My Dream of Pharmacy by Hannah

My Dream of Pharmacy by Hannah - February 2019 Scholarship Essay

I didn’t really consider wanting to become a pharmacist until my parents and I had a conversation during dinner on what I wanted to major in. My mom received her bachelor's degree for nursing at the University of Kansas and my dad got his bachelor's degree in electrical engineering at Kansas State University. I knew for certain I wanted to study and get a degree and the University of Kansas, but the real question was what. That’s when my mom mentioned pharmacy. Pharmacy? I knew it was some sort of profession in the health science field but I considered myself ignorant towards it. After researching a bit here and there on the history of pharmacy and how the profession has evolved through the decades, I became fascinated on medicine and how medicine serves different purposes and effects on humans. Whenever a friend on mine is sick or just isn’t feeling well, they refer to me for aid, and I absolutely love that. I enjoy helping others and pharmacy in my opinion is an excellent career towards patient interaction and communication. Researching and learning are skills I love pursuing especially now that I have more curiosities on different medicines that are mentioned through people. Alright, so I have my career chosen, it’s something that I am now very passionate about, now what do I do?
There are a simple series of steps that I have to follow to get my Pharm. D. Degree. First, once I graduate high school, I would have taken my AP chemistry test and hopefully get an amazing score (either a three-to-five). Depending on what my score is, some credit hours for chemistry would be covered (if I score a three on the AP test, it covers five credit hours which essentially gets rid of a semester worth of chemistry and for a four-to-five, 10 credit hours or a whole year of chemistry) which saves me more money (and who doesn’t love saving money?). Once I’ve received my score and transfer that over to KU’s AP credits, I will sign up for the classes for KU’s pre-pharmacy curriculum. This includes Biology, English, Math, Physics and Communication. Once I’ve finished two years of pre-pharmacy, I plan to take the PCAT (Pharmacy College Admission Test) that allows me to enter the four-year professional pharmacy program to achieve the Pharm. D. Degree. Classes for those four years include extensions of pharmacy and practice that aid towards getting me ready to become a pharmacist in all sorts of environments. After receiving my Pharm. D. Degree (which should take around six-to-eight years depending on what I want to do specifically), I’ll have to take tests to get licenses depending on where I want to work after college. And THAT is my dream career. My dream of pharmacy.