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Prepharmacy Club

College of Pharmacy, 1295 N. Martin
PO Box 210202, Tucson, Arizona 85721
Phone: (520) 626-1427

445 N. 5th St., Ste.120
Phoenix AZ 85004
Phone: (602) 293-3222
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Webmaster | Last updated: 10/01/2008

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Prepharmacy Club: 2004-2005 Meeting Archive

Sept.13, 2004

Oct. 4, 2004

Nov. 1, 2004

Dec. 6, 2004

Feb. 7, 2005

March 7, 2005

April 4, 2005

 

Sept. 13, 2004 Meeting Minutes

The first speaker of the night was Kerry Cline, the academic advisor for the College of Pharmacy. She reminded students that when you send her (Marty or Dr. Tong) e-mails, to please watch your grammar and punctuation; these e-mails are printed off and kept in your file. Also she talked about complaints she had received from some pharmacists who had been asked by students (who only shadowed in a pharmacy for a few hours) to write letters of recommendation for Fall 2005 admission to the college. It is important to remember that prepharmacy students represent UA and you do not want to get the reputation of “hunting” for letters of recommendation. If you would like to set up an advising meeting, she can be reached by email at cline@pharmacy.arizona.edu or by phone (on Wednesdays at the Pre-Health Office in Modern Languages Rm. 347, 626-7241), or on Mondays and Thursdays at the College of Pharmacy room 336 (419-6398).


The next group of speakers was from the APhA Academy of Students of Pharmacy. APhA is the nation’s oldest and largest professional pharmacy association. For those interested in joining, applications may be picked up at the College of Pharmacy and dues are $42 (ASP will also be collecting applications at the next Prepharmacy Club meeting on 10/4). This is a great resource for those who do choose to join. Members participate in such pharmacy-related activities such as the Women’s Expo in the spring, National Pharmacy Month and receive several subscriptions to pharmacy journals.


The next speakers at the meeting were several first-year pharmacy students. They introduced themselves and talked about their experiences and each gave one piece of advice for the prepharms. Some of this advice included:

Communication was also stressed, as in communicating with your advisors, professors and your peers. Try to get to know each other so you can help each other through your prepharmacy requirements; studying alone is not fun!


Lastly, the club would like to congratulate our new activities coordinator, Amy Hwang! We’re sure you’ll do a great job! Thanks so much to those of you who came to the meeting and to all of the new members!! We look forward to seeing a great turnout at the next meeting October 4 at 5 p.m. in Room 325 at the College of Pharmacy, and good luck in your classes!

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Oct. 4, 2004 Meeting Minutes

There are several social and volunteer events for the month of October. First is the post-PCAT BBQ. This event is open for all students, not just those who are taking the PCAT. Volunteers will be needed at 2:30 to help set up and clean up at approximately 5:30. The barbecue starts at 3 p.m. and will be ending at sundown. It will be located at Himmel Park; attendance is free. This is a great opportunity to DE-stress after the PCAT (if you are taking it) and for all other students (to ask questions on what the PCAT was like). Everyone is encouraged to attend.

The next event for October is the AIDS Walk. This will be on Sunday, October 17. If you are going to be participating you need to register online before the event. The cost to participate is $10 and you should try to collect donations for the walk. The walk takes place at Rillito Downs so we will be meeting at 6:30 a.m. at the College of Pharmacy on the steps and then caravaning over there. If anyone who needs a ride or who can give rides can e-mail one of the officers, it would be greatly appreciated.

ASP was at the meeting and had some activities that were open to prepharms to participate in. The first of these is the Making Strides Against Breast Cancer Walk. It is on Oct. 24 and there is no fee to sign up. The walk is being done through the Pharmacy fraternity Kappa Epsilon. The sign up for this walk is online.

As many of you know, October is National Pharmacy Month and there will be some activities on the mall to celebrate this. On Monday, Oct. 11from 11a.m.-1p.m., there will be students from the College of Pharmacy conducting screenings. Prepharmacy students can help at the pharmacy booth by serving root beer floats. This was a lot of fun last year and even if you can't stay to work one of the shifts, you are still encouraged to stop by the booth.

