Studying pharmacy abroad?

[Wahlr23]

I’m very interested to know about studying pharmacy abroad, particularly in Canada or UK. Does anyone have any information or insight into doing this?

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[DIPEA]

What do you want to know? Canadian pharmacy student from California here~

 

[BigBoss]

If the end goal is to get a job in the US, then why study abroad?


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[pms_testosterone]

Canadian pharmacy schools:
Canadian Faculties and Schools of Pharmacy - English
Read carefully, as most do not allow international applicants.

 

[DIPEA]

If the end goal is to get a job in the US, then why study abroad?


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cuz the US schools tuition are too inflated.

 

[BigBoss]

cuz the US schools tuition are too inflated.

Damn, I just checked the average tuition for Canadian schools and it's hilarious how much cheaper they are compared to the the US. Why is that?

 

[DIPEA]

Damn, I just checked the average tuition for Canadian schools and it's hilarious how much cheaper they are compared to the the US. Why is that?

Canadian schools are not always cheaper. Compared to US counterparts, Canadian medical/pharmacy schools are SIGNIFICANTLY cheaper for citizens and permanent residents, but not for international students however (they pay 2X the domestic rate, if they manage to get admitted, difficult but not impossible for a few schools that do accept international applications). All Canadian medical/pharmacy schools are public funded, so the provincial governments subsidize like 1/2 of each medical/pharmacy student's tuition cost behind the scene, thereby driving the tuition payable on the students' side down to ~20k CAD a year, or roughly ~15k USD a year at current exchange rate.

The Canadian federal and provincial student loans are interest free for all post-secondary students as long as they are still in school, in addition to a few thousand annual "grant" money for each student to take and doesn't need to be paid back. Interest starts to accumulate 6 months after graduation at a rate of 3.3% annually. If I remember correctly, US federal gov charges like 7% for student loans, and interest starts to accumulate once the loan is issued? When the federal gov and schools collude to each take a slice of profit ripping off students, there is no incentive to limit tuition hike at all. The more money they loan out/charge for tuition, the more profit they both get, so schools can keep increasing tuition however they like, and federal gov keeps loaning out more money and takes 7% annual rate of return on them. Happy ending for them both.

 

[Wahlr23]

If the end goal is to get a job in the US, then why study abroad?


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To save money...from what i hear they are less expensive.

 

[Wahlr23]

What do you want to know? Canadian pharmacy student from California here~

Awesome...so glad to have found you.

1) Do I have to be a canadian citizen or will some schools accept US citizens?

Do you mind sharing the names of some of the Canadian schools to consider, it would save me soooo much time. My aunt lives in toronto Canada so I wanted to be close to that region but my priority is mainly to attend a credible institution.

 

[Cee-two]

I'm under the impression that the PharmD is not the standard in other countries. Generally foreign pharmacy schools offer a bachelors or masters of pharmacy.

 

[pms_testosterone]

@Wahlr23 The University of Toronto accepts foreign applicants to their PharmD program, as does the nearby University of Waterloo.

Honestly, it would take you a few hours max to look up all your potential options in Canada and the UK. Probably worth your while to do so.

 

[DIPEA]

Awesome...so glad to have found you.

1) Do I have to be a canadian citizen or will some schools accept US citizens?

Do you mind sharing the names of some of the Canadian schools to consider, it would save me soooo much time. My aunt lives in toronto Canada so I wanted to be close to that region but my priority is mainly to attend a credible institution.

I am actually at UofT, so I know my school does accept international students, and I happen to know one person in my cohort who is an international. Waterloo is another one to consider. Other schools just flat out don't accept international applications.

btw, why would you consider going to Canada or UK for pharmacy, if you are not Canadian or UK citizens? Even if you do get accepted, you would have to pay 2X the domestic tuition, and that's close to ~30k USD a year, which is relatively comparable to most state schools, and you also need to consider Toronto is an expensive city.

