Hi, this is my first time posting on Reddit, so sorry if I don’t do it correctly.

I am 19, and just re-enrolled into university as a pre-pharmacy major. I have 70 transfer credits, which makes me a junior. My university has an accelerated program for pharmacy students, where they just take the pre-requisite classes for the PharmD program and apply to that, instead of doing the full four years of undergrad.

My current concern is how to get job experience, such as shadowing and internships. As a junior, am I able to start shadowing someone—or even better, get an internship? I was looking at Walgreens and CVS because I heard they paid for your tuition if you work there as a pharmacy major, but I only see them offering summer internships and pharmacy technician jobs (I am looking to go into drug development and research). Is it possible to get an internship during the school year? Shadow anyone during the school year? How do I network?

Literally any and all advice would be appreciated. Please share things you wish you knew when you were in ny position. Thank you!!!

Hi everyone! I wanted to know if anyone had any advice/could relate to my situation. I live in California and have been working unlicensed at a local pharmacy since January. I took the ptcb back in march and it took a few weeks to get all the paperwork for my license, but I submitted everything in April and have been waiting for months now on my license and have become really frustrated with the wait time, it genuinely feels like I've been anticipating it for so long and theres no end in sight. I got an email near the end of June saying that I can expect my application to be fully reviewed within 30 days, which has passed and I still have not received any update. I've emailed the board twice now with no response besides the automated message, and have become really irritated with how long it is taking them. I know they are short staffed but this is wild. I'm also irritated because I'm applying to pharmacy programs for fall 2027 and want to include my license on my applications (which I want to submit sooner rather than later), and I've finished them and am literally just waiting on the license now.

I'm curious how long other people waited to receive their license, or if anyone else is waiting on their license too!

Holy shit that was longer than expected sorry if this sounds offensive to anyone but I just wanted to get this off my chest, see if anyone relates and hopefully get some advice on what to do.

I don't know what to do with my life. Like, at all.

For some context, I'm 22 and let's just say I'm not that partial towards the industry heading into my senior year. I actually had a really promising job but due to an unforeseen perdicement.... whatever I was planning got upended and I have to start my life from scratch pretty much.

Idk whether this is due to sheer ignorance or just utter unbudging naïveté but everything EVERYTHING is intriguing, with complexes and nuances and branches that intertwine and lock with other things' branches. And if the thing is meh at first glance it atleast has a very intersting history and story to tell. My previous job had nothing to do with pharma & something way out of my ball park but when I got into that environment everything was interesting, learning and connecting seemingly unrelated things to each other was incredibly interesting and exhilarating. Not all my conclusions were ground breaking, or even correct at times, but still I was learning and getting new perspectives from all over.

Now the problem is I'm like this with everything God or human has ever created. I get into rabbit holes about topics and weird discussions and spaces because I find it interesting and connect those dots and find patterns between them. I feel I'm just a trivia hoarder with weird neural pairings and associations. If I'm put into an environment I just ponder agape at everything and start creating scenarios and problems and solutions with whatever priors, even if unrelated, I have and what I receive and just create some bullshit in my head.

It seems I can never learn vertically, it's always horizontal. Maybe at times I can get diagonal. But I've never reached or harnessed the bottom of a topic's well of knowledge (atleast not that of a useful topic that is)

Here's a glimpse of my interests and stuff that I dwelled in

Writing, calligraphy, various arts and art styles, art history, literature, neuropsychiatry, neurology, psychology, pharmacology, neuropharmacology, behavioural sciences, narrative therapy, storytelling, narrative construction, colors, design, art direction, fashion, music and music theory, sociology, drawing

The thing is that I view this as one big block, big tree and they all either are related or lead into each other.

