Pharmacy and Your Niche

What led you to choose pharmacy as a career? For me, it was a mention of "oh by the way, I am not only a chemistry advisor, I am a pre-pharmacy advisor" by a brilliant analytic chemistry professor, Dr. Anthony Harmon. I was just 21 years old, and I did not know what I wanted to be when I grew up. He pointed me toward pharmacy. I envied the quiet genius a lot of the serious chemistry majors seemed to possess. I was a more outgoing having fun type. Dr. Harmon told me a career in a chemistry lab may not mesh well with my personality. Well, let's be real... I wasn't an A student in his quantitative analysis class either. Pharmacy was suddenly on my radar.

I took the PCAT. Who knows what I made. My undergrad GPA was 3.2. Being female used to be a minority, but not in pharmacy in 1993. In fact at the time, being male was the minority. I was finishing my third year of undergrad and decided I'd apply to a handful of universities.

I had a couple of acceptances but really wanted the University of Tennessee at Memphis. I was told on the phone I was 99.9% in, so go ahead and respond decline to the private universities who accepted you. I turned down the schools and then received a rejection letter from UT. Guess i was that 0.1% eluded by the assistant dean. Talk about a downer. A lot of students do go the political route and a lot of acceptances are based on who you know, but I didn't until the rejection.

I reached out to some "who you know" types with my story and got accepted for the next year. So... I spent my fourth year in undergrad finishing a degree and biding my time. At least I did not have to reapply.

So there you have it. I remember thinking the pharmacist who worked in my small hometown had a large house. I didn't realize it wasn't pharmacy more than the sheer fact he had his own business. This is key.

Thirteen years later I realize you can make a good living in pharmacy or a great one in finding your niche within.

Have you found your niche?