I am applying to pharmacy school this fall. Could you let me know what you think of my personal statement?

Question

my essay should address:

-why i selected pharmacy as a career and how the dr. of pharmacy degree relates to my immediate and long term goals

-describe how my personal, educational, and professional background will help me achieve my goals

Like Dorothy from The Wizard of Oz, my choice to pursue pharmacy was not laid out so colorfully before me. From the age of five, I was so sure a doctor was what I wanted to be. My plans changed, however, when I was taken off the yellow brick road and led in a new direction. I was placed in a pharmacy tech class the first day of my senior year of high school instead of the clinical rotation class I signed up for because that class was full. Rather than loathe this whole experience, I decided to make the best of it.

When the class was over, I knew everything I thought I knew about my future plans, hopes, and dreams had changed. I came to the realization that I did not just want to make a diagnosis for a patient but actually be the person who offered the patient the cure; I want to be that missing link between the pain and the healing. After becoming a certified pharmacy tech, my mouth watered for more. My decision to pursue a career in pharmacy may have come from a simple act of fate in a small town high school, but my passion for it came long before that. It came from a five feet, two inches tall woman known as my grandmother. For me, the happiest place on Earth was next to her. As I was turning eight, my grandmother was diagnosed with the worst type of cancer possible, pancreatic. Unfortunately, at this time there were not a lot of options available in treating this aggressive disease and soon the battle was over. I don’t remember a whole lot during those last few moments but I do remember asking myself, “Why can’t she take medicine like I do and get better?”. My grandmother, like the Good Witch, had just given me my brick road to follow.

Today, so many cancer drugs are available and many people are winning the battle with cancer. However, pancreatic cancer still remains hard to treat. For this reason, I would choose to focus on cancer drug research and development. Specifically, I would love to work on a multidrug combination involving many different agents directed at many cellular targets. My time as a chemistry teaching assistant, where I was in charge of leading labs to get the expected results and consulting with other teaching assistants about the execution of the lab, will serve me well when I have to run my own experiments in research or collaborate with others as a team. At pharmacies, I have of course filled prescriptions but my true passion lies in compounding. Pharmacy school can provide me with the first hand experience of compounding which would serve as the jumping board for me to leap out into the research field of cancer drugs.

From volunteering at retail and hospital pharmacies to simply the museum, I gained a sense of humanity. Knowing that the service I was providing, whether it was in the form of a medication or reading a book to kids, I felt fulfilled to know that these people may in some small way leave in better condition than whey they arrived. The time I have devoted to helping others is just the beginning. I want it to transcend into helping people locally as well as globally. My long term goals include traveling to third world countries several times a year to bring medicine to areas with poor access to health care. To travel and organize pharmacy expeditions in other countries seems daunting. However, having served as assistant to the manager/ owner of a business focused on bringing vitamins to the public, I learned how to sell the product not only to the public but big corporations as well. I was in charge of marketing and advertisement, which helped bring in a younger demographic looking to get built. I believe these skills will be vital in gaining support to travel halfway around the world to help others.

Dorothy’s sudden dream changed her life and gave her a new perspective. Likewise, with the help of one unplanned course and my own Good Witch, I have discovered my true passion for pharmacy and am just as determined to face whatever Wicked Witch or flying monkeys I have to. While clicking my heels together will not get me what I want, I am prepared to devote the next four years of my life to becoming a pharmacist.

Answer 1

i think the best part of your essay is that you refer back to your experience working as a chemistry lab assistant.  i think you should make a list of things you did and learned while in that role, and then figure out how you can make those experiences relevant to your new goal.

i also really like your realization that you wanted to come up with the cure, not just offer it. i also like the story about your grandmother's battle with cancer; it shows believable motivation on your part.  

in all honesty though, i think you should rework your essay and check the grammar.  first drafts are always rough, but you have a solid start.

i think you should reconsider using the wizard of oz analogy.  it is nice that you came up with a creative analogy to describe how you got to your decision, but i don't think it makes sense.  the first sentence of your essay doesn't sense to me.  you should cut the reader some slack and just make sure the story is concise, clear and logical.  it is nice to be creative, but something about the wizard of oz analogy seems forced and cliche.    

if i were to rework your essay i would make these changes:

a. open up saying early on your dreams were to become a doctor, it was a position you happily and eagerly pictured yourself in.  in preparation, in high school you decided to enroll in a clinical rotation course, to your dismay you were placed in a pharmacy tech class.  maybe say something about something you learned in this class, use that to lead into the statement about realizing you wanted to be the person who actually created the cure, and not the one who diagnosed.  

then you can talk about how your new aspirations were confirmed when everything happened with your grandmother.  talk about how this ties in with your current research goals.

then maybe talk about how/why you are qualified/different from the other guys, maybe list experiences from your time in the lab.  any references to other skills you have acquired will be useful.

then you can pull it all together with a few statements about how following this program will prepare you for your goals.

  

please take my advice with a grain of salt, i'm not a professional writer.  still, i hope you get accepted and that you succeed with your goals.  so many people are waiting on cures!

Answer 2

First, pharmacists are not really that involved in drug discovery/development.  They'll ask, why not PhD?

Secondly, you are very naive.  You won't have the  time to travel.