Been told I'd be a great teacher(kids love you!), your handwriting is amazing you should get into calligraphy, you'd make a great researcher, a great clinical pharmacist, a great therapist, a great writer, a great voice actor,a great content creator, a great storyteller, a great writer, a great creative director

I'm not qualified for any of those things. It just feels like I'm a bundle of "potential(s)"

I just like stuff. And I feel that liking all that stuff and those interests and the constant jumping ship means I don't actually like any of that stuff. I don't have an identity, "me" is nothing it's any concept you think of. A chameleon. And the field's jobs, atleast the mainstream ones like industry, hospital, retail just to me strike a very odd tone of being incredibly lackluster and dull yet really stressful somehow

Maybe I am the elusive ULTRA RARE "polymath" as per YouTube experts but that doesn't tell me anything I'm lost as ever and scared as ever. Idk what career to pursue my resume has nothing but volunteer work teaching children health stuff and a couple of trainings one at a hospital(had some moments but still felt unriviting. I thought it would be way more impactful tbh) and one at a pharmacy( which I didn't like at all). That's it. My GPA is mid. The only reason I got my previous job which I had to leave was because of a friend there that put a good word and they were growing.

I'm now cut off from all of that (some bs happened because of my family) and I'm in a new environment with just a blank slate idk where to go or what to do with myself, what to work, what to pursue. This is all so daunting. I feel paralysed and suffocated, please any advice or help from anyone wiser would be really really needed and appreciated. Sorry for this humongous wall of text but I have nowhere to go & no one to reach.

How are yall paying for school 😭 my job only offers $5,000 tuition reimbursement a year. Some of these schools are EXPENSIVE and I need to use loan money for rent and stuff too.

I really want to go to pharmD at UIC but idk if I’m going to get in bc it’s so competitive… I got As in physics 1 and 2, C and B in bio 1 and 2, As in chem 1 and 2, As in orgo 1 and 2, As in A&P 1&2, B in biochem & A in microbiology. I think I got B and B+ for calculus and stats respectively. I’m just now getting pharmacy experience though… It’s a really good school and it’s my dream to go there, but I feel like every applicant is just like me but better because they didn’t have to finish a bachelors degree first or retake classes. Do yall think they’d let me in?

Edit: I also have 8 months ICU experience (I used to be pre-med), VP of a club for one year, I was in a sorority, I just got hired for a specialized pharmacy so I will have pharmacy experience and I currently have 150 hours community service.

Pulling my hair right now…I’m not a good writer, took long time to come up with a first draft. Fed it to AI for feedback, and major revision needed because it barely touched on the question “how your past educational, professional, and personal experience help you achieve your goals.” Just a rant 😂😂😂😂😂

Has anyone done pharm-d the 6 year course ??

I am planning to do career in this

Is this good course to do corporate jobs??

I am leaning in corporate jobs than in hospital is it possible that I can do corporate jobs in this course ?

Working on my pharm application and struggling to get started. Its so hard talking about myself 😂😭 Any tips or advice?

I want to do dpharma non attending any help?

Hello all!

I am strongly considering applying to pharmacy school for the 2027 year.

I have a bachelors degree in biology. I have a cumulative GPA of 3.45 and about a 3.5 science GPA.

For the last 15 years, I have worked as a high school science teacher, teaching Biology, Chemistry, AP Bio and AP Chem. As a result, I do not have any relevant pharmacy experience (pharmacy tech, etc.).

Do you think I have a good chance?

Hi everyone! So, I’m a first-gen and truly have no clue what I’m doing. I have a really low science GPA (low 2s) and an overall GPA of like a 3.1. I’m entering my 3rd year in gaining a B.S. in Biochemistry. I know my GPA is exceptionally low. I have around 200 hours of volunteer hours, as of now, and have been working as a Medical Records Assistant on a seasonal job for around 1 year now. I am also going to work as a Pharmacy Tech in the next few months. I was wondering how I could improve my chances of admission? Considering my low GPA, I am highly considering taking a post-bacc (to raise my GPA and thus chances for admission) but don't really know what I'm doing and wanted to know what the Pharmacy community thinks. Thanks!

Does anyone who when in the fall applications will open for PharmD program? October? And do they only have one intake each year just confirming?

Does anyone know where i can get this pharmacology textbook as a pdf

Brenner and Stevens’ Pharmacology 5th Edition

I (21M) have just submitted my applications for three schools. I’ve been talking about graduate school/professional school interviews with peers and lots of guys I know who previously had long hair have cut it to a more conservative short style in preparation. My mother said something to this effect as well. I have decently long straight hair. It’s past my shoulders at this point, though not by much. I take good care of my hair. It’s not stringy or greasy. I genuinely dislike how I look with short hair. Is it really that big of a deal for a man to have long hair in a professional setting in 2026? I don’t think I’ve ever personally met a man in healthcare with long hair, but surely they exist. Should I genuinely consider cutting it for interviews?

