The Student Room Group

What's Pharmacy like at Uni?

Just got back from Chemsix at Nottingham Uni and had a lecture about pharmacy, which looked quite good. I guess my question is basically summarised in the title of the thread, but if any pharmacy students are reading this thread, where are you studying pharmacy, how far into the course are you, what is the good thing about pharmacy at university, what's the downside (asssuming there is one) of pharmacy, and what do you intend to do after you graduate? e.g. pre-registration year then practising as a hospital/shop pharmacist, or teaching/research or maybe something else. Also, where's the best place to get pharmacy-based work experience. I know that's quite a few questions, but any answers to any or all of the questions would be brill. Cheers :biggrin:
Heya,
I'm a second year at Cardiff.

Good points: This will be something personal but I find the clinical and social aspects and the pharmacology very interesting. More generally, the people on the course are great, brilliant pharmacy society with lots of wicked socials and to a lesser extent you're pretty much guaranteed a stable, well paid job when you've finished.

Bad points: I don't really love all the chemistry and sometimes I wonder why we have to learn all the things the society says we must. Lots of contact time, which can be annoying when some of your friends have about 5 hours a week compared to your 20-25. It gets quite intense sometimes.

When I graduate I'm still not 100% sure what I want to do. At the moment I'm leaning towards hospital pharmacy, but as of yet I only have one week experience in a hospital so that could all change. Really doubt I'd go into industry, but wouldn't mind doing community.

I think the best place to get work experience are the independant pharmacies. Just go in and ask to speak to the pharmacist and explain to them you're interested in going to study pharmacy and would like some work experience. Who knows, you might even end up getting paid! Hospital experience is hard to come by though, I only got my week when I was in Year 13 (and already had offers to study pharmacy) because one of the teachers knew someone who was connected to the pharmacy dept. Even vacation work when you're actually a student is hard to come by ... I'm going for an interview next week to work in a hospital pharmacy for a month in the summer and they've had over 200 applications for about 30 places ... the hospital I really wanna work in having 6 places, not good! *LoL*

Hope that helped a bit.
Reply 2
Pharmacy is a unique degree in the fact it can be described as the "jack of all trades, master of none". That is its a very broad scientific degree, with chemistry, physics and maths, biology being integral components, but no-one being more important than the other. Chemistry is important for understanding how drugs are made, physics and maths important for how drugs are discovered and how they are formulated. Biology as a foundation of phyisology and pharmacology.

In addition to the core sciences, there is an emphasise on business and communication skills. The law and sociology relating to pharmacy and the practice itself.

I wouldn't be put off because you haven't studied biology, as the course is structured to account for students who might not of studied 3 sciences at A-Level. Your critical thinking AS will probably help you a great deal for the less scientific aspects of the course and for completing coursework.

Pharmacy offers excellent career prospects with graduates becoming practicing pharmacists in community, hospital, industry, academia, but because of the broad scientific background a pharmacy graduate is an attractive employee to the larger graduate recruitment companies including the accountancy firms, banks and chemical industries. Many pharmacy graduates have entered into law, in particular business law and some are involved in politics.

Hope this will have given you more insight into what you want to study.

Rich
richtagg
Pharmacy is a unique degree in the fact it can be described as the "jack of all trades, master of none".


Master of pharmacy maybe :p: *LoL* I know what you mean about it being a very broad degree though ... it pisses me off when people go 'oh so you're learning how to count pills out then?' :rolleyes:
Reply 4
Pharmacy is a good broad subject with secure job at the end of it (lowest employment for this subject at any uni doing it is 90%! not bad!) Personally I'm thinking of industry or research/teaching as this looks the most exciting. Whether I'm good enough remains to be explored.

If you're thinking of doing physics/maths then I'm wondering why you are thinking of pharmacy at all.........If you're oxbridge applicant material and are more interested in physics/maths then pharmacy would be a complete waste of your time. Thats my opinion anyways
At uni do they tell you about business in pharmacy? What are the required predicted grades btw?
In my experience, not really. When I got in (4 years ago), most of my offers were for BBB except Portsmouth which was BBC.

A lot of unis are now asking for A grades in offers for Pharmacy though I think - to be honest, I think the standard of chemistry that they expect you to have requires an A in chem A Level really.
Reply 7
Kingspharm
In my experience, not really. When I got in (4 years ago), most of my offers were for BBB except Portsmouth which was BBC.

A lot of unis are now asking for A grades in offers for Pharmacy though I think - to be honest, I think the standard of chemistry that they expect you to have requires an A in chem A Level really.


Not true!

Bath has just lowered it's offer from AAB to ABB and the only other unis that require any As at all are Aston and Manchester (From what I've been looking at). ULSOP, KCL and Cardiff all want BBB and everyone else lower (BBC or even BCC at Keele)

Pharmacy just isn't getting any more popular...
Reply 8
Kavanne
Not true!

Bath has just lowered it's offer from AAB to ABB and the only other unis that require any As at all are Aston and Manchester (From what I've been looking at). ULSOP, KCL and Cardiff all want BBB and everyone else lower (BBC or even BCC at Keele)

Pharmacy just isn't getting any more popular...

UEA also wants ABB for Pharmacy.