Why go to Pharmacy School in California?
It’s an all too familiar scenario: a student deciding what schools to apply to, eager to take the next step in life. Many students are anxious to leave their home state, while others are too hesitant to make a cross-country move. However, for future pharmacy students, California has proven to be at the top of the list even when making a cross-country move. Whether this is due to the many pharmacy schools the state offers, its stellar pharmacy-research reputation, or just the state itself, pharmacy students flock to the state on the Pacific and rarely ever look back.
Some of the first pharmacy schools in the nation were founded in California, such as the University of California in San Francisco’s School of Pharmacy and the University of Southern California’s School of Pharmacy (first Pharm.D. Program in the nation!). The California Pharmaceutical Society was founded in 1868, and only four years later founded the California College of Pharmacy (later to become the School of Pharmacy at the University of California in San Francisco). The school was the first pharmacy school in the West and only the tenth in the United States. This was a major step in pharmacy circles and began California’s foray into the pharmacological industry. The original Society founded the pharmacy school in order to advance pharmaceutical knowledge in the west and “elevate the professional level of apothecaries in California”.
It only took a year for the California College of Pharmacy to affiliate with the University of California, adding much more credibility to the program. A new curriculum was established in 1934 that replaced the previous vocational training and instead added a bachelor’s degree to the program, heightening the attention the school received from around the country. The Doctor of Pharmacy program was established in 1955, only five years after USC’s School of Pharmacy offered it as the first school in the nation to do so. The University of California currently remains popular with its students because of the many options its Pharmacy program presents them with – they can receive a dual PhD and PharmD at the same time or choose a specific discipline within the pharmaceutical industry to focus on during the course of their studies. USC still considers itself the first pharmacy school in California, since it was properly established in 1905 (whereas the University of California’s school was not considered a school until 1955 – it was previously a ‘college’). USC, however, still manages to attract 50% of the pharmacists in the region and remains a highly-ranked research institution.
Pharmacy students have a lot to think about when comparing these two schools, but no matter which pharmacy school they decide on in California, both will lead to a promising future.
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