If you intend to go back to states after graduation, you also need to factor in another 1-2 years of the re-licensing process, or partial loss of income. Since you will be considered a foreign pharmacy grad, and you will need to take an exam first to get your intern license, then basically repeat your 4th year to complete ~1500 hours or whatever hours the state requires, then take NAPLEX and the jurisprudence exam to get licensed. I chose to go to Canada since I am a Canadian citizen, and the tuition cost differential between my school and most California schools is HUGE, like ~60k USD vs 200k-280k USD over 4 years. I do intend to go back to California after I graduate, and the trade-off is 1-2 years of partial income loss vs 140k-220k USD more debt, so I made my choice as such. From your perspective tho, the trade-off probably won't be this one-sided unless you are a citizen of Canada or UK, so think carefully, maybe there are cheaper options for you without having to go aboard, like cheaper state schools etc.

 

[steveysmith54]

No disrespect to international students and their schools. But if you want to make it in this super saturated market, why make it even harder on yourself and add even more hoops to jump through. I get the incentive to save money. However, I just don’t know many international pharmacist who have receive residencies these days, why hire someone with a more “unknown” pedigree when I have someone from my backyard who went to school locally and did his rotations nearby with known colleagues . I certainly feel more comfortable with someone who went to a reputable local school

 

[DIPEA]

No disrespect to international students and their schools. But if you want to make it in this super saturated market, why make it even harder on yourself and add even more hoops to jump through. I get the incentive to save money. However, I just don’t know many international pharmacist who have receive residencies these days, why hire someone with a more “unknown” pedigree when I have someone from my backyard who went to school locally and did his rotations nearby with known colleagues . I certainly feel more comfortable with someone who went to a reputable local school

If you are concerned with residencies, yes, probably not that many international pharmacy grads got them. But 75% of pharmacy jobs are in retail, and hospital jobs aren't paid any higher than retail ones, maybe even less. From a purely financial planning standpoint, if the OP does get accepted into one of Canadian or UK schools, and he happens to be from one of those highly inflated tuition states, like California, it might still worth going aboard even factoring in that 1-2 year re-licensing hurdle. Hospital residencies are pretty much a shot in the dark nowdays, and residencies no longer guarantee a higher paying job or a more stable one. If you face the choice between saving well over 100k+ vs a slightly higher chance to get residency match, what would you do?

 

[steveysmith54]

If you are concerned with residencies, yes, probably not that many international pharmacy grads got them. But 75% of pharmacy jobs are in retail, and hospital jobs aren't paid any higher than retail ones, maybe even less. From a purely financial planning standpoint, if the OP does get accepted into one of Canadian or UK schools, and he happens to be from one of those highly inflated tuition states, like California, it might still worth going aboard even factoring in that 1-2 year re-licensing hurdle. Hospital residencies are pretty much a shot in the dark nowdays, and residencies no longer guarantee a higher paying job or a more stable one. If you face the choice between saving well over 100k+ vs a slightly higher chance to get residency match, what would you do?

Do you know how hard it is find the required intern hours in California qualify to take the boards for an international pharmacists without experience? We have 13 of our own schools who have grads who are begging for interns jobs. My hospital gets phone calls from out of state schools asking to set up rotation sites. What about the burden of having of having to take the foreign license equivalency exam? What about missing out on opportunities to network for potential jobs as a local student. This strategy may have worked in early 2000’s. Nowadays I think it’s a disaster. When you come back you’re at Risk of never being licensed, inexperienced, unqualified in some people’s eyes. I Have an oversupply of grads from reputable schools, unless I know u personally, why would I even consider you?

 

[DIPEA]

Do you know how hard it is find the required intern hours in California qualify to take the boards for an international pharmacists without experience? We have 13 of our own schools who have grads who are begging for interns jobs. My hospital gets phone calls from out of state schools asking to set up rotation sites. What about the burden of having of having to take the foreign license equivalency exam? What about missing out on opportunities to network for potential jobs as a local student. This strategy may have worked in early 2000’s. Nowadays I think it’s a disaster. When you come back you’re at Risk of never being licensed, inexperienced, unqualified in some people’s eyes. I Have an oversupply of grads from reputable schools, unless I know u personally, why would I even consider you?

