Which Year of Pharmacy School is the Hardest?

Hi. Yes, yes I'm here. If I'm being honest with y'all October has not been my month. I was ready for the spooky season, but man did it spooked me. Not going to get into details because it is private, I'm still sad but I'll be okay. October also hasn't been the greatest month because I'm overwhelmed. I'm in several organizations with leadership positions, 2 jobs, 2 patients, stressed, APPE applications are due for pre-selected sites, and much more is going on. I love what I'm doing, but I'm sorta stuck between feeling like I'm doing too much, but not enough. Third-year of pharmacy school has been tough and I came in thinking this year 'WOW, nothing will be as hard... {fill in the year/semester}" I think I've realized each year has its struggles and is the hardest at that time.

P1 year was when everything was new. I was trying to see where I fit in my school, a new area of the country, missing my family/friends, time management and just learning what study techniques worked for me. I struggled with learning how to handle a large amount of information given to me this year of pharmacy school. At this time I thought this is the hardest year out of my pharmacy school career. This year we had exams in clusters, so every 2-3 weeks we would have 3 exams back to back days. Also, we had a lot of group assignments this year. A lot of organizing schedules and meeting up to discuss the projects.

P2 year was the year of exams every week. Every week we had a high steak, high-intensity exam and I was constantly under a stage of stress. There weren't many group assignments this year. I think I thought this year was the worst because I was always worried about our exams. Some of our modules were super short and only had 2 exams. Making the exams 45% each. I struggled a lot in pharmacokinetics toward the end. This was also the year I was working and going to school. Which was something I overall wrestled with internally, because I was doing well in one area of my life and poorly in another. I thought to myself, this was the hardest year out of my pharmacy school career. In the spring is when I became immunized certified! I was and still, am very excited to get this certification. When I started being able to immunize patients I really got excited about pharmacy again.

P3 year has been overwhelming in the sense that life has picked up. I am the leader now on campus, contribute my ideas and time to be apart of events. We have a million assignments, projects, various group things, and working 2 jobs is a lot. I also have been assigned, 2 patients. One for my longitudinal IPPE and one for my interprofessional experience which I am paired with a nursing student. Now I question myself. Have I spread myself too thin? I'm also worried all the time. Worried about where I'll end up and what if I choose the wrong area. Worried about what APPE I should take and apply to. Worried that I'm not good enough or will miss an opportunity. Now, because of all of this, I think to myself THIS IS THE YEAR THAT IS THE HARDEST of my pharmacy school career.

My whole purpose of explaining my year to year and my thoughts are to show each year is hard on its way. Each year has new challenges, new highs, and lows. Want to know the best part about it? You will survive. It is crazy how I have grown as an individual and how resilient you become. Pharmacy school isn't easy, but if it was everyone would do it. I can say so far in my journey that it is worth it. Even though the tears, anxiety, the moments I'm on top of the world, the smiles its all worth it if you genuinely love pharmacy. I feel like this post was not super uplifting, but sorta therapeutic to me writing out all my stress throughout the years. However, if one individual finds that they connect with this and realize you're not alone we all deal with doubts, bad grades, stress, and all the fun good times that come with pharmacy school. You are not alone.