<p>Hello all,
I'm new to these forums but I have been reading them in my spare time for about two weeks. Despite reading on here, I still have a lot of worries about going into pre-pharmacy. Im applying for admission to South Dakota State University's College of Pharmacy. I'm pretty sure I'll get accepted with a 3.9 highschool GPA. Getting accepted is the least of my worries. I'm a smart kid.. I always study when I need to, do the homework on time, etc. Ive gotten straight A's my juinor and senior year of highschool, and my freshmen and sophmore year were similar but with a few B's throughout both.
I am sort of worried that I am not smart enough to be a pharmacist.. after all they have a doctorate degree. Im also worried about learning from a pure lecture based environment. Sure we get lectures in highschool, but Ive heard they arnt comparable at all. Also, a friend of mine told me today that if they arnt constantly studying they cant even achieve average grades. This worries me. I mean sure I know I need to study, but she told me she studies 4-6 hours a day. </p>
<p>Any suggestions, tips, or advice to try and re-assure me would be appreciated. But be honest with me please.</p>
<p>Cwayne, my D is a pre-pharm student and it’s true that it’s a challenging route. But if you’re willing to put in the time and effort to study, you can be successful. She and her prepharm friends do have to study almost every chance they get - often more than 6 hours a day - but they also have (make?) time to have some fun. Time management is a critical skill to have - never procrastinate, make a schedule every day and include your study times AND your “down time”, go to all your classes, etc. If something else comes up that you’d rather do, you’ll know immediately if you can reschedule or not. Make sure you go to your prof’s (or TA’s) office hours or to a tutoring center when you hit concepts that don’t make sense. There will be a learning curve when your first transition from HS to college courses. You’ll quickly learn to prioritize your work (ie. make sure your math/sciences come first and do take advantage of any realistic extra credit offered in those courses) and which readings, etc. are okay to bypass ( it took D almost 6 weeks before she stopped doing the lengthy bio readings and realized her prof would never refer to them or put them on a test). Use tools like ratemyprofessor to avoid “bad” professors and to find people you’ll actually learn from and other useful info (like “don’t do the readings”!). You could also do yourself the favor of taking some of your gen ed classes during the summer to offload your schedule (especially those that will require lengthy papers).</p>
<p>D says it’s best to try to live with the honors or pre-health students…not only do you have friends to study with close by but you avoid the business/humanities kids who don’t have to be as focused on their studies (no dis to those majors). It sometimes makes her unhappy to see how much free time they have!</p>
<p>Yes, you’ll be in large lecture halls but you’ll also have smaller (10-30) sections for recitations and labs. That’s the time to get your questions answered so make sure you go to those religiously and prepare for them!</p>
<p>Finally, it’s always good to have a plan “B” - just because you’re starting in prepharm doesn’t mean you’ll want to stay there. The first year math/science and gen eds apply to many different majors so do the best you can with them but don’t be afraid to explore your other options at SDSU. Good luck!</p>
<p>im in pre pharm right now in UBC but i dunno if thats the same cirriculum as where youre going. im assuming its the same because we all take the PCAT - you need general sciences plus a strong back ground in unicellular organisms. </p>
<p>its not relaly that difficult but if theres a midterm around the block you will need to study more than6 hours a day for sure</p>