Well, I am not looking for hospital intern jobs/rotations in the first place, and never wanted to work in hospitals. There are a lot of independents that can take international grads to fulfill those internship hour requirements, at either reduced hourly pay or no pay at all. Like you said, you don't personally know me or my background. For me, getting re-licensed as a pharmacist is just a way to get extra source of income. By the time I graduate and go back, I could work on weeksdays either for a IT company as a developer, or a statistical programmer, or medical information/pharmacovigilance/drug safety associate for a healthcare/pharma company, or the worst case scenario, going back to my root of being a lab research scientist in the R&D department, then spend every weekends fulfilling those internship hours for 1-2 years, either at reduced or no pay at all, for which I don't really care, since I went international, I don't have any financial burden or significant debt I have to pay back each month. I am perfectly fine with working as a slave for 1-2 years of weekends at an independent pharmacy to get that license.

In addition, I don't believe in the so-called opportunities or networking for local students. Your logic is obviously self-contradictory here: If the local support system is indeed that robust for "reputable school" grads, then why, quoting your own words, those local grads are begging for intern jobs in the first place? If there is an oversupply of grads from reputable schools, and even they are struggling to land a rotation/job after incurring a tremendous amount of debt, then what's the actual advantage of staying local over going international for school after all? A $200k+ diploma paper with all empty promise?

By the way, the foreign license equivalency exam is not hard, and according to many who took both, even NAPLEX is a joke compared to PEBC, the Canadian licensing exam.

 

[steveysmith54]

In addition, I don't believe in the so-called opportunities or networking for local students. Your logic is obviously self-contradictory here: If the local support system is indeed that robust for "reputable school" grads, then why, quoting your own words, those local grads are begging for intern jobs in the first place? If there is an oversupply of grads from reputable schools, and even they are struggling to land a rotation/job after incurring a tremendous amount of debt, then what's the actual advantage of staying local over going international for school after all? A $200k+ diploma paper with all empty promise?

.

Not contradicting at all. Plenty of p1-p3 receive intern and rph jobs after doing well on their rotations that were arranged by their schools or are hired after referred by their preceptors. Also, most schools have career day, where chains come and offer jobs that they are unable to fill by their interns, usually more remote locations. It’s no longer guaranteed to land a job that way because of the saturation, however at least you have a shot at these opportunities if you go to a local reputable school and have the right skill set/attitude.

If you are comfortable missing out on these opportunities and think that you can find interns hours after coming back, that your own paragotive. I do know that We get posters here all the time who come from foreign schools with rph experience and say that they can’t find the hours. Going to Pharmacy school is risky enough, you want to take additional risk; your call. I wouldn’t recommend it.

 

[DIPEA]

Not contradicting at all. Plenty of p1-p3 receive intern and rph jobs after doing well on their rotations that were arranged by their schools or are hired after referred by their preceptors. Also, most schools have career day, where chains come and offer jobs that they are unable to fill by their interns, usually more remote locations. It’s no longer guaranteed to land a job that way because of the saturation, however at least you have a shot at these opportunities if you go to a local reputable school and have the right skill set/attitude.

If you are comfortable missing out on these opportunities and think that you can find interns hours after coming back, that your own paragotive. I do know that We get posters here all the time who come from foreign schools with rph experience and say that they can’t find the hours. Going to Pharmacy school is risky enough, you want to take additional risk; your call. I wouldn’t recommend it.

tbh, I would still take that "additional risk" on any given day if I get to decide again, considering the fact that if I do get re-licensed, I pretty much save myself a down payment for a $1 mil property over 4 years. Even if I don't get re-licensed, this PharmD degree, either gained in Canada or US, is viewed no different for industrial employers, so I still get a huge bargain compared to a local grad who eventually goes the industrial path. Either way, it's always still a big win-win scenario for me no matter where I end up. I am fairly risk averse, yet I consider taking out $250k loan over 4 years with 7% annual interest to go to a local school just for a "shot" at retail jobs with no guaranteed outcome not a good financial investment at all. As saturation keeps worsening, it would hurt local grads much more than any foreign grads, as we barely have any debt, and that financial freedom is what it matters the most, at least to me. Ask those unemployed/underemployed local grads with mountains of debt, if they get to decide once again, would they do the same?

 

[Momus]

Do not waste your time studying pharmacy. It's a dead career.

 

[steveysmith54]

Ask those unemployed/underemployed local grads with mountains of debt, if they get to decide once again, would they do the same?

