Year 12s: what will be the first way you research your future options? >>

MPharm: Is work experience required before applying for the course?

username1156558

I am looking at these universities:

Bradford
Kingston
Sunderland
Brighton
Ashton

Reply 1

thegodofgod

Original post by BewareTomato

I am looking at these universities:

Bradford
Kingston
Sunderland
Brighton
Ashton

Not at Brighton, although I would really recommend it, just for your own sake, so you know what you're getting in to before investing a lot of money in to the degree.

Reply 2

bhavbhav

Original post by BewareTomato

I am looking at these universities:

Bradford
Kingston
Sunderland
Brighton
Ashton

I think most universities prefer that you have some sort of work experience, but it's not mandatory. Even if it isn't in a pharmacy, you mention charity work or volunteering. If you have work experience in a different sector, you can talk about that in your personal statement/interviews and say the transferable skills you gave gained.
But like the other poster say, it's best to get some, even if it's 3 days, at least then you'll know what it's actually like working in a pharmacy.

Good luck for your application :smile:

Reply 3

returnmigrant

Lots of advice on applying for Pharmacy here - http://www.thestudentroom.co.uk/wiki/Pharmacy_Degree

As above, you need some sort of 'working in a Pharmacy' work experience to show that you understand what the job involves - ie. its about people not just medicines/drugs.

Brighton is an excellent place to do STEM subjects including Pharmacy - and its a great place to live for three years.

(edited 9 years ago)

Reply 4

demetria

Most uni's say you don't HAVE to have experience in an actual pharmacy as long as you have experience in a care home or something but personally I think you really should. There are pharmacies absolutely everywhere so unless you live in the middle of the countryside I can't imagine it'd be too hard to get a place, even if you just go for a few days. You can't dedicate yourself to wasting your ucas choices and paying a huge amount of money and spending so long studying Pharmacy if you've not even experienced it, especially with it being so much harder to get a job now, and honestly I think I'd of really struggled to do a decent personal statement and answer my interview questions well if I hadn't of done any work experience

Assuming you're at school, you've got the whole of summer to get yourself sorted. Try get a placement and then make note of everything you learned whilst it's still fresh in your head so you can use it in your PS and interviews. Even if you don't get anything over summer, there's always the october holidays, you don't have to send it off ASAP, getting experience is much more important than rushing to send it off

Reply 5

JM2207

Yeah most unis say you don't have to, they understand it's hard especially in the health service to get work experience however it is really highly looked upon. Afterall how do you know you want to be a pharmacist if you don't know what they do behind that counter? I did like 2 months work experience in a community setting, I used the Co Op they had a really good process just had to fill in an application and you got to go.

I also got some experience at the hospital pharmacy which as you can imagine was a lot harder to get but see if your local hospital had a volunteers or recruitment manager that you can phone. I think it put me in good stead that I had both angles of the profession and you can really shine in interview. Also I actually was really put of community pharmacy after my experience and loved clinical pharmacy.

although again it's not mandatory to get it for Uni I would recommend doing it for yourself. Nothing worse that commuting into a degree which you are going to hate.

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