for their own dumb choices and bail them out. So it's cheaper to stop them before they go down that track... though the whiners will whine no matter what choices they make, it's just part of who they choose to be.
TateThePharmacist
Full Member
I really encourage prospective students to work as pharmacy techs first. If they're smart enough for pharmacy school, they can typically pick up tech work without going to tech school. It really shows them the trenches of pharmacy and if after seeing that they still want to go to pharmacy school then I say go for it. They know what they're actually getting themselves into. And if they complain that they can't find a pharmacy tech job, when then why the H3@% would finding a pharmacist job be any easier??
The part that sucks about this path is that you only get those techs for a couple years while they do their pre-requisites, but on the flip side they tend to be some of the best techs while you have them.
The part that sucks about this path is that you only get those techs for a couple years while they do their pre-requisites, but on the flip side they tend to be some of the best techs while you have them.
TateThePharmacist
Full Member
I've always thought how awesome that would be! I think the entire student loan bubble/tuition costs bubble would burst overnight if that were to be allowed. But then I realized two things: first off student loans are a multi-billion dollar cash cow for the government so they'll never give that up. Second I realized that you've paid for knowledge which is something you can't return when declaring bankruptcy since typically you surrender all/most assets when filing bankruptcy normally. There isn't really collateral put up when taking out student loans so that's why you can't get rid of them through bankruptcy.
FTFY
Yep, it's basically just an enormous unsecured loan. I always found it a little silly though that you couldn't get a more favorable rate if you were a non-trad student with established credit. I have a 800+ credit score depending on the credit agency you look at - why was I forced to get a loan at 6.5% and not 3-4?
TateThePharmacist
Full Member
Oh I 100% agree. The entire student loan system needs to be reformed, but given all the players who have their hands in it, I really don't see it happening any time soon.
When I was in school, I could get a school loan at 1.8% but my car loan was 8.5% even with my Dad co-signing for me and his credit being in the 800s, so I got an extra loan to have money to pay off my car. Nowadays it's completely turned around, the car loans are something like 1% and student loans are 6%+...
They can't repo your brain.
30 years ago when I embarked on this journey myself, I was told, "Get a job in a pharmacy before you dive in headfirst." Great advice; it made me want to be a pharmacist even more, and about 90% of the time, it has the opposite effect and that's OK too.
I have even recommended that prospective teachers get some kind of job where they work with the age range they want to teach first, or that prospective nurses get a CNA certificate first.
Why would anyone go to technician school, anyway? The only reason those programs exist is to get student loan and displaced-worker money.
I recently told a friend whose daughter was thinking about going that route that she shouldn't do it, and why. And she didn't.
How about those pharmacists that have never worked a real day in their life as a staffing pharmacist, retail or hospital, and then do 2 years of residency and think they’re qualified to tell everyone about what the pharmacist work life entails because they have “over 5 years of experience,” from residency.
When I was at my old job, in the early 00s, we had a new grad tell our oldest pharmacist, who graduated in 1966, that he didn't know what he was talking about because he didn't have a Pharm.D. Mr. 1966 was usually a pretty laid-back guy, but this time, he gave Mr. New Grad a piece of his mind about this, and it wasn't pleasant.
Your user name.
I think I am helping in this area. My car is 16 years old and covered in scratches. My techs all have nicer cars!
Have to show you won’t be able to pay them back. The girl’s case where she was unable to find employment for years should suffice with the right lawyer. You can get them discharged with disability as well.
Advertisement - Members don't see this ad
Good I hope he roasted him to a crispy golden brown.
I wouldn't mind all the new grads suffering. It's too bad that they make us suffer too by accepting lower wages and poor work conditions.
Lol there’s always spreading stories like these [emoji23][emoji23]
LoL that's funny.
Aren't we all suppose to die of COVID or a hurricaine or the "real" Mayan end of the world prediction this year? Why worry about pre-pharmers when we are all going to die?