Most would not go into pharmacy again period, but for other reasons: poor working conditions, lack of jobs opportunities, and poor future of the profession. Tuition is probably number 4 on the list.

Speaking of tuition? How much are paying for tuition in Canada? How many years of study? Are you getting a Pharm.D?

 

[Momus]

Not contradicting at all. Plenty of p1-p3 receive intern and rph jobs after doing well on their rotations that were arranged by their schools or are hired after referred by their preceptors. Also, most schools have career day, where chains come and offer jobs that they are unable to fill by their interns, usually more remote locations. It’s no longer guaranteed to land a job that way because of the saturation, however at least you have a shot at these opportunities if you go to a local reputable school and have the right skill set/attitude.

If you are comfortable missing out on these opportunities and think that you can find interns hours after coming back, that your own paragotive. I do know that We get posters here all the time who come from foreign schools with rph experience and say that they can’t find the hours. Going to Pharmacy school is risky enough, you want to take additional risk; your call. I wouldn’t recommend it.

Yep, they take you in as an extra labor (whatifs situation). If no one quits/gets fired/retires/moved that year, no job offer for you. Literally, all the stores I work at in San Diego have 1-3 interns, they won't all be getting a job offer. You will get a part time float offers 0-24h/week IF you are good. Good luck trying to make a living with 24h/w in metro areas.

You gotta go full r3tard to go to pharmacy school nowadays. Never go full r3tard!

 

[pms_testosterone]

Speaking of tuition? How much are paying for tuition in Canada? How many years of study? Are you getting a Pharm.D?

Some Canadian schools already confer a pharmD, and the rest are switching to it.

The most expensive Canadian schools are around $20k Cdn/year for 4 years. Still a pretty good deal compared to the US.

 

[DIPEA]

Do not waste your time studying pharmacy. It's a dead career.

It is going to be a slow death, yet if it is cheap, then why not?

Most would not go into pharmacy again period, but for other reasons: poor working conditions, lack of jobs opportunities, and poor future of the profession. Tuition is probably number 4 on the list.

Speaking of tuition? How much are paying for tuition in Canada? How many years of study? Are you getting a Pharm.D?

My school charges around 20k CAD a year right now, that's like 16k USD at current exchange rate, or 14k-15k USD a year when I did currency exchange 2 years ago, and now I have 2 years left. I worked about 2 years in the Bay Area for a big name pharma company before pharmacy school, so I saved enough money to cover me through graduation. It's 4 years, PharmD, we have summer EPEs, and last year APPEs, everything is almost as identical as US schools, except the school is in Canada, and we learn Canadian guidelines, which are almost no different than US ones most the time.

 

[steveysmith54]

It is going to be a slow death, yet if it is cheap, then why not?


My school charges around 20k CAD a year right now, that's like 16k USD at current exchange rate, or 14k-15k USD a year when I did currency exchange 2 years ago, and now I have 2 years left. I worked about 2 years in the Bay Area for a big name pharma company before pharmacy school, so I saved enough money to cover me through graduation. It's 4 years, PharmD, we have summer EPEs, and last year APPEs, everything is almost as identical as US schools, except the school is in Canada, and we learn Canadian guidelines, which are almost no different than US ones most the time.

So, your tuition is about half of the tuition of UCSF ($28,608.00) and about the same as state tuition of public schools in the midwest.

However, you end up

-loosing on 2 years RPh salary /career advancement in exchange for salary of an intern
-go through the burden of finding intern hours without guarantee to find it
-studying state pharmacy laws on your own, extra exam to take
-limit your opportunities for certain pharmacy practice like hospital, amb care etc.

 

[DIPEA]

So, your tuition is about half of the tuition of UCSF ($28,608.00) and about the same as state tuition of public schools in the midwest.

However, you end up

-loosing on 2 years RPh salary /career advancement in exchange for salary of an intern
-go through the burden of finding intern hours without guarantee to find it
-studying state pharmacy laws on your own, extra exam to take
-limit your opportunities for certain pharmacy practice like hospital, amb care etc.