Kerry Cline spoke next at the meeting and reminded students even if you are a prepharmacy student in University School, University School does not require prepharmacy majors go to the mandatory adviser meetings every semester. If you do need advising help, feel free to make an appointment or drop by (walk-in hours in Modern Languages Rm. 347 on Wednesdays), but don't feel that you have to if you already know what classes you will be taking. Also, for those of you still needing to drop a class, you have until Oct. 15. To drop classes, you will need a change of schedule form signed by a dean from University School.

The application is now online. When you are filling out the application and have questions that an adviser could help you with, use the adviser Web link on the site. If your questions are regarding the actual Website (for example if you are getting kicked off), e-mail your questions to the Web master. Advising questions e-mailed to the Webmaster are not guaranteed to be sent on to the advisers. If you are currently GROing a class and are replacing the grade with a class you are taking now, put down the expected date that you will finish the class. The application is due by Dec.15.

The speaker for the night was Dr. Ted Tong, associate dean for academic affairs from the College of Pharmacy. He answered questions regarding the application process. The coursework in the College of Pharmacy is rigorous with 17-18 credits each semester for four years; however, the college has almost a 100% graduation rate. For those of you who missed the meeting, here are some statistics on the Class of 2008: There were 365 applicants and 194 were interviewed. To be interviewed applicants had to have a 3.05 if they were in state and a 3.33 if they were from out of state. 77 students were admitted into the class. Of those admitted, 19% were from out of state, 38% were men, 62% women, 40% were from UA, and 48% had a bachelor's degree. The average science GPA was 3.59; the average cumulative GPA was 3.63. The average PCAT score was 86 and the average age of the admitted students was 25.5.

If you are not admitted the first time you apply, remember to try again and also to apply to other schools of pharmacy. UA students have done well at other schools too! It shows that you have real desire to be a pharmacist. Be patient and apply early.

When you are asking people to write letters of recommendation for you tell them about the college. These should be specific letters, not just checking boxes on a form, so be sure that the person knows you well. They should be able to give examples of your behavior. These letters will only be accessed by faculty on the Admissions Committee.

Another important part of the application process is the interview and on-site essay. You will be given 40 minutes to write an essay that is clear and concise. You may want to work on polishing up your writing skills if you think you will have any problems with it. It is vital that you can write in legible handwriting and structure your essay.

When you interview, 20-24 candidates may be in the group that day. A team comprised of a faculty member/practitioner and 1 or 2 College of Pharmacy students interviews each candidate. The interview typically lasts for 20-30 minutes and the team who interviews you does not see your application. The interview is an excellent way to show your communication skills. The students evaluate you along with the faculty member. When being asked a question, do not try to figure out why it is being asked, reflect on the question and answer it. You cannot be interviewed by someone who knows you.

The officers would like to thank all of the members who attended the meeting and apologize for not having enough t-shirts for all the members. More shirts will be available at the National Pharmacy Day table on the mall on Oct. 11. We hope to see you at the activities and look forward to the next meeting on Nov. 1 at 5p.m. at the College of Pharmacy Room 325. Good luck to all who are taking the PCAT!

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Nov. 1, 2004 Meeting Minutes

We have quite a few activities going on in the month of November. There is the Juvenile Diabetes Walk, the bike festival and, hopefully, a percentage night at a restaurant on University. Please participate because ASUA is giving out a Club of the Month Award, and if we win then we will get a free pizza party for the entire club. Here are the details on the activities:

Volunteer Activities for the month

Social event for the month

Kerry Cline also spoke at the meeting about some problems with registration. Her advice for students who cannot get into the Organic Chemistry lab is to call the chemistry department to get on the waiting list, check Webreg everyday to see if someone drops it, look into taking it at Pima, or to take the O chem lab for majors. Also for those of you needing to take your elective science; PSIO 202 will count, however it may be difficult for you to skip the 1st semester (PSIO 201). Other classes that fill the elective science are ECOL 335 and ECOL 206. If you take ECOL 183 at Pima it will count, but if you take it at the U of A it does not count because it does not have enough of a lab.

Kerry also wanted to let everyone know that packets with information on volunteering, working and shadowing pharmacists will be available within the next few weeks.

