Career Advice MEGA - Courses and Careers related to Drugs

but if this is the path you want to take....

you need pre med.

I took a shit ton of bio and neuroscience courses.. molecular, cellular, developmental bio, neuorscience, psychology, genetics, .

shit ton of chem courses
gen chem 1/ 2 ochem 1/2

physics 1 and physics 2

while I was doing this I worked for 2 years in a Behavioral neuroscience lab.

In this lab we focused on post traumatic stress disorder research.

The lab also had access to tons of illegal drugs, name it and it was there....

so if you want to go down that route, do what I did.

just dont fucking regret it like i did.

if i could turn back the clock i woudl have gotten a computer engineering degree in a fucking second.

not to mention i was depressed and hated college because i was consuming copious amounts of substances and doing nothgin but study study study. had no time for gf or any meaningful relationship.

what a waste of my life looking back on it (as stated before I am sober now... one day you will want to be sober as well. trust me it happens to everybody sooner or later)
 
Career change to pharmacy technician?

I'm now beginning my junior year as an art major at a 4 year school but recent events make me think I'm too unmotivated to try hard at all in art. Not hard enough to make a living in it, maybe not even hard enough to graduate. Well generally I've just been more and more unmotivated about nearly everything, but my friend noticed I have a certain passion for drugs, what they do and how they do it. She suggested a degree in biochem but I don't think I'm ready to just jump into so many years of hard science and I don't see any specific careers in the major that I would enjoy without going to grad school. While looking into it I noticed pharmacology degrees, and again I'd rather avoid grad school for now. But while looking into that, I discovered the career of pharmacy technician and this one has me interested. I enjoy learning how drugs work and explaining to my friends, and providing harm reduction for them. This career sounds similar, I could help medical patients and explain how to use each drug, it would just be more tedious (I might not mind) and I would have a boss (obv.)

I could transfer to a cheap school for a year or so, get certified with information that I love learning about and get a relatively decent wage for the time spent in school and for the apparent difficulty of the work. I don't see this as a lifelong career, just a temporary one. One to get me back on my feet and motivated with those wages. I could use it to pay off my debt that I've accrued so far from this 4 year education that I'm starting to feel is useless. And then I'd have a clean start, I could go to pharmacy school if I liked the career or I could invest in something like glass blowing after my debts are paid (which is impossible in my current situation).

So ladee da for me, but I'm wondering about the ethical costs. Is this selling out? Is this supporting the drug war? Are pharmacies evil? My views have said no in the past, I don't think pharmaceuticals are purely bad while illegal drugs are purely good, just that all substances with medical uses should be available to those who could use them.
 
This prolly isn't what you want to hear, but if I were in your shoes I'd slug it out and finish my art degree THEN go get certified as a pharmacy tech. I know a girl who has a degree in archaeology who is currently a pharmacy tech. I guess my point is I don't think you need any special 4-year college degree to be a pharmacy tech.

Then again, if you've fallen out of love with art you might want to consider changing majors. Find a major doing something you really enjoy and are good at, graduate, then go be a pharmacy tech. I personally can't tell you what you should get your degree in because ultimately the decision is yours. But maybe some folks around here can help steer you in the right direction.
 
You can take classes and I think its between 6 months and a year to complete them. But, you can register to take the test without taking any classes at all. I worked at Walgreens for a couple months and did self-studying with a study guide and flash cards and passed the exam that way.
It seems like a total ripoff to pay college tuition for something you can do for free (or for the low low cost of a study booklet).
 
Jerry Atrick said:
This prolly isn't what you want to hear, but if I were in your shoes I'd slug it out and finish my art degree THEN go get certified as a pharmacy tech. I know a girl who has a degree in archaeology who is currently a pharmacy tech. I guess my point is I don't think you need any special 4-year college degree to be a pharmacy tech.
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What do you mean you just said a contradiction?
 
the wheat's gotta said:
What do you mean you just said a contradiction?
Click to expand...

I don't see any contradiction; maybe I misunderstood your goals. My point of that paragraph was, it doesn't matter what kind of 4 year degree you have you can still be a pharmacy tech.

I would just suggest finishing your bachelor's since you already have so much time and money invested in it. You don't have to do art, there is still time to change majors.

Have you thought about going to your university's career center and getting advice from them? Most schools have one and you can talk to a counselor about all the different majors your school offers.

I was in a similar position one time: I had already changed majors several times, I still didn't know what kind of long term careers were out there for my field of study, and I hated the major I was in at the time. I met with a professor and he told me that going to college to "get a job" was 1950s thinking. The purpose of college is to get your education, it isn't an employment agency. IOW find a major you enjoy and you're good at, pursue it, and the job will come to you.

Who knows, you might change majors to something you really like and forget about all this pharmacy tech stuff.
 
