Mariana Tellez

Pharmacy

Most students attending college dont really know their major as well as
they think they do. When I thought about it I didnt even know my major as well as I
wanted to. Sure Ive done some research on pharmacy and asked questions about it
but I didnt know enough. What I then did was looked up some more information on
different websites, conducted some interviews, made surveys, and gathered some
documents together. I even had site observations to get a better understanding on the
environment I could be working at if I continue the path for this major. My main
question is how does one understand the disciplinary of pharmacy and get a good
understanding of all the steps it takes to become a pharmacist? I pretty much want to
know everything there is to become a pharmacist so I know what to expect.

What I first did was looked online and researched my major a little more.
There werent many sites I could use because they either had information I already
knew or information I didnt need. I did find two websites that I ended up using just
because it had things I thought were interesting. When looking at the articles the main
questions I wanted answered was where do I start? On one of the articles it discussed
how you have to go to a college that provides pharmacy as a major. From that same

article is also said how internships would be good to have, especially when your still
in school. The other article I looked at just explained the typical life of a pharmacist
but I had that article as a site because it explained what they did. I felt like these
articles were different from each other, which to me was a good thing to have so there
would be a variety of facts. The one thing that both articles left out was the amount of
money you can make by becoming a pharmacist. They pretty much explained
everything but the money. I guess they wanted to give information focusing on
pharmacy work and not the outcome of it.

I really wanted to have an inside on majoring in pharmacy so the best

thing to do was to interview someone. I knew that Costco had a pharmacy so I asked
a pharmacist if there was any way I could interview them. Luckily the pharmacist I
asked was very nice and agreed to talk to me. My main focus was to ask questions not
only for me but as well for others that might have the same ones. I asked him what
steps he first used to prepare himself for this discourse? He responded by saying that
he asked a lot of family members and friends first about this field and then later on
when ever he was confused on something or needed advise he would go to the
assistant dean, Dr. Shetfield. He told me that just because you have an advisor
assigned to you dont mean that you have to rely only on that one person for help. He
even explained how if you know anybody else you can ask advise for to do it so you
can get another opinion. Talking to him helped me a lot because he showed me how I
didnt need to rely on my advisors for everything and instead can talk to others that
also have the answers to my questions. I remember that when I was giving the

interview at the Costco pharmacy that the environment there was nice and that
everybody there was friendly. Although everybody was nice you can tell that they
were strict when it came to certain policies. An example is that when picking up your
medicine they need to see youre ID. Even if you tell them your info and exactly what
youre picking up they will still not give you the medication. In a way its extremely
smart they do that because they can accidentally give out the wrong medicine to the
wrong person. People can eve lie about who they are and pick up medicine that
doesnt belong to them. I had no idea how the policies worked, so getting an idea of
certain things they do was a cool thing to know.

I wanted to talk to my advisor and see if I can talk to her about any
questions I have. My first impression on her is that she seemed very nice. I then asked
her some questions about what classes I would have to take and she was very helpful.
She even mentioned to me how I should think about joining one of the pre-pharmacy
clubs at school. She said that since pharmacy schools are very hard to get into and
competitive that it was smart to join a club to help me get into a pharmacy school. I
then talked to another advisor for my major and he seemed a bit more serious. He
gave me advice like it wasnt the wisest thing to get a job in college right now
because school should be my only job at the moment. Although he said this he also
said that after I get the hang of school that it would be good to get some hands on
experience and get an internship or become a technician. Most of the people who took
my survey had said that they wouldnt recommend having a job your first semester of
school if your not used to everything yet. Having all this data and information really

helped me get a better understanding on what to do for this semester of school. When
talking to the pharmacist at Costco he told me that his advisor didnt lie out all the
steps clearly for him. I had noticed that even for the survey seven out of ten people
said that there advisors werent a big help. Most of them said that when looking for
someone to help them out or talk to they mostly relied on others besides their
advisors. In the end it mostly depends on whether you lucked out on getting a good
advisor or not.