Our speaker for the night was Kevin Boesen, PharmD. We are every grateful he came to speak to us about the many opportunities that one can find in pharmacy. He is the clinical assistant professor/ coordinator of experiential education here at the university. While pharmacy runs in his family (and his family members have had a wide variety of experiences in pharmacy!), his experiences are particularly interesting and unique. He graduated from the College of Pharmacy in 1996 and moved to Chicago where he started out working in an Osco. While he enjoyed it there, he changed jobs and went to work for Abbott, a pharmaceutical company that made Depacote. He worked in the call center answering questions that patients called in until he was promoted to pharmaceutical sales at Abbott. He worked to help educate pharmacists and was then promoted to medical/science liaison where he worked with physicians to carry out studies. From there he went on to work for a medical device company and was responsible for clinical education; he taught nurses how to teach patients. He is now working for the university and helps assign 4th year pharmacy students to their clinical rotations. During the fourth year in the College of Pharmacy, students do seven six-week rotations at a number of different sites. These rotations include four required rotations and three elective rotations. The rotations can be done at many sites in Arizona, out of state and even out of the country. These rotations help to expose students to all pharmacy has to offer and can help students to choose in what field of pharmacy they wish to work in.

Thank you to all of you who made it to the meeting. Out next meeting will be on Dec. 6. You may pick up your T-shirts at this meeting if you haven't already done so. Be sure to also try to come to as many activities as possible!

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Dec. 6, 2004 Meeting Minutes

First off we would like to thank the five members of ASU's Prepharmacy Club who braved the rain and cold weather to drive to Tucson to attend our meeting. We really appreciate your enthusiasm!

Our service event for December will be cooking dinner for the people at Ronald McDonald House of Saturday Dec. 11 at 4 p.m. We need 8-10 volunteers and had a great response at the meeting of those interested in going. If you are interesting in volunteering please e-mail Amy Hwang. More details including directions will be emailed out to the volunteers.

For a follow-up on the club's Pita Pit fundraising night, 70 people showed up and the club brought in $70 that can be used towards future activities and events. We would like to thank all of you who showed up to support the club.

For those of you needing to get in touch with an advisor, Marty Dalton will not be back in her office until next week and you should contact Kerry Cline. However, due to the high volume of e-mails and calls she receives, it would be helpful if you possibly can, to wait until after the 15th to e-mail or call her. Kerry Cline's email address is cline@pharmacy.arizona.edu. For those of you applying to the College of Pharmacy this year, here are some of the important deadlines:

The speaker for the night was Kem Blanchard, a coordinator from Career Services. She gave valuable information and advice on the interview process. One piece of advice she gave was to do research on the schools that you are applying to so that when it comes time to interview, you will be prepared to ask the interviewer questions. Think ahead of time about why you chose to go into pharmacy and what you have done to gain experience.

When it comes to dressing for the interview, remember to dress for success. You should wear a suit and be well groomed, including your nails and hair. While every one is an individual, an interview is not the place to show off your crazy style. Especially if you are applying to East Coast schools, conservative is always better.

To prepare for the interview, you should practice answering sample questions (the back side of the packet she handed out has loads of practice questions) and you should be familiar with social, medical, and ethical issues. Practice in front of a friend who will give you honest advice on what you need to work on.

The interview can last anywhere from half an hour to half a day to all day long. The interviews can be one-on-one or in front of a panel. Remember to show enthusiasm with your face, eyes and handshake. The interviewers may also be watching how you interact with other students. Close the interview well, ask questions, and tell them you appreciate the opportunity to interview.

Lastly, remember to relax. You got the interview because they are considering you as a candidate for their school. Do active listening and think about the questions that you are asked.

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Feb. 7 Meeting Minutes

We hope you all had a great time at the meeting and took advantage of the free pizza and chance for cool prizes. Congratulations to everyone who won a prize in our raffle!

ASP came to the meeting and spoke about all the wonderful opportunities they can give a prepharmacy and pharmacy student. They have many new events planned for the upcoming months and would like to have prepharmacy students involved. Some of these events are Pharmacy Jeopardy on Feb. 17 (contact Megan McKee at mckee@pharmacy.arizona.edu for more info), Legislative Day on March 7 (contact Jeremy Smart at smart@pharmacy.arizona.edu for more info), the APHA annual meeting on April 1-5 (contact Kendra Olderog at olderog@pharmacy.arizona.edu for more info and how to register), The Women's Health Expo on April 16t (contact Jennifer Lin at jlin@pharmacy.arizona.edu for more info on how to volunteer), and Operation Immunization (for more info contact Sushma Patel at spatel@pharmacy.arizona.edu). For more info on AphA-ASP you can check out their Web site.

