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MEGA - Courses and Careers related to Drugs

Ace123 said:
I am dropping out of my university because I simply cannot handle myself at the school I'm in. I will attend a community college for a year, but when I return to a better school I was thinking of getting degrees in Botany and buisness. I don't know which will be the major and the other a minor, but I figure this is a lethal combination. The botany because I have an interest in cutting edge farm and food production techniques which could help to solve all sorts of hunger problems(and growing weed:p) and than the buisness to get the know how to profit from it(the botany studies.) Than once I have enough money I will be able to distribute this technology to the countries and people that need it. I also plan to put together a HUGE agriculture epicenter that cultivates and preserves different varieties of produce that are becoming extinct due to genetically mutated seeds, corporate patents and laws on GM seeds, and cross contamination of aboriginal crops. This will help end the corporate reign of seed companies.

So that is my plan.

P.S. I'm not against corporate america. But seed companies are ruthless. Make the oil companies look like saints.
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Try horticulture, not botany. Botany if u want to conduct plant research but if you are looking to throw business into the mix and work in that industry, i would say horticulture (which includes tons of botany info).
 
Any chance doing a chem related course at uni w/o the A level? or not too late still?

I'm at kent uni and chose physics with a foundation year. Thing is, physics is fucking shit, not applicable to real world things half the time, and just generally pointless and boring, and I'm gonna fail coz I haven't been going to classes for months now coz its just not the right course for me and I haven't settled.

They do a forensic chemistry course though that I would be much more interested in (for various reasons that you might guess someone posting on this forum might be interested in learning chemistry :) ) but I dont have an A level in Chemistry. they say that you need chemistry grade C to do the course and 240 UCAS points. I'm gonna chat to my tutor to see if its remotely possible, but anyone here know if theres a way I could fly through a chemistry A level from now until summer when next uni year starts if I did some serious cramming?

Or are all A levels only twice a year, and thats it?

Any other options anyone could suggest?

Thanks.
 
Oh yeah, forgot,

I've got 220 UCAS points from my A levels,

D in physics
B in Music Tech (Kent doesn't do any fucking music courses at all though, which would be my second choice after a organic/forensic/pharmacologicChemisrty type course.)
C in Maths
E in computing
And a couple of high music piano practical/theory grades, which add 20-40 points or summit.
 
I don't know what UCAS points are, and I don't know how your grades translate, but I can tell you that if you're struggling with Physics that Chem. isn't that much friendlier. I mean, it is less math intensive which is nice, but there is craploads of conceptual material to absorb, and you really need to stay sharp or you'll sink. Just because the math isn't difficult doesn't mean it's a walk in the park.
 
If you are failing physics, chances are that chemistry is probably going to bore you also. I found physics harder than chemistry, but I thought chemistry was more boring than physics until I got into biochem.

I'll repeat what many science grad schools say when the question is asked about getting C's and D's in sciences while getting A's in music and arts classes - maybe the science field just isn't for you. I don't have the best GPA myself, but if you put forth a true effort you can get the grades. I went through about 2 years where I just didn't care and didn't study like I should have. You should probably evaluate your study habits and determine if you can get through the boring classes to get to the more interesting ones.
 
Im currently not doing well in my physics and math classes yet have the highest grade in my chemistry class. I found once you get through freshmen chemistry till you get to physical chem. there is no math. No math in organic and inorganic. There can be alot of hard math in those two but generally they teach the basics no need to know exactly how to calculate bond order if you can use a short cut. (6th semester chem major)

In the end its all about what you really want to do. The reason why i put up with horrible grades in math is because the desire to get the degree is big. I dont care about what job i get what my finishing gpa is any of that crap i just want a chemistry degree. I refer to it as blinded by love. Just dont do it because you love drugs thats plain silly.
 
na forensic chemistry probably isn't my thing really. Been thinking about it today, only contemplated it because its the only slightly related thing Kent does. I really am interested in bio-chemistry. Ideally I would like to do a degree in pharmacology/neuroscience/bio/organic-chemistry. Something like that. I might just give up kent and take another year out and do a quick A level in chemistry and biology so I can then go to the course of my choice at a different uni. And since I've already wasted so much time meandering around eductaion (I'm 21 for fucks sake!) I think I would find it easy to put the work in and be more motivated to finally get something final done.

Defo be looking for either a pharmacology or organic chemistry type course. Anyone reccomend any good ones in the UK ? I'll have a look around (just realised most people in here probably aren't from the UK so probably didn't get some of my OP, ucas points and a levels are the british way of getting into uni's)
 
I live in the UK. I had no relevant qualifications for the pharmaceutical industry but wanted to work in a pharmacy so I just applied for every pharmacy job that I could find in my local area and I got lucky and given a job which was full time. They then got me working for them and put me on the dispensing assistant course NVQ2 which I did while I had spare time at work. I didn't have to take any work home so I was even getting paid for doing the course!

I completed the course and am now a dispensing assistant. My next step if I wanted to take it would be the pharmacy technician course NVQ3 which they would also put me on but my company have a limited amount of people that they put on each year so I have to wait until I get my chance.

You could even then move up to an accredited checking technician but I wouldn't want to do that cos I know the pharmacist would have you checking trays all day!

