• Life Advice & Visual Arts Welcome Guest
    Posting Rules Bluelight Rules
    🌌 Share Your Dreams! 🌌
    📸 15 Years of Photo Contests 📸
  • LAVA Moderator: Shinji Ikari

MEGA - Courses and Careers related to Drugs

Bardo5 said:
So recently I've racking my brain trying to figure out what it is I want to do with my life. I've been interested in different careers, from journalism to botany but I cant see a future in these feilds. I've been strongly considering pharmacy due to my interest in medicine and the growth rate of the industry.

I'm a little nervous about the education required to pursue pharmacy as I wasnt exactly an ideal student in high school (I graduated in 2006). But my attitude has changed drasticly since I was last in school. I went to an alternative high school which offered no chemistry or advanced math classes, which are prerequisites for pre-pharmacy. So should the college offer classes to get me caught up before my regular classes start up? I dont really know where to start. I'm just planning on enrolling into community college to get my AA in pharmacy then transfering to a university.

I dont have any hidden agendas or alterior motives for getting into the feild (This is a drug forum afterall). I just want to make a legitimate living for myself and find something to apply my energy and time to.

Any advice on how to make it happen?
Click to expand...

For one thing, your performance in high school has nothing to do with how your performance in college will be....it all depends on how motivated you are. I had a college roommate who made C's in high school but really buckled down in college and made all A's and now he's a doctor.

Second, yes a college will have classes to help get you caught up on your math and science but I would do what someone already recommended which is to hit up the local community college for those classes and either get your Associates or transfer those classes to a regular college for credit towards your Bachelor's.

I think you're on the right track. Good luck %)
 
I don't know how I missed the fact that you are attempting to get into an institution. With that now dually noted, I agree with the past few posts. The mentioning of recreational/illicit substances will likely be frowned upon by almost every accredited academic institution. :\

Best of luck to you.

[short, unsweet, not to the point]
 
Try to think of the field of Pharmacy as chemistry and math......Pharmacy school will be mostly Organic chemistry.

As someone mentioned previously, how you did in HS doesnt matter.....As long as you buckle down and put forth alot of effort in College you'll be fine. There's plenty of programs schools have to help you get caught up.

You can actually get accepted to Pharmacy school w/o having a bachelors....You just have alot of prerequisites classes (plenty of chemistry and math) that are needed to qualify. Also you'll have to take the PCAT (entarnce exam, somewhat similar to the MCAT, but it focuses on organic chemistry where as the MCAT is more centered around Biology) to be considered for Pharm.

Its a career im seriously thinking about....I just have plenty of prereq's to knock out first.

If you're serious about this career than you have to be serious about school. Just concentrate on doing well in your classes you're taking now. Get your GPA up as high as possible. Then kick the
PCAT's ass....

Thats all you need to be worrying about for now
 
It's a good profession. My brother is a pharmacist and he works in quality assurance for a large pharmaceutical company. You don't have to do retail.
 
HerrSchnaufer said:
This is a nice idea. I may well pursue this avenue. I want an interest in anti-psychotics to feature in my statement, because this instantly puts me on familiar territory should I be called for an interview, but this could easily be linked in with hallucinogens and 5HT2 agonists/antagonists. I could even perhaps throw something in about theories which state that LSD is effectively a temporary state of user-enforced psychosis. Hmmm ...
Click to expand...

Talking about 5HT2 serotonergic system wouldn't automatically implicate you with hallucinogens and LSD - Risperidone, a very popular and highly prescribed atypical antipsychotic has a high affinity for the 5HT2 receptor. Antagonism of this receptor by risperidone is suggested to be responsible for the attenuation of PCP-induced social interaction abnormalities in rodent models of negative symptoms of schizophrenia.

In a similar experiment its 5HT1A agonism that is suggested to be involved in improving social interaction following disruption following PCP treatment.

Just two little snippets that will demonstrate pharmacology is massive - just because you're interested in the serotonergic system wouldn't automatically identify you as a junkie. Its a very important neurotransmitter system and has implication in a number of psychiatric disorders - depression and schizophrenia just to name a couple...
 
Last edited:
Missykins said:
Is this a research or clinical program?
Click to expand...

It'll be a BSci degree assuming I'm successful.

Thanks one and all for the responses. You've pretty much all confirmed what I was thinking, and I'm steering well clear of any mention of illicit substances.
 
Pharmacology

Hey, I was wondering what you need to take in the first few years of collage to be able to take pharmacology, specifically Psychopharmacology. Basically I'll be taking a few courses next year and I would like to know A good battle plan, and what I need to know to work be on the development of mind altering drugs (no not psychedelics, recreational drugs per say.) stuff like anti-depressants, anti-psychotics, enhancement drugs, basically drugs that work on the mind in anyway. I'd also like to learn about the growing of plants, plant medical uses, and such possibly Ethnobotany but that seems to deal alot with how plants and humans have interacted in the past, I'm looking more into how naturally occurring chemicals effect the mind, though knowing the history couldn't hurt.
Anyhow, any help would be well... helpful.

P.S. it's not my main reason but, if the area of work I was looking into would allow me to synthesize recreational drugs, for my own use, that would be a nice bonus ;)
 
intro chem 1 and 2, organic chem 1 and 2, biochemistry (i'd imagine, my school doesn't have a pharmacology class so can't say for sure), neuroscience, etc. Basically get a good base of chemistry and biology.