1. Go to UCSF website and double check your UCSF tuition number, it is just way off, even for CA residents. Last time I checked, my total tuition is less than 1/3 of UCSF total cost, and UCSF is probably the cheapest pharmacy school in California

2. I am not from midwest, so no matter how cheap their state schools are, I have to pay 2X that amount if I go + living cost. Here in Canada, I took out a half mil mortgage before quitting my job and heading back to school 2 years ago and bought a property here with some down payment support from my parents. By renting, I am collecting enough rent to cover mortgage and my living cost. So if you take this into account, I am actually making money by going to school here from real estate investment.

3. I won't lose any salary/career advancement as RPh cuz I never intended to practice full-time even after re-licensed, so your argument doesn't apply to me. My main salary/career advancement would always be Mon-Fri working for high tech or biotech/pharma industry, leveraging either just my clinical knowledge from PharmD study (industry jobs don't need license) or my programming skills or my training and prior work experience as a research scientist, or any combination of the three. Even after I get re-licensed, pharmacy would probably just be my weekend side job to cover my living expenses so that I can invest all of my main job salary, which could exceed the typical salary of a full time pharmacist working 40hr/week after a few years of experience.

4. Going through the burden of finding intern hours without guarantee to find it vs Going through the burden of finding a pharmacy job as a local grad without guarantee to find it; Both of them seem very comparable to me. Yet, I can afford to volunteer for 1-2 years of weekends just to get that experience, can any local grads who are doing grad internship afford to do that? In fact, I think I might be a lot easier than local grads to get internship cuz my labor is free!

5. Studying state pharmacy laws? If I don't think NAPLEX is a big deal (it is a joke compared to the Canadian PEBC), would I mind spend a bit time studying state pharmacy law?

6. Limit my opportunities? Did I already mention pharmacy might just be my side gig? I have no interest in working in a hospital. I know what I am going after career-wise, and hospital is never part of that.

 

[flip33]

OK. I found out how to do this:

 

[Aus BDS]

Guys, does anyone know whether Irish Pharmacy degree is recognized as equivalent to Canadian ones?

 

[Dalteparin]

Guys, does anyone know whether Irish Pharmacy degree is recognized as equivalent to Canadian ones?

In Canada or the US? In the US, all foreign degrees are the same in that all foreign grads have to take the FPGEE and get 1500 intern hours before they can sit for the NAPLEX and MPJE.


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[Dr. Galazkiewicz]

I’m very interested to know about studying pharmacy abroad, particularly in Canada or UK. Does anyone have any information or insight into doing this?

Don't bother. The pharmacy glut is global in scale. Search for "unemployed pharmacist" and you'll see. You really have to wonder what we really face. With the advent of big energy return over invested per barrel of oil after WW2, the world's population has hockey-sticked. Now the EROI has cratered. What happens to population hockey sticks in nature?

 

[Dalteparin]

@DIPEA, you're going to pharmacy school for a side gig? Why bother? Either you have more money than good sense or you're just trolling.

 

[DIPEA]

@DIPEA, you're going to pharmacy school for a side gig? Why bother? Either you have more money than good sense or you're just trolling.

While I working 2 years ago at that big name biotech company, I faced a career dilemma: doing what I was doing for the foreseeable future (or maybe a rather slow career growth) or go back to school and get a doctorate degree for an opportunity to break the status quo. And I chose the later option. For me, pharmacy has the added benefit of a side gig as a part-time floater, outside of my intended career path. I figured as long as I could get it cheap while investing on the side, the opportunity cost of it isn't too big.

Other choices like MD or MBA, I think they have either too much opportunity cost or too risky (unless I can get into the very top programs). PhD was also not an option cuz that's where I very well could do but decided to exit a few years back. CS? I can learn all and perfect the craft by myself, and I really don't think I would ever need a degree for that. So what else is left?

 

[Dalteparin]

While I working 2 years ago at that big name biotech company, I faced a career dilemma: doing what I was doing for the foreseeable future (or maybe a rather slow career growth) or go back to school and get a doctorate degree for an opportunity to break the status quo. And I chose the later option. For me, pharmacy has the added benefit of a side gig as a part-time floater, outside of my intended career path. I figured as long as I could get it cheap while investing on the side, the opportunity cost of it isn't too big.

Other choices like MD or MBA, I think they have either too much opportunity cost or too risky (unless I can get into the very top programs). PhD was also not an option cuz that's where I very well could do but decided to exit a few years back. CS? I can learn all and perfect the craft by myself, and I really don't think I would ever need a degree for that. So what else is left?

