Pharmacy school can be grueling. You are not only going to but are expected to spend 30-40 hours outside of classroom time studying on your own. If you consider going to class already a full time endeavor, consider going to pharmacy school as holding two full time jobs.

I graduated cum laude from pharmacy school and was able to stay on Dean’s List throughout my entire time there. If there is one thing I can tell you about studying in pharmacy school it is that there is a hard way to do it and a smart way to do it.

Of course, nothing will replace you putting in the time and effort but I can tell you that not all study hours are created equal. There are efficient and inefficient ways to study so here are the 7 study tips to be successful in pharmacy school from what to do before class even starts to what to do until the minute before exam time.

 

1. Review materials beforehand

You have probably heard this during orientation or you will if you have not started pharmacy school yet but I assure you that at least one professor is going say reviewing materials beforehand is your number one tip to success in pharmacy school.

Unfortunately I had to learn this the hard way. I started my first year of pharmacy school choosing to ignore this advice. I had four years of college under my belt where I graduated with over a 3.5 GPA and never reviewed materials before class. So I thought I’d be fine.

And perhaps you will be too. Especially if you have a strong background in science as I did, you will find that the first year mostly contain review materials to set the foundation for future lessons.

However as I entered therapeutics (the meat of pharmacy school) my second year I found myself struggling. I found myself pulling all-nighters (not a good idea), and studying more hours than I did my first year but still getting worse results.

So I finally took their advice, one year later, to start reviewing materials beforehand. And it just made everything click so much faster. Class became easier to follow because I had a vague idea of what the lesson would be on and was able to focus my attention on the materials that were truly hard.

Studying post-class also became easier because it felt like a second review. Overall my grades improved significantly even with cutting down study hours.

 

2. Take notes on your laptop

If you are currently in pharmacy school or entering pharmacy school at this time, you are likely a millennial. This means, you’ve probably grown up with computers.

So you are likely to be familiar with using laptops to take notes. Use it in class! In fact, some pharmacy schools are even providing laptops (and by providing, I mean you pay for it with your tuition) for mandatory use in classroom.

I cannot tell you enough how easy it is to take notes on your laptop. I am sure for most of us, we type faster than we can write. And by taking notes on the computer you can fit more notes with legible handwriting.

I used Microsoft OneNote to take my notes in pharmacy school but any program that allow you to take notes on a PDF file is going to work just as well.

Think about the environment and how much paper you can save. There are a lot of study materials in pharmacy school and professors are going to be providing a lot of information that you may only need to reference and not actually need to print.

More importantly, what about when you need to refer back to your old notes from the previous year or even just the previous semester? Trust me, you won’t find it. You won’t even want to think about the daunting task of trying to find it.

My friends that printed out lectures before each class and took notes on paper would ask me to send them my notes when they need to refer to something from previous semesters. A friend even asked me to send all my notes to her at the end of pharmacy school so she could use it to study for board exams because she couldn’t possibly take the 5 boxes worth of notes back home at the end of pharmacy school.

Let’s face it. You are going to end up throwing all those paper notes away after pharmacy school, especially if you are moving back to a home state.

3. Don’t skip class

This is straightforward enough. Don’t skip class. Why would you? You are paying upwards of $50,000/year in tuition to learn. So go to class.

You may be tempted to skip class especially if the class is recorded. You are probably thinking you are too tired to go to class that day, that you won’t be able to concentrate anyway. But trust me, coming from personal experience it is hard to block out time outside of designated class time to listen to that recording. You are also more likely to space out listening to a recording than when you are present and engaged in a classroom setting.

A bad habit that a couple of my friends developed and that I started to develop before breaking myself out of it was to skip a class to study for another class’s exam that was coming up later that day.

It’s not worth it. You end up spending even more time trying to catch up and you are probably going to miss information that you can’t see your professors do in class by not being there.

4. Review each lesson at the end of each lecture

After a long full day of lectures you are probably tempted to just hit the bed and go to sleep. I cannot tell how you important it is to just look through the notes that you took that day. And it can be as little as 15 minutes for each class. Trust me, that weird note you wrote, you won’t remember next week what that was all about when you’re trying to study for the exam.

There is simply something to be said about the fact that my most successful classmates had one thing in common: they reviewed materials the night of the lecture. It really works to review study materials when it is still fresh in your mind.

5. Engage in study group sessions only for review

I noticed that after orientation, people are so eager to create a study group. Study group is nice and it definitely helps with accountability. But trial and error have made me realize how inefficient it is to have a study group when you are just starting to study new materials.

You and your group are going to be at different places and confused about different things that sometimes you just need to take your own quiet time to figure out first. So be comfortable studying on your own.

Study group works well to review materials and rehash difficult topics and I highly encourage getting together with your peers a day or two before the test but don’t rely on study groups to get each minute of your studying time.

Now this may sound cut-throat but an important aspect of a successful study group is finding the right people. Don’t just go with the first group of people you meet at orientation (unless you actually really click and study well together).

Don’t be afraid to stop going to a study group where the members are slacking and are relying on you to teach them everything. Although you definitely learn by teaching others, you need to find a group that is moving along at a speed similar to yours so that together you can help each other out instead of slowing each other down.

6. If you want to study with other people, go to the library

Now, if you are like me and sometimes can’t find the motivation to study on your own and like to have someone else there studying in silence with you, try the library.

There are two reasons why the library is the best place for quiet studying.

Number one, you are forced to stay silent in a library. Because no matter how much you say you won’t talk, you will be tempted to talk to your study partner. And if you are at a café or at home, there is nothing stopping you from continuing to talk. In the library you are forced to keep the talking to a minimal.

Number two, you save money by not having buy a drink when you go to a café. I talked about how I was able to save by not spending money on coffee everyday. And if you are in pharmacy school, you are likely broke so any saving you can muster is a good idea.

7. Relax and don’t talk about study materials while waiting to take the exam

Those few minutes as you wait before the classroom opens to take an exam is the absolute worst. Chatters and nervous energy fills the air.

A huge pet-peeve of mine was when my friends would start talking about study materials or worse, argue about what is right or wrong literally a minute away from taking the exam.

So I try to stay away from that chatter because you will only confuse yourself more if you try to squeeze extra information right before you go into the exam room. Your brain is probably already on system-overload and nervousness is already going to make you second-guess yourself as is so don’t add any more stress.

Trust yourself. Trust that you have done enough, that you have put in the efforts, and that you will be just fine.

So that is it for my 7 study tips to be highly successful in pharmacy school. I attribute my success in pharmacy school due to implementing these tips so if you don’t think you will see the benefits, at least give it a try. The worst thing that can happen is it doesn’t work, but if it does, won’t it be great to study less hours but get better results? Wishing you the best of luck in pharmacy school!