Is Pharmacy Financially Worth it? (An Open Letter to Prepharms)

[Saiyo]

Is Pharmacy Financially Worth it? Probably not.
If you have to take out 150-200k loans? Definitely not.

I know quite a few of you are considering expensive private schools and taking out huge loans to go to pharmacy school.
Here is a my attempt to show you why it is not a great idea.

To preface, I'm not married and have no kids.
I take home about 5300 a month after taxes and retirement savings in a state with no income tax, not alot compared to some of the guys on the forum. I guess I could work PRN, print fake t-shirts, or sell MLM tupperware like some of my techs if I really wanted extra money, but I don't have enough HUSTLE.

Whatever, I guess I'm a pretty average person, and this take home pay is livable for now; I'll assume you the reader are average as well.
My friends in college pursued fields like engineering or comp sci, while I took to science. Biology was my favorite, I like living things, always have.
Pharmacy seemed like a perfect fit: make great money, help people, dont deal with blood? I'm in!

Now I always see people post about 150k-200k loans and how insane it is to go to pharmacy school with that much in loans.
These people, like pharmacy is a scam? They are trolls. I sometimes browse through this forum for fun, and almost every thread has an unrelated post telling people not to pursue pharmacy. Our instinct on the internet is to ignore trolls. But they are also correct.
Once in a while you find small threads on here or reddit of people realizing they are in a huge mess with their loans.

How big of a mess are you in if you take out 150k-200k for pharmacy? Lets take a look.
Assuming you earn a similar salary to me and put 2000 in loans every month.

If you have 150k in debt at graduation.,
Paying 2000 a month, it will take 75 months to pay off, or 6.25 years.

At 200k in loans it will take 100 months to pay off, or 8.33 years.

So you will have 3300 per month to live on for 6-8 years. not bad I guess,
But like I told my coworker who got a 72 month car loan, 72 months is a LONG TIME.

But wait, going back to my friends who did Computer Science. They all started out with salaries around 60k (my friends were average). Do you know what 60,000 after taxes is? Well, the online calculator I used says it is 1800 per paycheck or 3600 a month. So if you put 2000 a month towards your loans, for 6-8 years you will take home less than the base engineering salary.

Now wait, their degrees weren't free either, lets say it cost them 40k to get their degrees (5k a semester was about right for how much my public school cost) When would it financially "worth it" to be a pharmacist than an engineer?

I calculated this by putting -40000 and -150000 into a spreadsheet, and adding 3600 and 5300 to each until the pharmacy number overtook engineering. I found that it takes about 66 months, or 5.5 years.

5.5 years for pharmacy to be more worth it, and 6-8 years+ for your loan to be payed off! wow! I guess you could pay more than the 2000/month I suggested but this seemed like a reasonable number to me.

You know what I left out? these calculations don't even include state taxes, interest on the loans, paycuts, reduced hours, or any other garbage I'm missing which will surely increase the amount of time it takes for pharmacy to be more worth it, possibly dramatically. welp, may the odds be ever in your favor, or whatever.

This also isn't counting the fact that its faster to get a engineering degree so they start earning sooner, investments, the time-value of money, or the fact that the engineering salary will most certainly increase at a faster rate than the pharmacist salary.

Yup, their salaries can only go up, I know at least one of my college friends is making 85k now, probably close to 6 figures after he just got a new job, all with a bachelors degree. My friend is an admittedly average engineer. If you are truly blessed with CS talent, you could be making quite a bit more than that. How does that compare to pharmacy? you figure it out.

You know Chapman University? the one that people always rag on in this forum? Do you know how much it costs to go there? 8 trimesters of 26k. Thats at least 208k in pure tuition, without counting interest or any other ancillary fees. Good luck on your interview though!

Congratulations, you played yourself. You have spent 6+ years to get an expensive degree in a field that is getting worse by the day, and you are eating lunch on a stool in the pharmacy or making 45k as a resident. But at least you get to call yourself Dr. and you got to wear the fancy doctorate graduation robes, right?

Now with my post it might sound like I'm trying to convince you to do engineering. I'm not. No one knows the future. There's no guarantee I would have succeeded as an engineer. In an alternate future I might have failed diff-eq and flunked out of college altogether to become a nanny.

But to pre-pharms who ignore all the trolls, this is my semi-serious attempt to show you that financially, this field kind of sucks, especially compared with engineering, and with the dramatic downturn we've seen so far this year, it can only get worse. If you take out 150k-200k to go to an expensive pharmacy school, at this point you are setting yourself up for some serious pharmgrets.

