r/PharmacySchool

I wasn’t the smartest student. Got suspended once back in 2023. Since then, I studied hard and did pass all future courses. But as you can see, not with the metric Faculty expects of its students.

Empathy is appreciated.

But while the shock and adrenaline are still affecting me, I’m seeking advice with what to do.

I’m 26 years old, wasted 3 years of my life for nothing. If I allow myself to cry right now, I won’t come back from that. Before I lay down and grieve I at least want to draft out what the hell to do with my life.

Appeal
Start again elsewhere
Quit future Pharmacy attempts or Healthcare all together.

I’d appreciate any advice, from those who started again and succeeded or from those whose kin were also dismissed and managed to move on successfully.

Please

Its has been a month that I got my final grade. The fall semester I failed 2 classes and I was trying to remediate in the summer. Unfortunately, I failed another course which i am ineglible to remediate. Now I have to repeat P1. I feel guilty, awful. I thought I was smarter to handle this situation because my undergraduates grades were excellent with a GPA of 3.5

What really bother me is that I have been working as a pharmacy technician since 2011. I felt confident by having a good background but it didnt work.

I cant sleep, I am having depression, I dont want to do anything, just thinking about it. This torture is killing me. I hope I can find any one with this situation and give me a good advice on how to overcome it. I need to keep going because I am a single mom but I can't. I try to put a smile on my face showing my son that I am OK when I am not. Please give me a good advice so I can feel a little bit better. Or how can I prepare for the next upcoming year?

I’m a pharmacy student who just finished my P2 year. It seems like everyone is interested in doing a residency or going into the industry, but I’m not really interested in either. I would like to work at an independent pharmacy or in an outpatient hospital pharmacy or mail in order pharmacy. Honestly, I’m just tired of studying right now, and all I can think about is graduating. I’ve shadowed clinical pharmacists before, and I don’t think that’s the path for me.

Is it going to be a problem if I don’t pursue a residency like other students? I feel a lot of pressure to do one because it seems like that’s what everyone expects.

Just started my Internal Med rotation and I’m having a hard time breaking down the info to focus on when it comes to working up a patient. I know the basics like looking at labs, imaging, meds, etc but idk I feel like I’m always missing information.

Any tips would be appreciated!

I really need help and I’m lost as heck. I got into a pharm d program (Yipee) but I’m lost for applying to loans about the grad plus is gonna be gone come July. Where would you recommend to apply loans for like schooling cost and tuition and then also taking out loans for personal so I can like pay my apartment and get groceries and all this kind of stuff???
I filled out my FASFA to start but I don’t know where to go from there. I really need help in anyone I asked for advice from doesn’t really give me anything to work with.
Thank you in advance ❤️

Hello All,

I was just curious to know if other schools require that their students pass a practice naplex exam in order to graduate.

My school implemented a new rule this year where we have to take a practice naplex exam through RxPrep (200 questions for 6 hours) and we have to pass in order to graduate. We have 2 tries but if we fail on both tries, we get to walk on graduation this week, but our degree will be held back until August. This means we cannot sit for the NAPLEX until the fall in the earliest.

Any other school doing this?

Hi, I’m revising for a pharmaceutical calculations exam and I’m trying to work out what rounding convention is expected when the question does not specify decimal places or significant figures.

I understand the maths, but I’m unsure whether final answers should be left as exact calculated values, rounded to a practical whole unit, or rounded to 1 d.p./3 s.f.

Here are examples from my practice questions.

- - -

Example 1 — moles

How many moles of solute are there in 36 mL of a 0.85 mol/L solution?

36 mL = 0.036 L

0.85 × 0.036 = 0.0306 mol

Would you write the final answer as:

0.0306 mol or 0.031 mol?

- - -

Example 2 — sodium ion content

How many mg of sodium ions are contained in a 1 g tablet of sodium chloride?

RMM NaCl = 23 + 35.5 = 58.5

1000 mg × 23 ÷ 58.5 = 393.162 mg Na⁺

Would you write:

393 mg or 393.2 mg?

- - -

Example 3 — mmol of sodium

How many mmol of sodium are contained in 300 mL of 0.45% w/v NaCl?

0.45% w/v = 0.45 g/100 mL

In 300 mL:

0.45 × 300 ÷ 100 = 1.35 g NaCl

1.35 ÷ 58.5 × 1000 = 23.0769 mmol Na⁺

Would you write:

23 mmol or 23.1 mmol?

- - -

Example 4 — potassium ion content

How many mg of potassium ions are contained in a 1.2 g tablet of potassium chloride?

RMM KCl = 39 + 35.5 = 74.5

1200 mg × 39 ÷ 74.5 = 628.1879 mg K⁺

Would you write:

628 mg or 628.2 mg?

- - -

Example 5 — mmol of chloride

How many mmol of chloride are contained in 150 mL of 1.2% w/v NaCl?

1.2% w/v = 1.2 g/100 mL

In 150 mL:

1.2 × 150 ÷ 100 = 1.8 g NaCl

1.8 ÷ 58.5 × 1000 = 30.7692 mmol Cl⁻

Would you write:

30.8 mmol, or round to a whole mmol as 31 mmol?