I do work for a large pharmacy chain so I'm not sure if it would work like this if you got a job for an independent pharmacy.

You could try doing it like that. You would have a full time job hopefully giving you enough money to pay your rent etc... and maybe if your lucky (like me) your employers will even pay for the course so you don't have to pay anything to get on the course and even get paid while your doing it.

I hope things work out for you. Good luck.
 
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Any psychopharmacology/bio-psychiatry courses in the UK?

I want to start a uni course thats about pharmacology and drugs. Not necissarily general pharmacology though, I'm much more interested in drugs that alter your mood than general health and pharmacology, thus the psycho-pharmacology or bio-psychiatry tendency. Basically a course that studies how drugs produce altered states and how exactly they work.

Do such courses exist? Which would probably best suit my needs? Any recommendations on the best course to take in the UK for a good drug related education?
 
When you say "course," do you mean like an acutal degree, or just a single course (what us Yanks would call a "class")?

In the former case, there are a few schools which offer Master's Degrees and PhD programs for psychopharmacology (according to Google), but I think most schools would not want to overtly offer this. In better form, the student would, for example, do a degree in pharmacology and then independent research and/or thesis work in psychopharmacology/bio-psychiatry.

If it's just a single class, I'm guessing that this is not something that Universities, again, cover directly in one class (but instead would touch upon in other pharmacology classes). At least so at the undergraduate level. This really does seem like the kind of thing that Univerities would want to be done by researching post/grads and not something for younger students.

Then again, I did my undergrad at a school that offered a "history of drugs" special topics course in the history department and one about drug addiction in the psych department. I don't know if a school with a wider range of degree programs would include such things in departments more geared for you.

When you say you want to "start" one, do you actually have any power to do so? Are you on student council or any such platforms? If so, make suggestions!

Also, give books and the internet credit for being sources of lots of information on both of these topics - you can learn a lot on your own, outside of uni, if you've got initiative.
 
^ Thanks mate, that helps a bunch. Will probably end up doing straight pharmacology and seeing where that leads. psychopharmacology is proba a bit specific, but some pharma course might do modules in it.
 
I'd be really interested in a course like this too..

Unfortunately however I sincerely doubt the existance of such a course. If for no reason other than the lack of available teachers.

Your best bet is to actually so what you are planning to do- pharmacology and then to go on and do your own research.
 
Pharmacology

im thinking about trying to obtain Pharm d. Degree so that i can become a pharmacist, and minoring in sociology or phsychiatry. i dont know which one i would like yet, the psychiatry or pharmacology degree so if anyone could post some useful reading that would give me some better insight into these, such as stuff explaining what i could expect to learn during my college, or possibly just information that would help me learn about these subjects

thanks
 
I merged your post with a pre-existing thread relating to pharmacology. As you would probably guess, it's a pretty frequent topic in here, so we'd like to keep all of the threads/questions together for future reference. ;)
 
newskin said:
1) I have NO criminal record, but I DO have a "medical" record of having issues with drugs. Do pharmacy schools or employers have access to this information?
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I live in the UK and also would like to know this. Have been in the hospital a couple of times about various drugs via the NHS. No criminal record. Will they know this or take it into consideration?

I find it unlikely given the amount of laws on data protection there are nowadays. But its hard to tell for sure.
 
Well, for those interested, I'll share my story of recent success.

I'll be a 2nd year student at my college next fall (ie, have not have any advanced biology, o-chem, stuff like that, at least formally) and have landed independent study for the Pharmacology department. Basically I'll be helping out in a neuropharmacology lab with experiments and stuff. I'm actually really excited to go back to school simply because of this! =D

An interesting side note is that when I went to the Pharmacology department website, practically every single researcher was doing something related to drugs or addiction. It seems that rather than go with specifically psychopharmacology or neuropharmacology, they have a major that encompasses all of it (although it seems to be predominantly oriented towards drugs of abuse in one way or another).

But for those interested, email a professor in the pharmacology department at your school and talk to them. The only way you'll ever get any special is if you ask for it. And be persistent! I got way mad at the professor for a while cause he never answered my emails! :!
 
hey.. im in yr 12 finishing college in AUS heading for approx 90 UAI, my subjects were eco, maths, physics, english, english.... sorry i havent serched this up as i only just began to contemplate pharm related topics as a career path, but would this be a problem if i were to choose this path since i havent studied any chem since high school? thanks
 
So I Wanna Be A Pharmacist

My current position in life is pretty shitty. I dropped out of High School like 6 months ago and all I've been doing lately is partying n shit. I don't think I am a stupid person its just that HS was too full of BS for me to continue going there everyday.

Throughout these six months I've managed to complete a G.E.D. course, I got a score of a 3480/4000. Now my plan is to take that, my SAT scores(1820/2400), and my transcript to some local colleges to see if I can get into any decent ones. I know the chance is low given my fuck up but I was hoping my GED and SAT scores would help out a little bit.

Worse turns to worse I go to community college. Ok now assuming it doesn't work out and I end up going to community college. Is there any chance I can work my way up towards a transfer into a better college and then eventually begin the path that will lead me towards being a pharmacist.

I plan on doing way more research into this myself but I just wanted to see if you guys had any advice.
 
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