The Things I Love in a Pharmacist Career

It’s midnight. I’m still awake doing school work at my dining room table. My dad comes in the door, just getting home from work. This is my first time seeing him all day since his day starts at 4 in the morning. He walks to where he keeps his medication. He opens up a pill bottle, takes the daily dose as instructed for that bottle and moves onto the next bottle. To this day my father still has to take a bunch of different medications. I always was curious about these pills and how they were helping him. How were they working in his body? What were they doing to help him? He’s allowed to take all of these together? What if something goes wrong?

It was in my sophomore year of High school when I came to the conclusion that I wanted to one day be a Pharmacist. How I got to this decision was interesting, being that I didn’t always know about this career. I’ve always been curious about it from the first-hand experience of watching my dad, but it never crossed my mind that I could be one of those people who deal with medication. When I was little I had my heart set on being a teacher. This wanting stuck with me all the way up to high school. I enjoyed the thought of being able to teach. I knew I wanted to teach within the areas of either math or science, or if I could maybe both. I’ve always enjoyed my math and science courses heavily over my other classes. Oddly, there was a point of time where I then pondered the thought of pursing a business career until I took an accounting course in high school. I thought I would maybe enjoy accounting because of how I enjoyed math and just in general working with numbers. I did enjoy it, though there was one thing that stopped me from pursing this. I didn’t think it would fit well with my personality and just overall what my passion is. I noticed that accounting, with all respect to those who do it, didn’t fit with me because of how I wanted a career that required a deeper interpersonal connection with the people I would be helping. In Pharmacy, interpersonal skills are very important. There is a certain level of empathy that you need to be capable of expressing along with just properly communicating across information that your patients need to know. So, my mind began pondering the options I had. I still have the wanting to be a teacher but ever since I decided that Pharmacy is what I wanted to study I have been expanding underneath that category by making a lot of different big goals underneath it. I want to obtain a Doctorate of Pharmacy because of I feel like I could live a very fulfilling life as a pharmacist. I feel like there is a lot of directions and paths I could take to really dive deep in this career and people’s lives. For example, where I would want to work after graduating would either be in a hospital, or for the armed forces. As soon as I’m able to, I would also want to be a part of the Peace Corps. The reason why I would choose a hospital environment is because of my experience I’ve had in hospitals. One key event in my life that solidified this was when I had to undergo surgery and I had to go to a bunch of appointments before my surgery date, and then after. During the whole experience, I was thinking about how it would be to work in one.

One thing about me is that I love meeting new people and getting to know them. In a hospital, I would have this major opportunity to do this as a part of my job while aiding them with their medication. This is also a moment where I had to start taking medication of my own, while I was recovering from my surgery. As for the reason, why I would also maybe want to work for the armed forces is because of the environment and benefits, but also because growing up I was always curious as to if there was a way I could work for the armed forces but just in way where I had a job related to healthcare. Lastly as a reason for why I would want to devote my time to the Peace Corps is because of the goal of their mission and how I can travel with it, and meet new people. I love the idea of traveling and seeing the world, but to tie this into my job and being able to help people in a respect to health care again, is something I want to devote my career to. Looking at another reason beyond just the location of where I would want to work, is the salary that pharmacist make. I come from a family that is lower middle class. Both my father and mother did not have the opportunity to finish high school, and therefore they were not able to attend college because of finances. I plan to one day have a family of my own and I want to be able to support them sufficiently when my kids decide to go to college and figure out their own lives. Growing up, both of my parents were full/overtime working parents. To an extent, I’ve had to learn to be very independent being my parents both weren’t always home at the same time I was. This meant planning my time efficiently and pushing myself to get done what I had to do. I had to budget my time in regards to school, studying and completing homework assignments, and also with other goals I wanted to accomplish. At times, motivating myself, at such a young age, felt like an impossible challenge. However, the one thing that stood clear was the fact that I had no other option. If I made a different decision I would’ve only unnecessarily burdened my family, and in the end put myself at a disadvantage. When I was around the age of eight my family made the decision to move to Seaford, after previously living in Queens. This is when and where I began to notice the effects of being a latch-key kid. I’ve never really gave it much thought before, but that changed after I heard the term ‘stay-at-home-mother’. When I first heard that phrase, the thought that immediately popped into my head was ‘Why can’t I have a stay-at-home parent?’ I imagined it to be a more desirable setting and I would ruminate about simply, how nice it would be to spend more time with my parents. I remember, as I would wait for the bus, I’d see the line of parents in their car waiting for their kids. I wondered what it would feel like opening the car door to see my mother or father, instead of walking up steps to a bus driver every day.

As I continue getting older my everyday life, just like many others, seems to be getting busier and busier while my responsibilities continue to increase. While this is happening my whole perspective on being a latch-key kid is undergoing a change from a presumptive view to a more understandable one. I also feel more appreciative of my childhood, and I now give more attention to just how fortunate I am to have been raised the way I was. I used to think that being a latch-key kid would leave me only with the feelings of deprivation, loneliness, and in constant longing for a different life from which I had. Instead, I currently feel the opposite. While I did feel a bit lonely at times, and I did often dream up how my life would be if I had my parents around more, I would not change anything that has happened. Even though I did want to have typical family dinners with everyone home at the same time, see them at my sports games, or dance recitals, I still would not change a thing. I can only feel nothing but gracious about the way everything has turned out so far. Even though both of my parents are high school dropouts, and work full/overtime, they have never failed to show their support and love to my brothers and me. What I was too ignorant to recognize and appreciate because of my lack of experience, was the fact that my parents were fulfilling their roles as being parents obligates them to do. I’ve unknowingly from an age younger than most, and to a certain extent, have learned what it’s like to be independent. This has had a major impact on, who I am, and on all that I aspire to be and achieve in my future. While I think that what I learned, and developed in being a “latch key” kid helped to form who I am the one thing I want for my future and for my own family is the ability to not have to live from paycheck to paycheck, as I currently am. Unfortunately, money is something that opens up a lot of doors in this society we live in and I want to be able to bring my life to the fullest for me and future family. I haven’t had the opportunity to work in a Pharmacy as a pharm tech yet but I am planning on working it into my schedule. I currently and have had financial issues which required me to take on jobs for myself that aren’t “shift” jobs. The work I have been doing is more freelance; which includes jobs like babysitting, looking after people animals, & dog walking.

As for my education, I am currently working towards a bachelor of Biological sciences at the University of Buffalo. Aside from the prerequisites classes, I have been trying to build an all-around schedule. For example, this year I decided on taking a law class because I know the option of taking pharmacy career and obtaining a dual degree with law could be a potential option for me.