Here’s my situation:
When I began my academic career in the fall of 2013 (age 19 – I am an ex-high school valedictorian on an undergrad full ride) I aspired to become a pharmacist because I thought that would make me a lot of money. I went in as an “undecided” major and planned on getting my pharmacy prerequisites done in 2 years and entering pharmacy school in the fall of 2015. Unfortunately, I was not able to get into any of the initial gen chemistry and biology classes I needed the first semester, due to being the last name alphabetically on the list in one of the later orientation rounds (this was just prior to me getting my name changed).
However, on Saturday, December 7th, 2013, in the midst of an ice storm which closed down my campus (I go to the University of North Texas in Denton, Texas) I walked to IHOP to buy a couple slices of greasy bacon for a couple bucks because I was starving and all 5 of the dorm cafeterias were shut down. At the restaurant I ran into a couple of guys who were about 23-24 years old; one was finishing CPA school and the other was a BCIS (computer information systems) major, and we conversated and he winded up telling me he had job offers of nearly $80,000/year starting salary upon graduation. I pondered it for a few days, and when the school and the advising offices all opened back up the following week (mid-finals week) I officially changed my major to business, seeking a degree in ITDS, or Information Technology Decision Sciences. At the time I decided I would nix my plan to become a pharmacist altogether.
The next semester I took mostly business prerequisite classes (business calculus, basic information systems, honors basic business stats, microeconomics, honors political science II) but it was late in the spring semester when I thought about returning to my original pharmacy plan whilst continuing to pursue my business analytics track. In the summer, I took 19 hours, fulfilling all of the rest of my lower-level business credits as well as completing my university core, so I was considered a junior. I also took biology I during the summer, and chemistry I during the fall (finally) as part of my 18 hours.
To date, I am a 4.0 student with 88 credit hours under my belt, and plan on obtaining my ITDS degree in June 2016. I only need 45 more hours to complete this degree (a mere 15 per semester, and I also plan on taking 6 of these online during the summer along with my internship to fulfill this summer requirement to maintain one of my UNT scholarships).
As far as my second job aspiration goes, it isn’t looking too good at the moment, however. For pharmacy school prerequisites, I only have biology I and chemistry I completed, and would still need the following prior to graduation: biology II, chemistry II, organic chemistry I and II, microbiology, genetics, physics and anatomy. I am currently enrolled in 28 hours for the spring 2015 semester, but I am considering completely nixing the pharmacy thing altogether and focusing on IT mainframe programming and analytics (sql, xml, stats etc) that will make me a decent but not great salary after college (around the $70k range average out of my program at my school). I would then only have 15 credit hours to worry about this upcoming semester instead of 28.
The other main issues with pharmacy school that are bugging me aside from the heavy load are: a) I’m not sure I can get a high enough score on the PCAT (especially the math section that is timed WITHOUT A CALCULATOR)… b) I don’t have any clinical volunteer work or pharmacy technician certification or experience… c) I would have to take out major loans to go to pharmacy school, and I have a claustrophobic-like phobia of being in debt… and d) everyone seems to be worried right now that in 15-20 years many of the pharmacist and technician jobs will be replaced by automated machinery. I just think that this is all too much to overcome… 5 factors… my grandmother thinks that while chemistry might be more interesting than IBM/COBOL/SQL or whatever, it might not be worth it in the long run as the latter really shells out the big money in this day and age.
Any thoughts, comments and/or suggestions?