The Prepharmacy Club itself is putting on many events and volunteer opportunities in the following month. On Feb 11 we will be cleaning up Ronald McDonald house. Since there was such demand to sign up for this activity at the meeting, no additional volunteers will be needed. We do, however, need a few more volunteers to help out at the disability dance. It will be held on March 5 in the evening and it should be a very rewarding experience for those of you who volunteer. If you are interested in helping out please contact Amy Hwang at amyhwang@email.arizona.edu. For those of you who enjoyed the percentage night at Pita Pit, we are having a second one at La Salsa, which is also located on University. It will be on Tuesday, Feb. 15 from 5-11 pm. Make sure when you pay for your food that you go to the register that says "pre-pharmacy club" on it or you purchase won't count for us. On Friday Feb. 25 at 12 p.m. the Students for Free Enterprise will be hosting the 2nd Annual Wal-Mart All-Campus Ethics Bowl in the Student Union Memorial Center. They are allowing in groups of 2-4 to participate in a timed Ethical Debate. This should be really fun and it gives us the opportunity to win a $400 first prize or $150 second prize. If you are interested in signing up please email Amy Hwang at amyhwang@email.arizona.edu.

Kerry Cline would also like to announce that the packets of volunteer and shadowing information are now available. She put a lot of work into this and they are very helpful for those of you still needing some experience in the field of pharmacy. The packets are located in room 103 of University School in the ILC or you can get more information from Kerry herself at cline@pharmacy.arizona.edu.

We were honored to have Dr. Elaine Marchello of the College of Vet Science and Microbiology come and speak to us at the meeting. She handed out lists of required courses for both majors and talked about how a microbiology major fits in very nicely with the required courses for prepharmacy. It is always good to have a back-up plan if you don't get into the college on your first try and many prepharmacy majors will go for a microbiology degree. There are many opportunities for microbiology majors in case you decide to not go to pharmacy school, such as working for the USDA, in a lab of a hospital or even as a civilian employed by the US military. For more information on microbiology and Veterinary Science, you can contact Elaine Marchello at emv@email.arizona.edu or you can call her at 520-621-3058.

The next prepharmacy meeting will be on March 7 and we should have guest speaker Dr. Jack Cole, dean emeritus of the College of Pharmacy, discussing the history of the development of the UA College of Pharmacy. Also be sure to check the involvement chart to make sure you got credit for the events you attended and volunteered at.

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March 7, 2005 Meeting Minutes

There are several opportunities for volunteering and social activities planned for the club in April. First is the Race for the Cure on April 10. It is from 7-11:30 a.m. and it is a great way to raise money for a good cause. More information will be coming about the Race for The Cure in future e-mails.

A second volunteer activity is Christmas in April. It will be on April 16 from 7 a.m. - 4p.m. Volunteers will be helping restore homes in the Barrio Hollywood neighborhood of Tucson by painting and other necessary home improvements. This will be a very rewarding experience for those of you who do volunteer. For more information or to sign up, please contact Amy Hwang at amyhwang@email.arizona.edu. Also, DeArla is working really hard with ASP to put together some shadowing opportunities in the College of Pharmacy. Students who have participated in any other volunteer or social event are eligible for this opportunity. It would be taking place in either late March or early April and prepharmacy students would shadow a pharmacy student for the day and be able to ask them questions and see what the classes are like. More information will be sent out in future emails.

Officer elections will be help at the next meeting. If you are interested in running for a position, detailed descriptions of what each position entails will be sent out before the next meeting. Please prepare a brief speech to be delivered at the meeting detailing why you are qualified for the position. While anyone can be a member of the club, only UA students can run for officer positions. Other than that, everyone interested is encouraged to run.

H.E.A.R.T.: The Official Red Cross Club came and spoke at the meeting about their club. Meetings are Tuesdays at 5 p.m. in the Copper Room of the Student Union on the 4th floor. There will be a lot of volunteer opportunities, including blood drives, supply drives for elementary schools and clean-ups of nursing homes. If you have any questions about joining you can contact Holly Camou at hcamou@email.arizona.edu.

