Second thoughts about Pharmacy School

[nick102]

I applied and was accepted off a waitlist after I retook the PCAT and 1 pre-req but now I am having second thought about entering Pharmacy School. I finished my Bachelors degree 5 years ago and I owe Sallie mae at least 60k and maybe another 20-30k in federal loans. The pharmacy school I applied to is accelerated and the tuition is 45k/year. I am looking for informed and objective opinions about what someone like me should do. I feel like I will be in debt forever.


I have also thought about the accelerated BSN programs which are only 1 year. Not much I can do with my BS in Biology degree, I currently make close to 40k/yr.

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[BidingMyTime]

How old are you? Do you have a family that needs your support? Are you willing to move anywhere to get a pharmacist job? Do you enjoy your free time and social life, or is it blah enough that you will be happy to give it all up to study continuously? Are you happy with the job you have? Is there room for advancement in your current job?

Think about the answer to these questions, and you will probably have a better idea if going to pharmacy school is right for you and your situation.

 

[PharmtoCS]

Computer programming will provide you the best return on investment, best job prospects, and least risk, if you are able to handle it. You can earn a very good starting salary ($60-110k) without having to having to take out an additional $150k+ in loans. It is also relatively quick to learn - a 3 month coding bootcamp will land you a job.

 

[lcow2004]

I applied and was accepted off a waitlist after I retook the PCAT and 1 pre-req but now I am having second thought about entering Pharmacy School. I finished my Bachelors degree 5 years ago and I owe Sallie mae at least 60k and maybe another 20-30k in federal loans. The pharmacy school I applied to is accelerated and the tuition is 45k/year. I am looking for informed and objective opinions about what someone like me should do. I feel like I will be in debt forever.


I have also thought about the accelerated BSN programs which are only 1 year. Not much I can do with my BS in Biology degree, I currently make close to 40k/yr.

I would go forward with pharmacy school. Sounds like you already put in a lot of work with the PCAT and the pre-reqs and now you have been accepted congrats! Once you finish pharmacy school, your pay will be much higher than your current 40k/year and paying off the loans will be much easier and once you pay off your loans, you will be living good for rest of your career. You are not so young anymore so go do it now so that you still have as many years as possible to work as a pharmacist after you graduate.

 

[nick102]

How old are you? Do you have a family that needs your support? Are you willing to move anywhere to get a pharmacist job? Do you enjoy your free time and social life, or is it blah enough that you will be happy to give it all up to study continuously? Are you happy with the job you have? Is there room for advancement in your current job?

Think about the answer to these questions, and you will probably have a better idea if going to pharmacy school is right for you and your situation.

Thanks for your reply. I am 26, no family no kids. I do enjoy a social life and free time but would give it up in order to be better off in the future. The job I have is a dead-end job so not exactly thrilled about staying. But I was looking into pharmacy or other options.

 

[nick102]

Computer programming will provide you the best return on investment, best job prospects, and least risk, if you are able to handle it. You can earn a very good starting salary ($60-110k) without having to having to take out an additional $150k+ in loans. It is also relatively quick to learn - a 3 month coding bootcamp will land you a job.

Do you know of any good bootcamps? I was actually looking into that before I got accepted into pharmacy school.

 

[nick102]

I would go forward with pharmacy school. Sounds like you already put in a lot of work with the PCAT and the pre-reqs and now you have been accepted congrats! Once you finish pharmacy school, your pay will be much higher than your current 40k/year and paying off the loans will be much easier and once you pay off your loans, you will be living good for rest of your career. You are not so young anymore so go do it now so that you still have as many years as possible to work as a pharmacist after you graduate.

Thanks. Orientation starts next week but the thought of being 200k I debt scares me. I will have to relocate to another city about 2.5 hours away. Thanks for the advice, well appreciated.

 

[PharmtoCS]

Do you know of any good bootcamps? I was actually looking into that before I got accepted into pharmacy school.

Which area do you live?

I would also consider taking community college classes in computer science or learning it on your own if you want to save the $10k tuition. The job market for computer programmers is a lot better than for pharmacists.

 

[nick102]

I live in the NY area.

 

[PharmtoCS]

I live in the NY area.

I'm not sure about coding bootcamps in the NY area, although I know of quite a few on the West Coast. Codecademy would probably be a good place to start for free.

 

[RxStudentatUB]

I'm not sure about coding bootcamps in the NY area, although I know of quite a few on the West Coast. Codecademy would probably be a good place to start for free.

What'd you do to get on the honorary probationary status?

