Pharmacy/ Law and French

powww

Hey i'm fairly confused about what course i want to do at the moment.. i'm trying to decide between pharmacy and law and french and yes i know these are two completely different courses! really what i want to know is what are both of these courses like and what are the best and worse parts of each course i really like both chemistry and biology and i love french and i'm not too bad at english! any help would be much appreciated !

partyatmygaff

I can't speak for law but from what i've heard it's by and large reading. Hardly any lectures but a ridiculous amount of reading seems to be the general consensus.

Pharmacy, which i'm currently doing is a mix of lectures, labs and practicals. The hours are long, the course is far from easy but on the whole it's very enjoyable. I wrote a long (But looking back on it now, neither very detailed nor perfectly accurate) post about first year last year:
http://www.boards.ie/vbulletin/showpost.php?p=76658471&postcount=224

You asked for pros and cons and here they are:
Pros

• The course material is very interesting, universal and you'll earn a qualification that'll go with you anywhere around the world
• If you like lab work, there's plenty of it in first year and it ranges from protein purification to synthesizing and purifying chemicals/drugs like dibenzalacetone to actually formulating medicines for human use as solutions, capsules, suppositories and semi-solids.
• It's a very focused course like most of the courses in the faculty of health sciences. From day one, it's "drugs and healthcare" and nearly everything revolves around that.
• The lecturers are brilliant at what they do and are (for the most part) very approachable.
• DUPSA (The pharmacy students' union) organise great events
• If you like writing, there will be plenty of reports and assignments to write... :P

Cons

• The hours are very long. For the first term, you'll be in 9-5 day in, day out. For the second term that extends to 9-6 nearly every day. Now, there are occasionally 2-3 hours off every few days depending on the week but as for starts and finishes you're almost certain to start at 9 and finish at 5.
• The material isn't easy although that goes for everything at third level.
• Exams are all packed together in May and you'll be doing exams in modules you finished all the way back in December. The practical exams are notorious for their difficulty too (One tiny mistake can lead to a fail).

powww

Thanks a million that helps a lot