My Experience As A Pharmacy Student So Far
By: Cesar Primo
As a first semester Pharmacy student entering into the school, I have found the experience to both challenging and fun. I am not going to lie in saying that the amount of studying and completion of assignments isn’t time consuming, but it should also be taken into consideration that the first semester is a total of 18 credit hours. The key to get A’s in all the courses is ‘’time management’’. If you attend the lectures, check the calendar for exams and due dates, and study a little every day you can get good grades. I am the living embodiment that is possible to survive pharmacy school while having a full-time job.
The best memories I have from my first semester is all the friends that I made so far. This is something that I am glad about because everybody is very friendly and helpful. At first, I thought everybody was only going to very serious, seeing as this is a graduate program, but everybody has ended up being very relaxed and open about their studying techniques and group work. Whenever I get lost, or I forget if we have any assignments due for the week, I just ask one of my classmates and they help remind me what is due and when. Also, the professors are very helpful and professional. They always have time for us and are very flexible and understanding whenever we are having technical difficulties.
This semester everything has been virtual, and we are actually the first class in the school that is going to be online for both semesters. Virtual school has its pros and cons. One of the benefits is that if you miss a lecture the professor can upload the lecture online and you can watch it on your own time. However, one of the things that I do not like about online learning is that sometimes you might have technical difficulties and it can take some time to fix them. This is especially inconvenient if it happens happen during exams because we need to go through a very specific process in calling customer service for help. I personally prefer to be in the actual classroom. Being on the computer at home provides more opportunities to be distracted and stop paying attention to the professor. When am in the classroom I feel like there is a more active environment and I am more focused on the material we are learning. Also, it is easier to build relationships with classmates in person than simply talking over a screen.
One challenge that we had to face during this pandemic are rotations. This semester we had very few rotations. We live in one of the cities with the most active cases in the US, and there was a time that we were ranked #2 city in the entire country with the most cases. In one of our classes they gave us a rotation throughout the end of the semester, that was not in the schedule. In my opinion, due to the dangers the Covid-19 growth rate presented, that rotation should have been canceled. We should not be out interacting with the public until things get better. I do not only say this in the interest of my own safety, but also in the interest of keeping my own family safe and the many people who are at a high risk for infection.
I hope that by the summer of 2021 everything will be under better control. I am looking forward to meeting all my classmates in person and be more involved with the community. I am excited for the future because we are going to be pharmacy interns. Next year we are going to be able to give immunizations which we can use in our upcoming rotations to help our preceptors. I hope that next semester would be as good as this one.