Being a licensed pharmacist can be a lucrative and rewarding career. If you are still in high school you should talk to your guidance counselor about the opportunities of attending a pharmacy program for college. It’s a 6 year degree, and tuition is the same as for other degrees, but your overall expenditure will be more because you are required to take more credits. At least that’s the way my pharmacist explained it to me the other day.
You enter college knowing that you will be there for six years.
Why become a pharmacist?
Well, for one, it is a job that will never go out of style. We will always need pharmacists, at least for the foreseeable future. Another obvious advantage is that pharmacists make a lot of money, starting from 75K up to 150K, dependent on where you are. As a pharmacist, you are a vital part of the health care community, yet don’t have to deal with patients in the same manner as a doctor or nurse. It’s obviously more hands off, no blood and gore, so to speak, but you do get to give professional advice, and this can be very rewarding.
As the old joke in the pharmacy trade goes, “I didn’t go to school for six years just to learn to count to 30.”
Ha, ha. Just a little pharmaceutical humor.
How does one become pharmacist?
You should start thinking about this in high school. Apply to schools that offer pharmacy programs. Obviously, you need good grades and good SAT scores, which will vary by school. Check into this and discuss it with your guidance counselor.
Also, talk to your local pharmacist and ask them how they got started. I asked my pharmacist this the other day before writing this article how he got started and he said, “my guidance counselor said it might be good for me, and off he went.”
Your first two years of school will be standard requisite college course, after which you concentrate on pharmacy, for either three or four years. After this, you may do a one year residency, or go out and start working right away.
Pharmacists are licensed, and the license lasts for two years, after which it must be renewed. A pharmacist must take to 30 units of Continuing Education coursework either online or in person.
How much can a pharmacist earn?
The average pharmacist in the United States as of 2004 was making about 85,000 dollars a year. There was little difference in salary in regard to the type of environment, department stores, grocery stores, health and personal care stores or hospitals. The environments are different as are your relationships to patients or customers, but overall, the money is about the same.
So, talk with your guidance counselor and your local pharmacist, don’t be shy, and see if you might be cut out for the job. It can be a very rewarding and well paying career.