All right then. I think you're making a rather large mistake, but you do you.

 

[DIPEA]

All right then. I think you're making a rather large mistake, but you do you.

I consulted A LOT of people and analyzed the pros and cons with all sorts of minutiae I haven't yet mentioned throughout the process before I made the move. Big mistake? I have been told by some doing MD a big mistake, doing MBA a big mistake, doing PhD a big mistake, doing CS a big mistake, quitting my job a big mistake, blah, blah, blah. So far, nothing you and others have mentioned something special I haven't thought about numerous times and had a plan for.

 

[Dalteparin]

I consulted A LOT of people and analyzed the pros and cons with all sorts of minutiae I haven't yet mentioned throughout the process before I made the move. Big mistake? I have been told by some doing MD a big mistake, doing MBA a big mistake, doing PhD a big mistake, doing CS a big mistake, quitting my job a big mistake, blah, blah, blah. So far, nothing you and others have mentioned something special I haven't thought about numerous times and had a plan for.

This comment about intern hours makes me think that you have not thought it through: "Going through the burden of finding intern hours without guarantee to find it vs Going through the burden of finding a pharmacy job as a local grad without guarantee to find it; Both of them seem very comparable to me. Yet, I can afford to volunteer for 1-2 years of weekends just to get that experience, can any local grads who are doing grad internship afford to do that? In fact, I think I might be a lot easier than local grads to get internship cuz my labor is free!"

Local grads will not need to worry about getting intern hours after graduation. They will already have accumulated all the hours they need during pharmacy school, and if any local grads are working as "graduate interns" it's only for the brief time between when they finish school and when they take the boards. For most of them, this won't be more than a month or two, and they aren't doing this because they're required to get more experience after graduation; it's merely a placeholder. On the other hand, as a foreign graduate, any pharmacy experience you acquired during school will not count and you will be required to start from zero getting the 1500 hours you need to be eligible to take the boards. By going to school in a foreign country, you've added another year on to the licensing process and that year of lost income cancels out any benefit you might have received from cheaper tuition. If you want to go to school in Canada, why not just stay there after you graduate?

I also can't imagine why the hell anybody would go through the hassle of pharmacy school for a side gig, and I really don't think it'll be all that beneficial for you in industry unless you go the dual degree route.

But hey, not my circus, not my monkeys.

 

[DIPEA]

This comment about intern hours makes me think that you have not thought it through: "Going through the burden of finding intern hours without guarantee to find it vs Going through the burden of finding a pharmacy job as a local grad without guarantee to find it; Both of them seem very comparable to me. Yet, I can afford to volunteer for 1-2 years of weekends just to get that experience, can any local grads who are doing grad internship afford to do that? In fact, I think I might be a lot easier than local grads to get internship cuz my labor is free!"

Local grads will not need to worry about getting intern hours after graduation. They will already have accumulated all the hours they need during pharmacy school, and if any local grads are working as "graduate interns" it's only for the brief time between when they finish school and when they take the boards. For most of them, this won't be more than a month or two, and they aren't doing this because they're required to get more experience after graduation; it's merely a placeholder. On the other hand, as a foreign graduate, any pharmacy experience you acquired during school will not count and you will be required to start from zero getting the 1500 hours you need to be eligible to take the boards. By going to school in a foreign country, you've added another year on to the licensing process and that year of lost income cancels out any benefit you might have received from cheaper tuition. If you want to go to school in Canada, why not just stay there after you graduate?

I also can't imagine why the hell anybody would go through the hassle of pharmacy school for a side gig, and I really don't think it'll be all that beneficial for you in industry unless you go the dual degree route.

But hey, not my circus, not my monkeys.

I have a masters degree already and 2+ years of relevant full time industrial working experience at big name companies, yeah, pharmacy's definitely a side gig for me. It might sound ridiculous to you, but that's reality for me. I will be a PharmD/MS with actual industrial work experience when I graduate.

