Pharmacy Prerequisites

It’s my first semester at Rutgers New Brunswick. I want to become a pharmacist and complete my pre-reqs to transfer to the pharmacy school. Ever since I started, my excitement and expectations for Rutgers went down. Suddenly, I feel that I am not ready to take the challenge and I want to give up. I don’t know what to do. But,in the back of my mind, is says that pharmacy has been my dream.

Giving up on pharmacy is actually not a bad idea. Pharmacy is extremely saturated and will continue to get worse as 1) mergers among chains (CVS + Target, Walgreens + Rite Aid) take place and 2) pharmacy schools keep opening. By the time you graduate, you will likely find yourself $200k+ in debt and unable to land a job.

There are other professions, i.e. computer programming, finance, engineering, accounting, etc. that require much less time and tuition in schooling, pay just as well as pharmacy, and have job prospects that are as good compared to pharmacy if not better.

You are in big lecture classes like Chem and Bio with other science majors and premeds. Those are weeder classes, only a limited amount of As and Bs are given out.
Your high school might not have prepared you for college level classes.

You can either try and get help through tutoring and study groups and do the best you can, or if chem proves too difficult, see what other courses/majors might interest you.

Thank you mommdc. When I was in high school , I took AP Chemistry but I got a 3 on the AP exam. But the topics that my professor goes through in lecture seems familiar to me, and it’s easy to do. But, my exam is coming up and I am scared if I don’t pass since “college is hard.” People are saying that chem is really hard at Rutgers but I find it easy so far.

Good, if you find it easy, just continue working hard.