- - -

Example 6 — mmol of potassium

How many mmol of potassium are contained in 150 mL of 1.2% w/v KCl?

1.2% w/v = 1.2 g/100 mL

In 150 mL:

1.2 × 150 ÷ 100 = 1.8 g KCl

1.8 ÷ 74.5 × 1000 = 24.1611 mmol K⁺

Would you write:

24 mmol or 24.2 mmol?

- - -

The practice papers I’m using seem inconsistent: some answers keep decimals, e.g. 12.198 g or 235.9 mg, while some answers seem to use whole mmol values.

When a student tells me they're bad at calculations, I ask them to show me their work on a problem they got wrong. Almost every time, the issue isn't what they think it is.

There are 10 distinct failure points in pharmacy calculations:

1. Unit conversion failure — wrong conversion factor, or skipping a conversion entirely

2. Formula misuse — plugging numbers into the wrong formula or misremembering the formula

3. Setup breakdown — correct pieces, wrong arrangement before the math even starts

4. Concentration/dilution confusion — mixing up mg/mL, percent strength, ratio strength, or which volume is which

5. Flow-rate/infusion errors — misidentifying what's being solved for: mL/hr vs drops/min vs total infusion time

6. Alligation errors — not knowing when to use it, or setting up the grid incorrectly

7. Answer-sense failure — getting an answer and not recognizing it's impossible (100 mL/hr vs 1000 mL/hr, for example)

8. Time-pressure breakdown — knows the material, falls apart on a timed exam

9. Weak checking habit — no verification step, errors that would have been caught with a second pass

10. Study-process failure — practicing answers instead of practicing the setup

Most students who think they have a "calculations problem" actually have 2-3 specific problems from this list. The other 7-8 are fine.

Studying more calculations without knowing which of these is breaking down is like taking more of the wrong medication. The effort is real. The outcome won't be.

The first thing I do with every student is identify their actual failure pattern before touching content. Everything else follows from that.

Happy to answer questions in the comments.

I am in an online certificate program that self-paced and I’m absolutely lost. I’m supposed to remember brand names categories and scientific names for each drug, but I am having a very difficult time with remembering and telling all them apart by name, categories and brand names. The program I’m with is Pharmacy Tech Academy.

Hi everyone! I am about to fail my second class of pharmacy school and I am just feeling so sad and like maybe I am just not that smart. I know that this is a hard program and people before me have failed full semesters and still graduated but it’s just really getting to me. Has anyone here failed a couple classes and still made it out and been successful/happy as a pharmacist? I’m just disappointed in myself and was wondering if anyone else here has gone through a similar experience/felt these feelings :(

so i’m going to apply for fall 2027 admission and i j want to know what my chances are

-c3.42 gpa with real strong upwards trend ( and science gpa upwards trend )
- 300+ hours as retail, institutional , and hospital tech
- 3 letters of recommendation ( teacher, work, and pharmacist who i’ve been ig interning with at new retail place )
- registered and certified
- eboard for pharmacy club

i think my app is okay but if anyone is able to help me fill any gaps that would be great like where weak spots maybe. i have some volunteering as well nothing crazy so maybe that’s something gotta work on. thank you .

Hello everyone! I’m a first year pharmacy student and having a difficult time finding a job while I’m in school. I’m currently doing my required retail internship every week which is unpaid and was not enough to build my confidence and speed. I also doubt that the manager is gonna hire me after my internship ends since their team seems pretty full. I’m also not as fast as an experienced pharmacy assistant and I have a feeling that employers would rather hire experienced assistants rather than first year pharmacy students. What can I do to land a pharmacy assistant job while I’m in school to gain retail experience before I graduate? Should I just volunteer in the hopes of landing a job later on?

I am a P2 heading into P3, and I am struggling to break into industry internships, specifically medical affairs, and wanted to see if anyone in pharmacy school has navigated this. Over the past 2 years, I have tried to build a strong foundation as a pharmacy student interested in industry: I did a managed care internship after P1, clinical and presentation experience, a volunteer health outcomes research position, independent projects in data analysis and dashboard creation, and an E-board role in IPhO. I network regularly and research every company before interviews.

Since Nov 2025, I have applied to over 100 applications, got 7 interviews, and made it to the final rounds multiple times, but still no offer. I have asked for feedback and heard nothing back. I also think being at a clinically focused pharmacy school in the South puts me at a disadvantage compared to students at schools near major pharma hubs. There are very few industry resources or connections at my school, so I have had to figure this out on my own. My interviews feel like they go well in the moment, but I keep getting rejected. I have practiced and gotten advice from industry professionals, but I am still hitting a wall.

For any pharmacy students or recent grads who have gone through this: what actually helped you land an offer? And those who have made it to industry, what do you wish you had known during pharmacy school that would have helped earlier?

Any honest advice is welcome. Thank you.

hi! hope this is a good place to ask — I’m an incoming UCSF pharmacy student and I was wondering if classes are mostly at the parnassus campus or if they’re split between there and mission bay?