Adding a year or two isn't a issue when I could make hundreds of thousands from real estate investment during 4 years in Canada and totally avoid mountains of tuition debt. Also, I probably won't be having a day of gap after graduation. If I could land a well-paying job years ago without a doctorate degree, why would I need to worry about my industrial job prospect when I graduate with a PharmD and more programming and data science skills on my resume? Like I said before, those 1500 hours would be done during weekends, and I don't really mind it's 1 or 2 or 3 years or with any pay at all. It's just more of a side gig for my personal long-term finance planning.

Speaking of the internship hours, I want to get this straight: I don't have to get re-licensed, at all! It's a side gig for me after all. I want to do it cuz it would bring an extra source of income as a part-time floater on weekends and holidays, and that's the whole purpose of re-licensure. But for most local grads, that's their bread-and-butter, especially when they are 200k+ in-debt! Financially speaking, they have to work for 5 straight years or so and live frugally to barely pay off that much debt, whereas I would make 6 figures during that 4 years in Canada from real estate investment, essentially from the very same amount of tuition money I have to pay to school if I stayed local, and start making 6 figures annually and keep investing after graduation while those local grads have to slave themselves to make ends meet and pay back their debt, and they can totally forget about buying a house or getting a mortgage from a bank until they clear that debt. In addition to that, I could very well get re-licensed within 2-3 years, let alone 5 years, and from that point on, completely negate much of the remaining benefit of staying local for pharmacy school. So 5 years after graduation, who is financially better off?

 

[jblil]

"Man plans, and God laughs".

 

[lord999]

So 5 years after graduation, who is financially better off?

I've asked that question to several people who went up the blue and pink collar route, and I've come to the conclusion that it's what you make of it. One of the least intelligent people in my high school class literally worked his way from flipper to owner at McD's and nets 7 digits annually from the ownership. Another went into high pressure sales and is in that range too (and sold her body as part of the bargain as you do for that kind of sales). In both cases, I know for a fact that their material wealth was worth the path, because it was in the past. Even if I knew that the ending was that good, I would not do it, because the sort of person I would have become (and the things that I would have had to leave behind) were not worth it to me. But for them, it totally works because they are that kind of people. If you know what you really are and what you are really capable of, then you are always better off irrespective of the proximate circumstances.

That said, I am not exactly poor either and even if I made just a pharmacist's salary, it would had been fine as practice is not all that dramatic for me. I basically would have coasted in my job until retirement (and more or less can right now if I choose to). But practice and actual pharmacy work was the reward for putting up with all of that crap in school.

If this job is a means to a very high financial end, you probably need to find other work. However, if you are looking for a indoors, air-conditioned, office job, this is a good one. Pay is pretty good, benefits are not bad. It is high stress and high production values, but that's the job. I've never understood students who went into the profession for non-working reasons (I do understand it as an Mrs degree, but I still think something like Art History or Kinesiology would be better in the long run).

Speaking from the perspective of someone who does have the hard core science training to do "data science", I expect the posers to be eliminated as businesses figure out the real needs for AI work, and the people who really know this work already are precariat labor working contract to contract as they know that loyalty in this mercenary business is overrated. There will be another AI winter, but then again, if you are willing to hustle into jobs and continually retrain, you do not have to worry about anything. However, most people really do not have that level of skill, and definitely the first dot com crash when I started school gave me both the knowledge and fear that no job is forever, not even this one. It's gaining the variety of skills to get a metajob when you have a listed job that's your real task the first decade of work. Whether that metajob is "leadership/foreman", "strategist/analyst", "salesman/suckup", "capitalist/magnate", "precariat/contractor", or "spouse/prostitute", I find that people either luck out in career survival or end up really getting one of those metajobs such that it does not really matter what position they hold, their real employment is based on those skills.

I do recommend if you are going the "spouse" route, that you do bear in mind that it's an occupation that you can be "fired" from too if you completely blow it unless you married one of those unicorn masochists who would tolerate anything you do.

 

[steveysmith54]

Speaking of the internship hours, I want to get this straight: I don't have to get re-licensed, at all! It's a side gig for me after all. I want to do it cuz it would bring an extra source of income as a part-time floater on weekends and holidays, and that's the whole purpose of re-licensure.