P.S. Even when you find a job, you might end up having to move to the middle of nowhere.
My friends are all back home having board game nights and watching football games together.

I'm here alone fishing for likes and pondering the mysteries of life, such as when a category 1 CSP would ever be prepared in a cleanroom suite.

Whatever, I came into this field to help people, so consider yourself helped.

---

Members don't see this ad.

 

[Sleepingdoc]

Is Pharmacy Financially Worth it? Probably not.
If you have to take out 150-200k loans? Definitely not.

I know quite a few of you are considering expensive private schools and taking out huge loans to go to pharmacy school.
Here is a my attempt to show you why it is not a great idea.

To preface, I'm not married and have no kids.
I take home about 5300 a month after taxes and retirement savings in a state with no income tax, not alot compared to some of the guys on the forum. I guess I could work PRN, print fake t-shirts, or sell MLM tupperware like some of my techs if I really wanted extra money, but I don't have enough HUSTLE.

Whatever, I guess I'm a pretty average person, and this take home pay is livable for now; I'll assume you the reader are average as well.
My friends in college pursued fields like engineering or comp sci, while I took to science. Biology was my favorite, I like living things, always have.
Pharmacy seemed like a perfect fit: make great money, help people, dont deal with blood? I'm in!

Now I always see people post about 150k-200k loans and how insane it is to go to pharmacy school with that much in loans.
These people, like pharmacy is a scam? They are trolls. I sometimes browse through this forum for fun, and almost every thread has an unrelated post telling people not to pursue pharmacy. Our instinct on the internet is to ignore trolls. But they are also correct.
Once in a while you find small threads on here or reddit of people realizing they are in a huge mess with their loans.

How big of a mess are you in if you take out 150k-200k for pharmacy? Lets take a look.
Assuming you earn a similar salary to me and put 2000 in loans every month.

If you have 150k in debt at graduation.,
Paying 2000 a month, it will take 75 months to pay off, or 6.25 years.

At 200k in loans it will take 100 months to pay off, or 8.33 years.

So you will have 3300 per month to live on for 6-8 years. not bad I guess,
But like I told my coworker who got a 72 month car loan, 72 months is a LONG TIME.

But wait, going back to my friends who did Computer Science. They all started out with salaries around 60k (my friends were average). Do you know what 60,000 after taxes is? Well, the online calculator I used says it is 1800 per paycheck or 3600 a month. So if you put 2000 a month towards your loans, for 6-8 years you will take home less than the base engineering salary.

Now wait, their degrees weren't free either, lets say it cost them 40k to get their degrees (5k a semester was about right for how much my public school cost) When would it financially "worth it" to be a pharmacist than an engineer?

I calculated this by putting -40000 and -150000 into a spreadsheet, and adding 3600 and 5300 to each until the pharmacy number overtook engineering. I found that it takes about 66 months, or 5.5 years.

5.5 years for pharmacy to be more worth it, and 6-8 years+ for your loan to be payed off! wow! I guess you could pay more than the 2000/month I suggested but this seemed like a reasonable number to me.

You know what I left out? these calculations don't even include state taxes, interest on the loans, paycuts, reduced hours, or any other garbage I'm missing which will surely increase the amount of time it takes for pharmacy to be more worth it, possibly dramatically. welp, may the odds be ever in your favor, or whatever.

This also isn't counting the fact that its faster to get a engineering degree so they start earning sooner, investments, the time-value of money, or the fact that the engineering salary will most certainly increase at a faster rate than the pharmacist salary.

Yup, their salaries can only go up, I know at least one of my college friends is making 85k now, probably close to 6 figures after he just got a new job, all with a bachelors degree. My friend is an admittedly average engineer. If you are truly blessed with CS talent, you could be making quite a bit more than that. How does that compare to pharmacy? you figure it out.

You know Chapman University? the one that people always rag on in this forum? Do you know how much it costs to go there? 8 trimesters of 26k. Thats at least 208k in pure tuition, without counting interest or any other ancillary fees. Good luck on your interview though!

Congratulations, you played yourself. You have spent 6+ years to get an expensive degree in a field that is getting worse by the day, and you are eating lunch on a stool in the pharmacy or making 45k as a resident. But at least you get to call yourself Dr. and you got to wear the fancy doctorate graduation robes, right?

Now with my post it might sound like I'm trying to convince you to do engineering. I'm not. No one knows the future. There's no guarantee I would have succeeded as an engineer. In an alternate future I might have failed diff-eq and flunked out of college altogether to become a nanny.