Another thing I did for my research was to have a survey. I thought it was
good to do this so I can get different student opinions. I wanted to get a good idea of
how they felt or thought about certain things. What I did is I asked a total of ten
people ten questions and compared their responses to each other. One of the main
questions I focused on was Were you prepared to enter the field of becoming a
pharmacist? More than half of the people I asked said that they werent. If I was a
part of that survey I can agree with them. I honestly didnt know a lot about majoring
so it made me happy to know there were others like me that didnt as well. It also
didnt make me feel that great too knowing that many people like myself didnt know
what we were getting ourselves into. I asked other questions like is all the hard work
worth it? and so far is the path to major in pharmacy difficult? Half of them
responded yes to the first question and a little more also responded yes to the second
question. They pretty much reassured me that Im not the only one thinking that
pharmacy is a hard major to be studying.

Knowing that if I wanted to know more about my major I would have to find
information on my own. What I personally wanted to know is if I were at a school
that only requires pre-pharmacy would the process be long or difficult. I ended up
finding documents related to my major. The three documents I found were a degree
plan, pre-pharmacy degree plan for The University of Texas at El Paso/UT-Austin,
and a transfer document to UT El Paso and UT Austin. The third document I found
helped me out a lot. The transfer document to go to UT Austin did look like it would
be a lot of work because it required a lot from you. When looking more into this I
learned that if I continued studying to become a pharmacist I could transfer to a
pharmacy school like UT Austin for two years and then return to UT El Paso for the
last two years of school. I then discovered that that only happened if I went to UT
Austin. If I decided to go to any other pharmacy school like UT Dallas I would have
to attend the full four years there. The reason for this is because UT Austin is the only
other school that classes correspond to UT El Paso. I personally think that all schools
should be able to do the same or even that UT El Paso should have there own
pharmacy school to just make it easier for everyone. Since they dont I looked up a
transfer document to UT El Paso and saw how it would be way easier and faster to
transfer to UT El Paso than any other University. Even the pharmacist I had
interviewed said the same thing on how the transfer process wasnt hard at all. I
personally feel like UT El Paso should have a pharmacy school since they already
have pre-pharmacy. They have the first part and the last part of pharmacy classes

already, all they need is the middle part. It would be easier for everybody; especially
us students if they did.

The last thing I did for my research was that I went to three different sites,
observed them, and then compared each place to each other. The three places I went
to were, Walgreens, Costco, and Wal-Mart. Each place seemed similar because they
were located away by a corner or wall and was as far away from the stores
merchandise that doesnt relate to them. Walgreens seemed to have the most people
with six people but the other two stores only had two to three less people. All three
stores didnt have that many people most likely due to the time and day I went. I went
on October 15 at 8:15. It landed on a Wednesday, which was a school/work night that
was the main reason there werent so many people. The environment for each
pharmacy wasnt bad and seemed organized. Out of the three stores Costco did seem
to be more professional. But overall they all seemed like a nice place to work at.

While researching this major I also wanted to find out some interesting
facts about being a pharmacist. One fun fact I learned is that whenever they get a
prescription from a doctor most of the times its hard to read their handwriting. A way
they learned how to understand the doctors writing is by tons of practice. They can
even make out some words or even letters at times, which tells them the medicine
thats required. They say that its better when the prescription is sent online because
its not a hassle to read but over the years the hand written prescriptions arent that
bad. When I was researching I focused on a lot of the serious topics but I also

remembered that if I really wanted to work in this field that it would be smart to learn
little fun facts. Its a good idea for anyone finding information on their major to not
just look for the bad but also the good and interesting, which reminds them why they
wanted to major in pharmacy in the first place.

By the time I finished all my research it turns out I learned more than I
thought I would. I feel better majoring in pharmacy now which is going to make
things better in college like deciding which classes are best to take. Knowing that a
lot of people are facing the same problems and decisions as me makes things seem
better because I know Im not the only one going though them. Researching by
finding online articles, conducting interviews, making surveys, collecting documents,
and having site observations in the end really helped me when it came to research on
my major pharmacy.

Sources

Danielson, J., Eccles, D., Kwasnik, A., Craddick, K., Heinz, A. K., & Harralson, A. F.
(2014). Status of Pharmacy Practice Experience Education Programs. American Journal
Of Pharmaceutical Education, 78(4), 1-10.

Barnett, C. W., & Matthews, H. W. (2009). Teaching Evaluation Practices in Colleges

and Schools of Pharmacy. American Journal Of Pharmaceutical Education, 73(6), 1-8

KIRDAHY, K., TURNER, S., & WILLIAMS, J. (2012). Description of an academic

teaching rotation for postgraduate year 1 pharmacy residents. American Journal Of
Health-System Pharmacy, 69(3), 228-231. doi:10.2146/ajhp110261