 

[PharmtoCS]

What'd you do to get on the honorary probationary status?

Long story short, for telling people that computer programming is a better career than pharmacy.

 

[fewaopi]

Long story short, for telling people that computer programming is a better career than pharmacy.

Lol that's funny. Well you do repeat yourself a lot but sounds kind of harsh for saying something that's true. Maybe you're "padding too much?"

SDN is nonprofit, but runs ads so I presume they need revenue to run the site. You telling students to not pursue pharmacy and do something else maybe lowers their click counts and their revenue, directly hitting them maybe? Maybe it's not a big dent but so many threads on not doing pharmacy because of the current job situation is probably lowering their clicks or lowering the increase/growth.

 

[W19]

@stoichiometrist You are not giving good advice... Not everyone can be a good programmer (I certainly can't)... Being a good programmer requires an extra sense that most people don't have... Most engineers are not making bank like most people believe.

 

[Corpseman]

@stoichiometrist You are not giving good advice... Not everyone can be a good programmer (I certainly can't)... Being a good programmer requires an extra sense that most people don't have... Most engineers are not making bank like most people believe.

That's what I have been saying as well. I would be a terrible employee in the STEM field.

 

[PharmtoCS]

Computer programming provides many of the benefits that pre-pharm students desire, such as 1) a six-figure starting salary, 2) not having to work retail, and 3) excellent job prospects, with the added benefit of not having to take out $200k+ loans and sacrifice another 4 years.

The advice to go to med school also gets thrown around a lot here, although not everyone can get into med school which also requires you to take out astronomical student loans. Not everyone could have gone into pharmacy school 5-10 years ago either when pharmacy schools still had very tough admission standards. Computer programming, if you are capable, provides the best return on investment.

 

[Son_Goku]

Computer programming provides many of the benefits that pre-pharm students desire, such as 1) a six-figure starting salary, 2) not having to work retail, and 3) excellent job prospects, with the added benefit of not having to take out $200k+ loans and sacrifice another 4 years.

The advice to go to med school also gets thrown around a lot here, although not everyone can get into med school which also requires you to take out astronomical student loans. Not everyone could have gone into pharmacy school 5-10 years ago either when pharmacy schools still had very tough admission standards. Computer programming, if you are capable, provides the best return on investment.

If people were capable, they'd knew it the minute they got a hold of a computer. It's really not a profession somebody just naturally decides to do when their first and second option have been eliminated... and if they do they will come to find out the market is just as difficult because they just don't have the "it" factor for computer programming to make the big bucks.

 

[BidingMyTime]

Plus, if people want to only work in a certain geographical location, there might not be computer jobs in that location (unlike health care which has jobs everywhere.)

 

[PharmtoCS]

Plus, if people want to only work in a certain geographical location, there might not be computer jobs in that location (unlike health care which has jobs everywhere.)

That is the problem with pharmacy. Many of the available jobs are in rural areas where no one wants to live, whereas most of the computer jobs are in urban/suburban areas where many of the pre-pharm students would eventually like to live.

 

[blackwolf2000]

I would go forward with pharmacy school. Sounds like you already put in a lot of work with the PCAT and the pre-reqs and now you have been accepted congrats! Once you finish pharmacy school, your pay will be much higher than your current 40k/year and paying off the loans will be much easier and once you pay off your loans, you will be living good for rest of your career. You are not so young anymore so go do it now so that you still have as many years as possible to work as a pharmacist after you graduate.

This is a terrible idea. You'll be close to $300,000 in debt. That is insanity. Try to buy a house with that Debt to Income ratio. Computers, PA school, nursing like you said, many more alternatives. If you are having reservations now, think what they'll be like when you are in school.

 

[jokersmiles]

I applied and was accepted off a waitlist after I retook the PCAT and 1 pre-req but now I am having second thought about entering Pharmacy School. I finished my Bachelors degree 5 years ago and I owe Sallie mae at least 60k and maybe another 20-30k in federal loans. The pharmacy school I applied to is accelerated and the tuition is 45k/year. I am looking for informed and objective opinions about what someone like me should do. I feel like I will be in debt forever.


I have also thought about the accelerated BSN programs which are only 1 year. Not much I can do with my BS in Biology degree, I currently make close to 40k/yr.

Pharmacy school will leave you in over $200,000 debt and you will be taking home around 40K for years.
This is a large investment for a job that doesn't provide a good return. Why not pursue a PhD and become a researcher or university lecturer, both of which are more interesting than pharm.