As of right now, the route I’m planning on taking is to become a pharmacist. My top choices are UCI and UCSD which I got in for Pharmaceutical Sciences/Pharmacological Chemistry just so I can tell if I actually like pharmacy. I also got into UCLA but they don’t have a pharm related major so I wasn’t really considering that an option since I’m not entirely sure if pharmacy is the route for me. I was thinking of attending UCI and then attending grad school there as well to get my PharmD but I’ve been seeing things about schools not admitting their undergrads into their grad programs. Anyone know if that would apply to UCI and any suggestions on course of action?
there is absolutely no need to choose a pre-Pham major. You could major in Philosophy and apply to Pharm school as long as you the the pre-reqs (example of UCSF). Indeed, a philosophy degree with bunch of high grades in the sciences could help you stand apart from all of the science majors.)
So if you like UCLA better, go there.
btw: if you are not sure that Pharm is for you, why woudl you seek a school with a pre-Pharm program?
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My main reasoning for choosing a school with a pre-pharm major was just to get a feel if I would actually like pursuing pharmacy as a career.
Personally I like UCLA > UCSB > UCI. You should go where you like best though. I would not worry about UCI not admitting you for grad because you went there for undergrad, I don’t think that’s a thing. You might be ready to go somewhere else for grad though.
If you want to see if you like Pharmacy, go to Walmart and watch the pharmacist work.
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Liking the major does not necessarily mean you will enjoy the career. You can really major in anything and go to pharmacy school.
My advice is to set up a few informational interviews with pharmacists and spend some time asking them about the profession. I would also try to do some shadowing.
One of the best things my daughter did before heading back to school was interview and shadow a variety of professions.
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Exactly. Sample of one. My younger kid loved her engineering major and courses, but decided she hated the idea of being an engineer for a job. And she knew plenty about engineering as a job as her dad is a career engineer.
I agree with seeing if you can speak with or watch a pharmacist in action. This will give you a sense of the job. Of course, there are lots of different pharma jobs…retail, hospital, research, sales. But please do spend some significant time seeing what the job is like. Try to find some folks doing these jobs and ask them the pluses and minuses of the work.
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