But to pre-pharms who ignore all the trolls, this is my semi-serious attempt to show you that financially, this field kind of sucks, especially compared with engineering, and with the dramatic downturn we've seen so far this year, it can only get worse. If you take out 150k-200k to go to an expensive pharmacy school, at this point you are setting yourself up for some serious pharmgrets.

P.S. Even when you find a job, you might end up having to move to the middle of nowhere.
My friends are all back home having board game nights and watching football games together.

I'm here alone fishing for likes and pondering the mysteries of life, such as when a category 1 CSP would ever be prepared in a cleanroom suite.

Whatever, I came into this field to help people, so consider yourself helped.

Yes the reality is that people make 5300$ a month after taxes/benefits and take out. I really agree on what you said above as far as wages are concerned.
But what I disagree with you is that Engineering is not for everyone. Your post makes it sound like its much easier and you get a lot of money with Engineering, so choose engineering. Yes you do if you are very strong in Math and Physics. But only people who enjoy it should go into it. Its not like science classes where everything is memorize the book... like we do in premed classes which is much easier to do than to solve problems, not everyone is cut out to be that.

Engineering is not just memorization, like you have in all these easy pre med classes. You only do engineering if you enjoy it... otherwise you will be very miserable.

 

[Pharmacy is a Scam]

I seek only to provide accurate and non-misleading information to pre-pharms and pharmacy students. If you choose to call me a troll because you don’t like what you hear then that’s your problem.

 

[BC_89]

I seek only to provide accurate and non-misleading information to pre-pharms and pharmacy students. If you choose to call me a troll because you don’t like what you hear then that’s your problem.

For What its Worth: You can give 100% accurate information and still be a troll.

To anyone else:

The financial abliss vs ruins is (as mentioned) in the numbers game. I encourage pre-anyones to make a spreadsheet (or learn how to use shortcut uses of the latest version) and put the numbers to the test as the OP is implying and encouraging others to do. For further examples and information, here is a 101 Intro sticky to get you started:

Job Saturation: Is Pharmacy Worth It? Here's What You Need to Know - The $200 Challenge

** Job Saturation: Is Pharmacy Worth It? Here’s What You Need to Know ** Welcome to the $200 Challenge Link & Submission If you were redirected to this thread by the above link (set up by one of our active SDN users), please read the information below and submit your answer(s) if you have...

forums.studentdoctor.net

Understanding the work of a pharmacist is one thing, but to see the take home vs billing/taxes/savings game is one I find to be of most importance. The only true way this numbers game gets altered is if three things happen:

1) You get your hours cut and thus, see the effects of your paycheck
2) You quit / get terminated / choose to opt to part time work
3) You die

I think in the future I'll put out my own excel sheet I use while undergoing schooling. As mentioned in times past I am a bit of an outlier in that I already have a steady stream of outside income (tax exempt included) as a non-trad pharmacy student. I will concur that you take unnecessary risks when your loans start to outweigh a normal 32-40 hour average salaried income. Be informed then make your choice.

 

[mentos]

OP your calculations are based on someone taking home $5300/mo. This is a very bad assumption since a) that's assuming they get a job in the first place b) pharmacists wages are on a decline. Market rate is around $50/hr now with only 32 hours guaranteed. So you're talking best case scenario that a new grad takes home $5300/mo. If they start pharmacy school in 2019, their take-home pay will be much less in 2023 assuming they even get a job.

 

[greenteapanacea]

Is Pharmacy Financially Worth it? Probably not.
If you have to take out 150-200k loans? Definitely not.

I know quite a few of you are considering expensive private schools and taking out huge loans to go to pharmacy school.
Here is a my attempt to show you why it is not a great idea.

To preface, I'm not married and have no kids.
I take home about 5300 a month after taxes and retirement savings in a state with no income tax, not alot compared to some of the guys on the forum. I guess I could work PRN, print fake t-shirts, or sell MLM tupperware like some of my techs if I really wanted extra money, but I don't have enough HUSTLE.

Whatever, I guess I'm a pretty average person, and this take home pay is livable for now; I'll assume you the reader are average as well.
My friends in college pursued fields like engineering or comp sci, while I took to science. Biology was my favorite, I like living things, always have.
Pharmacy seemed like a perfect fit: make great money, help people, dont deal with blood? I'm in!

Now I always see people post about 150k-200k loans and how insane it is to go to pharmacy school with that much in loans.
These people, like pharmacy is a scam? They are trolls. I sometimes browse through this forum for fun, and almost every thread has an unrelated post telling people not to pursue pharmacy. Our instinct on the internet is to ignore trolls. But they are also correct.
Once in a while you find small threads on here or reddit of people realizing they are in a huge mess with their loans.

