A Week in the Life of Pharmacy Student

First Two and a Half Years
Class Time and Team Assignments: Consist of lectures, skill and practice workshops, participating in assignments, discussing case studies with our teams, giving team presentations, and taking exams and quizzes.

Studying: Professors provide you with electronic copies of the lectures, so studying often consists of reviewing these handouts along with class notes, reviewing case studies, studying in groups, and reading assigned chapters in textbooks.

Working: During your first year you will work at a community pharmacy as a part of your Introductory Pharmacy Practice Experience (IPPE). During your last year-and-a-half, you will work 1 to 2, 4-hour days a week plus an 8-hour weekend day in several settings, including hospitals, chain and independent pharmacies, and compounding sites.

Before taking the North American Pharmacy Licensure Examination (NAPLEX) and the California Pharmacy Jurisprudence Examination (CPJE), you will complete a total of 1,500 hours of pharmacy work. Six hundred hours are incorporated into the pharmacy curriculum, leaving a total of 900 additional hours you will have to complete to sit for the NAPLEX and CPJE upon graduation. Most students try to distribute the workload evenly over the last three years of the curriculum.

Professional Development: Activities sponsored by the American Pharmacists Association (APhA) and the American Society of Health-System Pharmacists (ASHP) provide an opportunity to network with pharmacists from a variety of specialties, connect with other pharmacy students, and fine-tune communications skills. As members of various pharmacy organizations, you will have the chance to participate in local community health fairs, performing glucose, cholesterol, and blood pressure screenings with faculty supervision

Last Two Years
Clinical Blocks: In your third and fourth year you will complete seven 6-week clinical rotations, plus a 16-week advanced elective clinical. Rotations are available in hospitals, long-term-care facilities, compounding pharmacies, managed-care facilities, psychiatric facilities, children's hospitals, chain drug stores, and independently owned pharmacies.

Non-Academic Time
For long weekends or during spring and winter breaks, you can go home to see your family, ski, or maybe take a trip to Las Vegas. There are many cultural and recreational things to do when you live in Southern California, so our students
try to take advantage of them when they can.