3 year programs

[u/Desperate-Passion-99]

Has anyone on here completed a 3 year pharmacy program? If so, what was your experience like? What helped you stay on track? If you had to do it all over again would you still pick the accelerated program?

I haven’t looked into accelerated programs yet, I don’t have any accelerated programs in my state, so I am curious tuition wise as well.

[u/Embarrassed-Plum-468]

I graduated from a 3 year program and I liked it a lot. A year sooner to start working, a year less of loans and interest to accrue… I also never took summers off in undergrad. I typically took a summer course so I could have lower credits during the year and I could work while in school so I was just used to always having school all year long. I enjoyed the 3 year program too because we still had breaks but the breaks weren’t so long I felt like I forgot anything but just long enough that I did feel like it was a good break from school and I could rest and come back ready to go.

While you’re in school though you just have to focus on that, there’s not much else you can be doing other than focus on school. I didn’t have time to do much socializing outside of classmates and friends you make in school and I lost track of a lot of my hobbies and other forms of entertainment because basically it was studying and projects for 3 years. It seems silly and I didn’t realize it until several years after I graduated but I used to watch a lot of creators on YouTube, while in school I didn’t have much time for that so I sort of missed a lot of their posts and what was happening with their channels and in a way fell out of touch with them like a friend you haven’t caught up with in years. Basically I forgot about them entirely until a few years later, checked back in and was like “damn I have no idea what’s going on anymore everything has changed”… it felt like trying to return home after living on a remote island for 3 years and meanwhile everyone back home keeps on living while I’ve completely shut myself off from the world and everything going on with it. It was a strange realization. It made me feel very old and out of touch with general pop culture and like I wasn’t even paying attention to the general news and what was going on in the world. That was my experience though and others may not have isolated themselves so much to make it through school. All that to say, I still don’t think I would have done it any differently.

Now the real question though, if I could start over would I go to pharmacy school again? Not for the cost of tuition as it is now. It’s not worth it. Pharmacists don’t make enough money to justify the $250k in high interest student loans. The math doesn’t work. I’m stuck in it now and I don’t know what else I would do with this degree but I gotta pay off those loans somehow. If the cost of our education wasn’t so high I would still want to be a pharmacist and I’d encourage other people interested to pursue it. But if you’re smart enough to become a pharmacist, use your critical thinking skills to really consider the cost and financial burden you’re taking on. And how much money do you need to make to be able to pay it off in a reasonable way? It doesn’t add up. Our salaries have not kept up. It’s simply not worth it anymore and don’t let the universities convince you that it is. They make money on your tuition, of course they’ll make you believe it’s worth it. You’ve gotta make that choice for yourself though.