How big of a mess are you in if you take out 150k-200k for pharmacy? Lets take a look.
Assuming you earn a similar salary to me and put 2000 in loans every month.

If you have 150k in debt at graduation.,
Paying 2000 a month, it will take 75 months to pay off, or 6.25 years.

At 200k in loans it will take 100 months to pay off, or 8.33 years.

So you will have 3300 per month to live on for 6-8 years. not bad I guess,
But like I told my coworker who got a 72 month car loan, 72 months is a LONG TIME.

But wait, going back to my friends who did Computer Science. They all started out with salaries around 60k (my friends were average). Do you know what 60,000 after taxes is? Well, the online calculator I used says it is 1800 per paycheck or 3600 a month. So if you put 2000 a month towards your loans, for 6-8 years you will take home less than the base engineering salary.

Now wait, their degrees weren't free either, lets say it cost them 40k to get their degrees (5k a semester was about right for how much my public school cost) When would it financially "worth it" to be a pharmacist than an engineer?

I calculated this by putting -40000 and -150000 into a spreadsheet, and adding 3600 and 5300 to each until the pharmacy number overtook engineering. I found that it takes about 66 months, or 5.5 years.

5.5 years for pharmacy to be more worth it, and 6-8 years+ for your loan to be payed off! wow! I guess you could pay more than the 2000/month I suggested but this seemed like a reasonable number to me.

You know what I left out? these calculations don't even include state taxes, interest on the loans, paycuts, reduced hours, or any other garbage I'm missing which will surely increase the amount of time it takes for pharmacy to be more worth it, possibly dramatically. welp, may the odds be ever in your favor, or whatever.

This also isn't counting the fact that its faster to get a engineering degree so they start earning sooner, investments, the time-value of money, or the fact that the engineering salary will most certainly increase at a faster rate than the pharmacist salary.

Yup, their salaries can only go up, I know at least one of my college friends is making 85k now, probably close to 6 figures after he just got a new job, all with a bachelors degree. My friend is an admittedly average engineer. If you are truly blessed with CS talent, you could be making quite a bit more than that. How does that compare to pharmacy? you figure it out.

You know Chapman University? the one that people always rag on in this forum? Do you know how much it costs to go there? 8 trimesters of 26k. Thats at least 208k in pure tuition, without counting interest or any other ancillary fees. Good luck on your interview though!

Congratulations, you played yourself. You have spent 6+ years to get an expensive degree in a field that is getting worse by the day, and you are eating lunch on a stool in the pharmacy or making 45k as a resident. But at least you get to call yourself Dr. and you got to wear the fancy doctorate graduation robes, right?

Now with my post it might sound like I'm trying to convince you to do engineering. I'm not. No one knows the future. There's no guarantee I would have succeeded as an engineer. In an alternate future I might have failed diff-eq and flunked out of college altogether to become a nanny.

But to pre-pharms who ignore all the trolls, this is my semi-serious attempt to show you that financially, this field kind of sucks, especially compared with engineering, and with the dramatic downturn we've seen so far this year, it can only get worse. If you take out 150k-200k to go to an expensive pharmacy school, at this point you are setting yourself up for some serious pharmgrets.

P.S. Even when you find a job, you might end up having to move to the middle of nowhere.
My friends are all back home having board game nights and watching football games together.

I'm here alone fishing for likes and pondering the mysteries of life, such as when a category 1 CSP would ever be prepared in a cleanroom suite.

Whatever, I came into this field to help people, so consider yourself helped.

Thanks for breaking down the costs. I'm gonna send this to all my family friends who want their kids going into pharmacy

 

[PharmtoCS]

tl;dr many professions such as computer science, engineering, the trades, finance, accounting, etc. are much better financial choices compared to pharmacy. They are probably far less saturated than pharmacy despite them requiring a “lower” degree of education. Some of these professions are hurting for workers right now and have upward salary trends unlike pharmacy which pay is falling by the year.

 

[VictorOfHungerGames]

Again, i keep going back to this point. Why cant you just pay 10% of your income for 20 years and invest the rest of your money? Why pay $2000 or more per month, pay everything in full with interest? Debt isnt real money. Especially if theyre giving you an option to minimize your payback.