Be careful. There are machines that can dispense medications more accurately than a pharmacy tech. And machines don't steal drugs to feed their habits. Unless you use this as a springboard to go on and become a pharmacist, you might find your job obsoleted by technology someday.
 
That's not all that likely. There are so many pharmacy tasks that aren't automated. The store I worked in had a fully automated bottle-filling machine. We were still more than swamped with work.
 
Taking prescriptions, putting the prescriptions into the computer (necessary for the automated systems to work because of the enormous number of different formats used for prescriptions), taking phoned in prescriptions, inputting patient insurance information (and the hassles that come along with making the insurance work), filling and double counting schedule II drugs (if p. techs can do that in your state), and a host of pharmacy maintenance issues such as ordering, chargebacks from insurance, drug stock and expiration.

All of this is assuming that a machine was used for packing up ALL prescriptions - they aren't, they are only used for the highest volume drugs. Less commonly used drugs still get filled by hand because it isn't practicle to have a slot in the machine for EVERY DRUG in the pharmacopeia. Also, many individual use packaged drugs like birth control pills or steroid dose-paks are impractical for use in a machine.

It's a huge number of tasks that, on the one hand, are a bit too mundane/trivial to pay a pharmacist their mega-salary to do, but require a level of precision that is above what is expected from an ordinary store clerk, and require enough adaptability and flexibility that it is not very economical to automate them in a store.
 
About to have psychology degree, want to work with drugs

Hello everyone its been a while since I last posted. I'm about to have my BA in Psychology in the not-so-distant future. I want to persue an education/career in something that has to do with drugs (not neccesarily the substances themselves). So far, all I've come up with is something along the lines of a drug counselor. That doesn't sound too bad, but with my family's situation and current debt, I need something that will pay a little more than $35,000 (USD) on average. I'm sure that average overly represents those without master's degrees, one of which I'm planning to get.
Still, I can't help but think there has to be something else out there that is reasonably popular, something I'm just missing. Shit, maybe I'll break down and be a school psychologist. I was always good with kids. Kids and drugs.
 
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if by the time you graduate, you don't locate this ideal role, get experience anywhere. you won't be locked onto or out of any particular path by trying some places out.
 
Thats a tough degree to stuff with. My advice is, if your ideology sways to the left, become a professional student. But in all seriousness, the sooner you start looking he better its rough out there. Lived at my parents for like a year, sucked...
 
spaceyourbass said:
Hello everyone its been a while since I last posted. I'm about to have my BA in Psychology in the not-so-distant future. I want to persue an education/career in something that has to do with drugs (not neccesarily the substances themselves). So far, all I've come up with is something along the lines of a drug counselor. That doesn't sound too bad, but with my family's situation and current debt, I need something that will pay a little more than $35,000 (USD) on average. I'm sure that average overly represents those without master's degrees, one of which I'm planning to get.
Still, I can't help but think there has to be something else out there that is reasonably popular, something I'm just missing. Shit, maybe I'll break down and be a school psychologist. I was always good with kids. Kids and drugs.
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I may be mistaken, but in the US I don't think schools have psychologists per se...they have counselors. To be a counselor you'll have to get a Master's in counseling and, depending on what state you're in, you may have to do like 2 years teaching in the classroom before they let you be a counselor.

The pay for a school counselor is more like an administrator than a teacher, so the money should be pretty good.
 
I agree with PP on getting as much experience as possible. Your interests may lead you along a long line of careers.

www.bacb.com

Behavioral analysis requires a grad certificate that will prepare you for the board exam. Several universities offer this online. (southern il state, north texas?, central colorado? there are many.)

After working awhile in the field you may want to pursue graduate studies in order to achieve a certain job.
 
Do you guys have a juvenille justice system over there in the states? In Australia thats one department where there seems to be a high rate of turnover and you get to work with kids on drugs.

Also if you have time see if you can get some volunteer experience before you graduate it will make you more competitive. Even over here though where the labour market is kinder it really helps if you have your masters.

Perhaps try some community organisations or youth support services also? Over here at least they often have Drug Education Officer positions or just generic Youth Worker positions

I landed a job working at youth drop in centre for disadvantaged and street present young people with just a bachelors degree. The pay wasnt great but there were some very interesting characters and lots of drug related issues going on. Not sure what equivalents of this there would be in your area though,
 
Jerry Atrick said:
I may be mistaken, but in the US I don't think schools have psychologists per se...they have counselors. To be a counselor you'll have to get a Master's in counseling and, depending on what state you're in, you may have to do like 2 years teaching in the classroom before they let you be a counselor.

The pay for a school counselor is more like an administrator than a teacher, so the money should be pretty good.
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They call them school psychologists now because in the past, they were called counselors, and were less qualified, had fewer responsibilities, and were paid less and generally less important. Thanks for the replies everyone...bumpsky.
 
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