I'm sure someone has a bit better advice.
 
Uh, I'd check the degree listing on your school's website or call up an advisor/dean/whatever they call it at your school... lol ;)

Really though, it can be wildly different from school to school, so we can't answer your question here. If I were to hazard a guess, you'll definitely need 2 semesters of intro/analytical chem, at least a semester of o chem, probably some biochem, and definitely lots of labs; if you don't already have calculus 2, you'll need it. It would be helpful to take neuroscience/neurobiology, but usually that's not something you take at the beginning. For my biochem degree (which can get you into a pharmaceuticals development or psychopharmacology program, for sure), my first 2 years of school included 2 semesters of intro/analytical chem with labs, 2 semesters of o chem with a lab, 2 semesters with labs (including evolution, ecology, genetics, molecular biology, etc.) of a 4 semester biology program, and some science electives.
 
Most grad schools like to see physics as well. Fine print: like - not strictly required for admittance however.

And you will need to go to grad school to get a MS or PhD for toying around with molecules professionally.

Most likely you'll end up following the "pre-med" route your school offers (which includes General Chem 1 & 2, Organic 1 & 2, etc... no need to worry now). Your major advisor will be able to help you much more then we can. Talk to him/her.
 
Biology, chemistry, organic chemistry, biochemistry, biophysics, bioinformatics, and computer science would all be helpful for the drug discovery portion of pharmacology.

Natural products research in general has been on a decline in the pharmaceutical industry but ethnobotany and some areas of medical anthropology might give you good clues about interesting plants for further investigation.

Drug discovery is a team effort so you don't have to be an expert in everything to do it. The biggest skill you need is learning how to talk to and work with a diverse population of scientists that all look at the process of drug discovery differently.
 
No problems there, I'm super social... ist. JK, not that I'm strongly against the concept.
To bey0nd: you defiantly don't need to be in a pharmacy program, Pharmacy is commonly confused with pharmacology, but they are to totally different things, Pharmacy is for people who want to distribute prescription drugs, they have to learn about every drug interaction so they can be the backup for the doctors "check if any of the drugs prescribed to a person have dangerous interactions in our bodies.". Pharmacology on the other hand is the study of how any specific drug effects our body, and also the understanding of how the chemical structures is effected by our body, and threw this understanding the development of new drugs.

anyway I'll be avoiding computer science, mainly because I've got a fairly good end-user understanding of computers, and I'd like to avoid learning script... IDK lost interest in it the last time I tried to learn it.
if possible I'll be avoiding as much of the physics as possible... I know some of it is required for a basic understanding of chemistry, but I won't learn more of it than I need to >:)!
I'm probably going to major in some sort of bio/organic chemistry mix... and minor in Ethnobotany... I like growing stuff, and if I where to synthesis any sort of new drug, I'd want to start with an organic chemical.
 
bey0nd said:
Don't you typically have to be in a pharmacy program to take pharmacology?
Click to expand...
Not always. My college offered tons of "intro" or low-level elective science classes that covered all kinds of crazy stuff that normally doesn't get covered in undergrad. I took a few great classes including virology and medical biochemistry.


And to the OP: yes, physics too, as someone mentioned. I forgot that one. I did 2 semesters of physics with a lab. Always looks good for grad school, and you'll probably actually need it. It was helpful to have it before I took biophysical chemistry.
 
Just FYI... I am just posting this because I do not want anybody to make the same mistake as I did.

Do not get a degree like this because you like illegal drugs (I am just assuming this COULD be a reason because this is BL and all)....

If at any point in your life you want to sober up.... and have your life not consumed by drugs... you will have so so so so much regret.

I got a similar degree in college because when i was 17/18 I was into all types of drugs. My first passion was computers, started doing drugs, stopped using computers and essentially went on a four year binge of drugs and hard science/pharmacology.... hoping to eventually get a PhD.

I took a year off after college before applying to grad schools just to test myself out. In this year off I sobered up. no more weed nothing except a occasional glass of beer.

I then came to the realization that I spent four years studying drugs and obsessing and learning about drugs when all i want is a sober existance. fucking shitty shitty situation. now, as i am qualified to do nothing else other than bench work in some bio lab, i am going back to school to get a comp sci degree to totally change fields. in debt like all hell but its what i need to do to make sure i stay sober.

get a major in something you like doing sober and have drugs be a hobby. dont walk down the same road as i did.
 
I completed a pre-pharmacy program in the midwest a few years ago and changed my mind, still out of school. Like the above poster I was way into eating chems in high school and thought it'd be a great job. Got a job in a retail pharmacy during the program and it was mind numbing, counting pills all day.

Anyway I had to take chem 101-103 w/ lab 101-103. biology 101-103 w/ lab 101-103, english 101-103, a couple of statistics courses, 3 calculus courses (was applied calculus or some such b.s. very easy compared to what the engineeers were taking.) Electives I took were psychology 101-103, sociology 101-103, some history and anthropology. Second year organic chem 201-203 w/ labs for 201 and 202. physics 101-103 w lab 101-103, and a bacteriology course w/ lab.
 
You must log in or register to reply here.
Top