 

[sozetone]

Again, i keep going back to this point. Why cant you just pay 10% of your income for 20 years and invest the rest of your money? Why pay $2000 or more per month, pay everything in full with interest? Debt isnt real money. Especially if theyre giving you an option to minimize your payback.

absolutely the way to go. By the time the recession hits, or a student loan crisis occurs.....you now have NO savings....because you threw it all at loans that were for bad debt. youll end up empty handed and jobless.....Pharmacists should be living simple, and SAVING......because VERY rainy days lie ahead.

 

[Sine Cura]

Gains aren't real either until they're realized

 

[APN-59 rph]

You newbies absolutely need to re-consider being druggists...ALL retail management effort is directed at reducing pay, hours..bennies..(or ideally eliminating) this job....Many other vocations are screaming for help........Do NOT say you were not warned...

 

[TerryTerry]

You newbies absolutely need to re-consider being druggists...ALL retail management effort is directed at reducing pay, hours..bennies..(or ideally eliminating) this job....Many other vocations are screaming for help........Do NOT say you were not warned...

Chains have been working on this for decade to make employer`s job market.
My preceptor, a director in one of biggest hospital in the state, told me how deans and chains are in it together back in year 2012.

Chains and schools both win. Guess who loses.

 

[VictorOfHungerGames]

Chains have been working on this for decade to make employer`s job market.
My preceptor, a director in one of biggest hospital in the state, told me how deans and chains are in it together back in year 2012.

Chains and schools both win. Guess who loses.

When i left cvs, it was the happiest moment of my life. Lol loving my independent life.

 

[mentos]

Again, i keep going back to this point. Why cant you just pay 10% of your income for 20 years and invest the rest of your money? Why pay $2000 or more per month, pay everything in full with interest? Debt isnt real money. Especially if theyre giving you an option to minimize your payback.

It's hard to get a mortgage if you have 200k in loans.

 

[VictorOfHungerGames]

It's hard to get a mortgage if you have 200k in loans.

My wife and I just got pre-approved for 350k. About to down $50k which is what I saved up for past 3 years NOT paying my loans lol. My principle is 250k and with deferment is now 290k but making $600/month payment. Mortgage companies look at how much you pay per month on your debt, not the entire amount.

 

[mentos]

My wife and I just got pre-approved for 350k. About to down $50k which is what I saved up for past 3 years NOT paying my loans lol. My principle is 250k and with deferment is now 290k but making $600/month payment. Mortgage companies look at how much you pay per month on your debt, not the entire amount.

250k OMG. I graduated with 100k loans and paid it off in 2 years and put 60k down for a 300k home (240k mortgage). Sold it for 350k two years later and then bought a 750k home with 150k down. Our mortgage is 600k but the house is worth 800k now. I'm glad my loans are gone, otherwise we wouldn't have this house.

 

[Abby Atwood]

Engineering isn't for everyone. I'm glad that my degree didn't require a knowledge of differential equations.

 

[VictorOfHungerGames]

250k OMG. I graduated with 100k loans and paid it off in 2 years and put 60k down for a 300k home (240k mortgage). Sold it for 350k two years later and then bought a 750k home with 150k down. Our mortgage is 600k but the house is worth 800k now. I'm glad my loans are gone, otherwise we wouldn't have this house.

our potential preapproval wouldve been $750-800k ish with both of our income but we are not interested buying that expensive of a house at the moment.
But you def can get a mortgage even with a large student loan owed.

 

[AM77]

It’s financially worth it if you can find a good-paying, full-time job. Back when I graduated from Loma Linda University, everyone had a 100% job placement rate. Today the job market is terrible. It’s even worse for 2019 because of the CPJE exam breach. I did all my research about the pharmacy job market before I went to pharmacy school. You can warn pre-pharms about student loan debt and bad job market all you want, but it just falls on deaf ears. Like I said before, why would anyone take out a $200,000 loan for a sports car that they haven’t even given it a test drive? People just chase the dollar signs.

 

[TerryTerry]

Maybe talk about your pay and monthly payments if people just want to hear about money. To be perfectly honest, I still see people on my social media accounts landing jobs at a pharmacy. The only people I hear about not landing jobs are those on internet forums talking about not landing jobs, not my actual peers on social media. So do the math as to why people don't listen.

Ah, social media, where everyone gets to choose most glamorous part of their life to show.

 

[DagS132]

Ah, social media, where everyone gets to choose most glamorous part of their life to show.

Yea, especially the part where they actually land a job and it only shows up as a update in status, no pictures. I dont have any pharmacist friends that don't have an employment status. So do the math as to why people don't listen.