That's all that you need to say. There is no point in debating with you if that's your perspective. You're stating that you would be fine without ever holding an active state pharmacist license, which is a position/situation that cannot be applied to 99.9% of students who go into pharmacy school. Majority of people who go to pharmacy school/profession are 22-25 year olds who have virtually no savings with hopes of finishing schools and subsequently finding a pharmacist paying jobs. There are very few job opportunities for a pharm.D. degree holder that does not involve working outside of a pharmacy. Ultimately, it would extremely DEVASTATING for 99.9% of people who spend 4 years of school studying for hard exams and then fail to get licensed, which is something that you're ok with.

So yeah good luck to you and hope that your plans pan out.

 

[DIPEA]

I've asked that question to several people who went up the blue and pink collar route, and I've come to the conclusion that it's what you make of it. One of the least intelligent people in my high school class literally worked his way from flipper to owner at McD's and nets 7 digits annually from the ownership. Another went into high pressure sales and is in that range too (and sold her body as part of the bargain as you do for that kind of sales). In both cases, I know for a fact that their material wealth was worth the path, because it was in the past. Even if I knew that the ending was that good, I would not do it, because the sort of person I would have become (and the things that I would have had to leave behind) were not worth it to me. But for them, it totally works because they are that kind of people. If you know what you really are and what you are really capable of, then you are always better off irrespective of the proximate circumstances.

That said, I am not exactly poor either and even if I made just a pharmacist's salary, it would had been fine as practice is not all that dramatic for me. I basically would have coasted in my job until retirement (and more or less can right now if I choose to). But practice and actual pharmacy work was the reward for putting up with all of that crap in school.

If this job is a means to a very high financial end, you probably need to find other work. However, if you are looking for a indoors, air-conditioned, office job, this is a good one. Pay is pretty good, benefits are not bad. It is high stress and high production values, but that's the job. I've never understood students who went into the profession for non-working reasons (I do understand it as an Mrs degree, but I still think something like Art History or Kinesiology would be better in the long run).

Speaking from the perspective of someone who does have the hard core science training to do "data science", I expect the posers to be eliminated as businesses figure out the real needs for AI work, and the people who really know this work already are precariat labor working contract to contract as they know that loyalty in this mercenary business is overrated. There will be another AI winter, but then again, if you are willing to hustle into jobs and continually retrain, you do not have to worry about anything. However, most people really do not have that level of skill, and definitely the first dot com crash when I started school gave me both the knowledge and fear that no job is forever, not even this one. It's gaining the variety of skills to get a metajob when you have a listed job that's your real task the first decade of work. Whether that metajob is "leadership/foreman", "strategist/analyst", "salesman/suckup", "capitalist/magnate", "precariat/contractor", or "spouse/prostitute", I find that people either luck out in career survival or end up really getting one of those metajobs such that it does not really matter what position they hold, their real employment is based on those skills.

I do recommend if you are going the "spouse" route, that you do bear in mind that it's an occupation that you can be "fired" from too if you completely blow it unless you married one of those unicorn masochists who would tolerate anything you do.

At one time I asked some of my medical student friends that if they would be paid only 50k a year but same amount of work and training and tuition, would they still do it. As expected, none of them said they would do it again. I asked the same question to some of my PhD candidate friends, same result. Some even flat out told me they are regretting now and wanted a way out since they never really did any due diligence of researching job prospects of their field before starting their PhD but felt trapped now cuz they think they are too old/late/committed to correct the course. Path is obviously very important in this world. Yes, for some geniuses or true polymaths, it doesn't matter what path they take, they would always find a way to reach the top. But is it applicable to everyone? I don't think so.

For most people, the very motivation to get higher education or any advanced training is for future financial gain, either immediately or remotely. If someone is the type of person who would pay quarter of million dollars to just enjoy an indoor, air-conditioned, office job and don't care at all about how much they make, good for them! But I am not that type. I care about my finance and the cost-effectiveness of every dollar I spend, and that's the whole purpose of this discussion. I never think pharmacy is some kind of a holy profession, it's just a means to an end, that's it, just like every other profession in this world. People do it not because it's important to society but because they get paid for it.

 

[Dalteparin]

@DIPEA, I must say your pharmacy school plans sound ridiculous and I still can't understand why you want to go in the first place. But again, not my circus, not my monkeys. Good luck to you.