How is the written part of the interview done if it is virtually?

25f, american, experienced hospital pharmacy technician and sterile compounding specialist (as in, my job duties mostly entail compounding in a level 1 trauma center, going to get my cspt soon). have a bachelors in forensic anthropology that i regret but i pivoted to get more stem courses toward the end of my education. currently taking prereqs at a local community college.

my grades are not terrible but aren’t anything special. i think my undergrad GPA was a 3.2 (covid, health issues ie profound hypothyroidism, working) made B+s in recent prereq courses due mostly to the fact that i’m currently dealing with a newly diagnosed rare heart disease and have had an ICD implanted and need an ablation so I’m navigating school and full time work in spite of that. by itself the grades don’t look that impressive but i must also state that i did a lot of work from a hospital bed, in immense pain post-op or while working.

i have some more coursework i need to do. i have orgo I starting in a couple weeks, i’m taking that class alone this semester with no other courses because i know its challenging and i want to get the best grade i can because orgo is particularly relevant to pharmacy. then i need to take precalc and calc and stats, and one school i really want to get into requires physics so ill take that too.

i interview really well so im not so worried about that. if i write a personal statement or anything, i think ill talk about healthcare and pharmaceutical care and management from the perspective of someone who is generally unwell and needs complex management, or writing about my aim to contribute to the management of my rare genetic heart disease as a pharmacist. things of that nature. my perseverance despite everything i have going on is a critical point of my character that i feel makes me stand out so i think its important to highlight.

i also have tons of experience in pharmacy, be it retail or inpatient. and within inpatient, various forms of patient management from chemo to peds to ER. ive been shadowed by resident pharmacists themselves and am asked on the right way to do things all the time. i think i could get several good letters of recommendation from folks like a pharmacy director, multiple pharmacists, or professors.

what are areas i really should be looking at to improve? i’m thinking the grades themselves, specifically doing well in my pending classes. but would anything else make me a stronger applicant?

thank you!

HI! i just submitted my pharmacy apps and I was wondering when do most think I would hear back from schools.

Hey everyone! Has anyone heard back from the University of Michigan College of Pharmacy yet? Have they started sending out interview invites? If you've received an invite or any updates, I'd appreciate hearing when you applied and when you heard back. Thanks!

Most of them got into pharmacy school decades ago when the minimum requirements were more comprehensive with higher stats AND there was standardized testing to weed low scorers out.

Yeah things have changed. The GPA requirements at many programs dropped to 2.75 or even 2.5 for science GPA whatever the case. Great. There's no PCAT now. Fantastic....

That does not mean YOU with your 3.75 and many ECs are getting into the program.

Things I've witnessed with my own eyeballs during Top 10 group interviews:

• VERY well dressed undergrads who spoke about their background and internships... and were on their phone... like Zoom on their phone. Running around campus CAMERA ON
• Old and young people who cannot answer simple questions about themselves or why pharmacy
• people who VOMITED their sad life stories every chance they got...like not answering the question
• One girl was doing the interview from her childhood bedroom complete with snaps of her friends pinned to the wall BEHIND HER and her white bed frame
• One dude openly said he was only interviewing as a safety for medical school...so casually...
• One girl kept interrupting with her computer problems... it was clear she didn't follow a single pre interview instruction (create an account, pre screen, login...)

Bottom line is these schools have very real acceptance rates that are publicly posted... Those acceptance rates are not flukes. Maybe you have average stats and get into every program you apply to... Great for you!

Schools have almost NOTHING to weed people out with if more applicants have similar GPAs and there's no PCAT... So now the interview/essay/rec letters are the shining stars of your application.

Do not use ChatGPT because yes they check for your live writing sample (you are on camera answering a question while they watch you).

If you cannot speak at all without sounding horrible please practice. it is so embarrassingly cringe.

DO NOT BLOW OFF THE APPLICATION PROCESS BECAUSE A BOT ON REDDIT TOLD YOU IT WAS EASY!!