 

[angelsplight]

Truth be told, I really have not heard of a pharmacist graduate unable to find a job in my class and my previous class. It is just a matter how ambitious they are when they start that makes their job search longer. They all land a job eventually when they lower their standards to lower pays eventually. Either that or they escape the field of pharmacy into another field.

 

[PharmtoCS]

I have not heard of any recent graduates completely unemployed but there are a lot who are underemployed. That means working <30 hours/week, residency grad having to work retail, and in some cases working in jobs that do not require a PharmD or a license. The latter is the worst because they could have landed that job without having to take out $200k+ in loans and waste 4 years in school.

 

[Saiyo]

So in that CPJE thread I saw that one of the grads took out 350k in loans for pharmacy school. Try putting that in an excel sheet and see what you get.
If you are the type that just LOVES pharmacy that much then go for it, no one is stopping you.

Are you willing to gamble that the job environment for pharmacists will be good when tons of layoffs are happening today? or you will be just one of the best grads out there who will definitely land the unicorn job? Are you ok working as an indentured servant because of your loans? As far as bets go, this isn't a great one to risk your career on.

"Everyone has a plan, until they get punched in the mouth…"
I'd modify that to say every prepharm has a plan to work in retail for the money and then jump to hospital.....until they find out its not as easy as it sounds.

You can listen to your grandma who tells you pharmacy is a great career with good money, or you can listen to actual pharmacists.
I'm just trying to prevent people from having regrets 4 years down the line because they didn't think it through. AMA?

 

[mentos]

I have a co-worker who did a residency and couldn't find a job for a whole year after that. She got hired cause she knew someone here. I assume her husband made her loan payments while she was unemployed.

 

[PharmtoCS]

There is no understanding of how stressful the world is when you have loans, saving is gone, you need to get your license and get a job ASAP.

Sums up why you really really need to consider how much debt you will be in after you graduate and what you face if you cannot find a job. Also sums up why employers can abuse us because there are so many desperate new grads willing to do anything just to have a job.

 

[Rybko90]

Pharmacy school is simply a terrible investment at the moment. I don't see it ever reversing.

People don't even realize yet, automation will obliterate this profession. It's not just saturation.

The only thing keeping a pharmacist on hand at every pharmacy at the moment are the laws. These aren't written in stone.

 

[Sine Cura]

"Ambition" + inchoate plans + lack of ability + no connections = ????????????

Retail cannon fodder or > $200k in debt and no pharmacy job

 

[JustFillIt]

"Ambition" + inchoate plans + lack of ability + no connections = ????????????

Retail cannon fodder or > $200k in debt and no pharmacy job

What does inchoate mean?

 

[VA77]

So in that CPJE thread I saw that one of the grads took out 350k in loans for pharmacy school. Try putting that in an excel sheet and see what you get.
If you are the type that just LOVES pharmacy that much then go for it, no one is stopping you.

Are you willing to gamble that the job environment for pharmacists will be good when tons of layoffs are happening today? or you will be just one of the best grads out there who will definitely land the unicorn job? Are you ok working as an indentured servant because of your loans? As far as bets go, this isn't a great one to risk your career on.

"Everyone has a plan, until they get punched in the mouth…"
I'd modify that to say every prepharm has a plan to work in retail for the money and then jump to hospital.....until they find out its not as easy as it sounds.

You can listen to your grandma who tells you pharmacy is a great career with good money, or you can listen to actual pharmacists.
I'm just trying to prevent people from having regrets 4 years down the line because they didn't think it through. AMA?

Mike Tyson quote is the best!

 

[APN-59 rph]

And THAT is with the gloves on.........WAG's and CVS and et.al. don't wear gloves.....

 

[LivingMyBestLife]

Truth be told, I really have not heard of a pharmacist graduate unable to find a job in my class and my previous class. It is just a matter how ambitious they are when they start that makes their job search longer. They all land a job eventually when they lower their standards to lower pays eventually. Either that or they escape the field of pharmacy into another field.

Yeah. You must not be talking to many new grads. Have you checked out

Pharmacists : Occupational Outlook Handbook: : U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics

Pharmacists dispense prescription medications and provide information to patients about the drugs and their use.

www.bls.gov

Do you fully realize what -100 jobs created in the next ten year means? It means 10,000+ new grads without a job every year. This is simple math. 4,000 old pharmacists retire a year. They don't "all land a job when they lower their standards". I know many many jobless grads. I am a pharmacist and have been working part time as a stocker at Walmart earning $11 an hour and to even get that job I had to leave my degrees off my resume. I don't know what kind of fantasy world you are living in.