ASP representatives spoke at the meeting about The Women's Health Expo. It will be on April 16 from 9 a.m. - 3 p.m. at McClelland Hall. It will serve over 400 women from the Tucson community. You can help by either volunteering the day of the expo or by passing out flyers beforehand. If you are interested you can check out the website for more information or by contacting DeArla at dheller@email.arizona.edu.

Kerry Cline would like to remind students that summer registration begins on March 9 for those of you interested in summer school. Also all of her work and volunteer books are missing from the ILC. If you took one of them, please return it to either the ILC or the College or Pharmacy, no questions asked. It took her a very long time and a lot of hard work to put those together and other students need to use them.

We were honored to have Dr. Jack R. Cole, PhD, dean emeritus of the College of Pharmacy, as our speaker for the night. He spoke about his experiences as the dean of the College of Pharmacy from 1977 - 1990. He was then appointed the vice provost of the University of Arizona in 1987. In January 1989, he became the acting provost and the senior vice president of academic affairs for the University of Arizona. He served as provost until 1992 when he left the university to serve as the director of graduate education, research and scholarship for the American Association of Colleges of Pharmacy. He returned to the university in 1994 as the dean emeritus and currently teaches some classes for the college. He has been very active in the profession of pharmacy for a very long time and has brought about many changes for the college. During his time as fean he had the pharmacy building built, he helped to establish the PharmD degree and he increased the faculty from 10 to 45 professors. He also started the Prepharmacy Club at the U of A, something we all appreciate very much.

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April 5 Meeting Minutes

Hi everyone! We hope you all had a great time at the last meeting of the year and we look forward to seeing you next year!

This meeting we were honored to have three College of Pharmacy graduate students at the meeting: Kia Sepassi, Will Hoye and Eric Mogalian. While they all had experience in working in either retail or hospital pharmacy, they spoke to the club about the opportunities for pharmacists in research. Working in a research setting is very different from retail and hospital settings. They also reminded students that if research is your thing, you don't necessarily have to go to pharmacy school: a degree in biochem can also get you there. In their labs they utilize analytical chemistry, pharmacology and physical chemistry among other sciences. Some of their research involves finding the kinetics of chemical compounds synthesized in other labs. They are under confidentiality contracts when working with these compounds. For those of you that think research pharmacy may be your calling, they do allow undergraduates to volunteer in their labs and will be needing help in the summer. If this is something you would be interested in you can email Kia Sepassi at sepassi@Pharmacy.Arizona.Edu.

There are still more prepharmacy activities planned for this school year and more chances for all of you to get involved. This Sunday is the Race for the Cure. For more info on joining you can contact Amy Hwang at amyhwang@email.arizona.edu. We are still planning on volunteering at Christmas in April on the 16th and more e-mails will be coming out with the details on that. For those of you who have been involved with ASP or anyone who wants to attend, they are having a party to celebrate the accomplishments of the organization and some of their individual members on Wednesday, April 13 from 12: p.m.-1 p.m. outside under the Life Sciences Tower by the Colleges of Nursing and Medicine. A great lunch will be served as well as desserts and beverages. If you are not interested in helping at Christmas in April, you can volunteer at the Women's Health Expo with students in the College of Pharmacy. This event is the largest women's health fair in the city and they will be having booths ranging from cholesterol to hypertension screenings. They are looking for help in the following areas before and after the event:

If you would like to get involved, please e-mail Jennifer Lin at jlin@pharmacy.arizona.edu They would love to have all the help we can give.

Unfortunately for those of you who were interested, we will not be able to do any shadowing of pharmacy students, as there would not be enough room in the classrooms and it could disrupt classes. However, we are looking into having an End of the Year BBQ at Himmel Park on Saturday, April 23 with ASP students, where we could have lunch and play ultimate Frisbee and volleyball and ask questions and just hang out with pharmacy students. More information about this will be available later in the month.

The Prepharmacy Club would like to congratulate Kathy Lin for winning the Most Involved Member Award. Along with her certificate she received a gift card to the University Bookstore. Thank you, Kathy, for making it a priority to attend so many activities.

Last but not least, we would also like to congratulate the future officers of the Prepharmacy club. Thank you to all who ran. The winners of the elections were:

Hope you all had a great time as a member of the pre-pharmacy club, see you next year!

 

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