 

[angelsplight]

Given I just graduated this year, my classmates are all new grads. Pretty much everyone if they didn't go into residency, at least has a part time job. Of course not all of them easy to find because I know a few who are now living in other states or cities now.

 

[Timbo]

Given I just graduated this year, my classmates are all new grads. Pretty much everyone if they didn't go into residency, at least has a part time job. Of course not all of them easy to find because I know a few who are now living in other states or cities now.

Interesting. When I graduated pretty everybody in my class had full time jobs or residency. Did those with part time positive get part time by choice? I cannot imagine being able to pay my bills + loans every month with only a part time position right after graduating... Especially with pay rates reportedly having dropped almost $10/hr lower than when I started

 

[angelsplight]

Interesting. When I graduated pretty everybody in my class had full time jobs or residency. Did those with part time positive get part time by choice? I cannot imagine being able to pay my bills + loans every month with only a part time position right after graduating... Especially with pay rates reportedly having dropped almost $10/hr lower than when I started

Some of those with part-time are working at independents where they start at part-time and have to get promoted to full-time. Not sure about everyone but I know a few of those working part-time right now are only doing it because they didn't get in residency for the year and am hoping to try again next year so just picked up something to keep occupied.

 

[TerryTerry]

Some of those with part-time are working at independents where they start at part-time and have to get promoted to full-time. Not sure about everyone but I know a few of those working part-time right now are only doing it because they didn't get in residency for the year and am hoping to try again next year so just picked up something to keep occupied.

You checking all of them on facebook?

How do you know if they all have jobs or not?
Genuinely curious.

 

[Pharmcats71]

Given I just graduated this year, my classmates are all new grads. Pretty much everyone if they didn't go into residency, at least has a part time job. Of course not all of them easy to find because I know a few who are now living in other states or cities now.

Right. They got PART TIME jobs. Just as my classmates did this year. You want to go to pharmacy school, get 150000 in loans plus interest to make $1000 a paycheck? That's what you are counter arguing here.

 

[sozetone]

Given I just graduated this year, my classmates are all new grads. Pretty much everyone if they didn't go into residency, at least has a part time job. Of course not all of them easy to find because I know a few who are now living in other states or cities now.

Its funny, it does not seem so bad because pharmacists are constantly being let go, or quitting and replaced by lower paid pharms. Who then get less hours as well, so most pharms are working "part time"... floating all over to get their money... it's rough out there.....

 

[sozetone]

I never would have thought pharmacy would have gotten to this point.... it's embarrassing to see its so bad. we are about half way down the toilet at this point i would say..... another 5 years... OMG.....i cant even imagine what will become of retail.......but i know it will be bad for us.....

 

[mentos]

I never would have thought pharmacy would have gotten to this point.... it's embarrassing to see its so bad. we are about half way down the toilet at this point i would say..... another 5 years... OMG.....i cant even imagine what will become of retail.......but i know it will be bad for us.....

When the number of pharmacy schools nearly doubles, it's inevitable.

 

[angelsplight]

You checking all of them on facebook?

How do you know if they all have jobs or not?
Genuinely curious.

I keep in touch with about 1/4th (Which isn't a lot because our graduated class was like 70) of my class as they were people I hung out with and some of those tell me what the others are also doing because 2 of my friends choose to remain as faculty. Outside of those, yeah I have a majority of my class in either Facebook or LinkedIn or a combination of the 2. And a few I'm not so close with, I know a few were hired because those that are hired wanted to let the class know during the commencement ceremony powerpoint. Where I went to school isn't exactly a very large city when pretty much every hospital of the city had graduates and faculty from the school and nearly every independent took our students in for rotations.

But yeah it IS fairly sad if you think about how most of them have part-time jobs but it could be worse...You could be searching for a job for over a year because you have high expectations of your 1st position

 

[Xenophylia]

OP- I think your numbers sound pretty accurate- for a "best case" scenario (full time job, etc.). Few people are having such a scenario these days. And you didn't even mention the complete lack of respect the profession has now. It was a good profession once, but those good days will never return. Eventually people will stop going to pharmacy school. But this time there will be no shortage. The profession will simply be replaced by automation. I think the new grads will see this become a "non profession" in their own lifetimes. Better to plan for it now....

And to the OP- as another Biology student I can identify. If only what interested us would have paid the bills I would have never done pharmacy in the first place....LOL

 

[Sine Cura]

Now imagine what happens next when the economy goes further into the ****ter. Fun times ahead

 

[Saiyo]

The point I keep on trying to get across is that your career is a gamble, no matter what, and at this point pharmacy is a bad bet.
People win the lottery but it is still a bad bet, but the most you can lose is a couple bucks. If you were to buy 150k worth of lottery tickets then I would say you were insane. But people are literally paying 150-200k for a degree that has much less upside than winning the lottery! its an entrance fee to a job that has little pay increase or career upside, and a quickly diminishing base pay.

The risk to reward is just not good, the worst case scenario for a pharmacy grad with 150k loans is worse than quite a few other professions, so I don't understand why people are still interested. At the same time, tons of people still take out a crapton of loans to go to fancy private schools for undergrad and then complain about their quality of life afterwards, so I kind of understand.

If you have no student loans and your tuition is taken care of, like @BC_89 , then fine, do pharmacy, if it doesn't work out you can try something else without too much loss, and you'll have a "doctorate" degree you can probably leverage into a different career. But if not, then why would you willingly join the hunger games?

 

[sozetone]

The point I keep on trying to get across is that your career is a gamble, no matter what, and at this point pharmacy is a bad bet.
People win the lottery but it is still a bad bet, but the most you can lose is a couple bucks. If you were to buy 150k worth of lottery tickets then I would say you were insane. But people are literally paying 150-200k for a degree that has much less upside than winning the lottery! its an entrance fee to a job that has little pay increase or career upside, and a quickly diminishing base pay.

The risk to reward is just not good, the worst case scenario for a pharmacy grad with 150k loans is worse than quite a few other professions, so I don't understand why people are still interested. At the same time, tons of people still take out a crapton of loans to go to fancy private schools for undergrad and then complain about their quality of life afterwards, so I kind of understand.

If you have no student loans and your tuition is taken care of, like @BC_89 , then fine, do pharmacy, if it doesn't work out you can try something else without too much loss, and you'll have a "doctorate" degree you can probably leverage into a different career. But if not, then why would you willingly join the hunger games?

Career? it's a short term job now.... make a few bucks, get fired, OR burn out and quit, rest up, do it again....and this required a doctorate degree.....lol

 

[deleted562805]

Career? it's a short term job now.... make a few bucks, get fired, OR burn out and quit, rest up, do it again....and this required a doctorate degree.....lol

Man. I was thinking the same thing. Pharmacy seems like a means to an end for another career either in healthcare or in non-healthcare field.

 

[PharmtoCS]

The PharmD is becoming more like the MBA. If you don't have prior connections and/or work experience in certain fields you're most definitely going to be unemployed or stuck in a dead end retail position as many MBAs are.

Expect the difference is that the PharmD is far more expensive. Companies would rather hire a non-PharmD for cheaper. Any raise or career advancement resulting from a PharmD would be negated by the tuition and 4 years spent in school.

 

[TerryTerry]

The PharmD is becoming more like the MBA. If you don't have prior connections and/or work experience in certain fields you're most definitely going to be unemployed or stuck in a dead end retail position as many MBAs are.

Expect the difference is that the PharmD is far more expensive. Companies would rather hire a non-PharmD for cheaper. Any raise or career advancement resulting from a PharmD would be negated by the tuition and 4 years spent in school.

If we can all get stuck in dead end retail position, nobody would be worried about job right now.
New graduates will have to kill each other for retail positions.

 

[mentos]

Yup I would not consider pharmacy as a career anymore. Most pharmacists are planning an exit strategy either because they expect to be laid off soon or because they hate it.

A career would be a trade like plumber or electrician. They are in demand, they can set their own hours, they can work for a company or go off on their own. I just paid $10,600 for a new boiler - the parts cost $7,000 and the plumber pocketed the $3,600 for a couple days worth of work. I got 5 quotes and this was the cheapest by far. Others were asking for $15,000-$20,000.

I know a carpenter who gave a "I don't want to do it" price for a gazebo of $25,000. He said it cost him $5,000 but the customer paid the 25k so he did it and profited $20,000 on a weekend.

Meanwhile new pharmDs are scrounging for 32 hours a week driving all over the place at $50/hr if they're lucky.

 

[deleted562805]

The PharmD is becoming more like the MBA. If you don't have prior connections and/or work experience in certain fields you're most definitely going to be unemployed or stuck in a dead end retail position as many MBAs are.

Expect the difference is that the PharmD is far more expensive. Companies would rather hire a non-PharmD for cheaper. Any raise or career advancement resulting from a PharmD would be negated by the tuition and 4 years spent in school.

I heard people say Pharm.D. is like Law school, but at least with Law school if you manage to get accepted into a Ivy League Law school, then you will get a job at a firm