How To Use Your School Vacation Wisely For Pharmacy Students In Nigeria

Pharmacy school vacation

Days in the university is one that is not easily forgotten. It may bring satisfaction or regret or both depending on how it was managed. This is a very important stage of a young life of which the experience you create is totally your responsibility.

As a graduate out of the school of pharmacy, looking back through school days as a student sometimes bring back memories of wishes I have done or known better than I did at that time. These things new students can leverage on to enjoy their own days. If you are a current pharmacy student in a university, I want you to see things differently.

The world is changing and growing on a different font. Doing things our fore fathers did that work for them in their time may not produce the same result today. They may not understand, as the new trend may seem to them as obsolete or vague. This is why it is important to consider the strength and weakness, opportunity and threat of any venture. Failure is better than no attempt.

The job opportunity for the pharmacist is high. However, that does not mean it is a successfully escape from the unemployment situation of the country. According to one statistics, there are about 19 % of unemployed graduates in Nigeria. This figure may be flawed as that may be referring to only university graduates undermining the number from other tertiary institutions.

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Every student wants better life after graduation. This is believed to be achieve when one gets a well paying job. The only way to achieve that is good grade. However, employers want not just human book as their staffs but one with sell-able skills and talent. Looking back on those school days, one could now see clearly, what could have been done to achieve this (laid better foundation).

You choose pharmacy for reasons best known to you or maybe you wanted pharmacology and mistakenly entered pharmacy. Lol (too bad. Lucky you). However, no matter the job you are doing, you need money. Just the degree may not guarantee your success. As a young pharmacist, you need lots have experience. Industrial Training (I.T), Clerkship, and Internship is only a form of introduction, which every other pharmacy graduate has. You need an added advantage.

What is the way forward?

Concentrating on your academics may be risky at the end. Look around you. Lots of registered pharmacist are engaged in other business added with their practice. School is for self-development. Most time getting a good grade to be employed by another who may not achieve such a grade in school but have some form of other extra knowledge than you. Such an employee determines the salary for staffs.

Experience is necessary for two things; it will give you upper hands among job hunters before the employers and gives you ideas to start and succeed in your own business.

To get this experience, it is best to start from a reasonable time. If you are in your first year in pharmacy reading this, congrats to you. However, any other level can learn one or two things today.

There are about 5 – 6 years in the pharmacy school of academic activities excluding strikes. A year is made up of 2 semesters. This is in most cases divided into four months each. This sum up to eight months of academic activities. A couple of advice in foreign countries encourage their own students to take up some extra curricular activities during the academic calendar. However, this I know is not feasible in the type of pharmacy curriculum and calendar in this country.

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Four months will be the vacation for the year. This four months, when put together for five years, will amount to twenty months or twenty-four months of six years pharmacy programmed. That is about two years. So what are we going to do with free two years of in activities?

Learn something

Here are what you can learn during your school vacation:

• Read

This is what the parents will tell you to do. Read for the next semester that is coming. It is not bad. Get the next semesters’ material from friends a year ahead. Read as much as you can. However, this will increase your academic grades.

• Work

The work can fall into two categories. Work for the experience or for the money.

• Experience

There is work you can learn in a space of four months successfully. In such a case, plan with the manager on how to allow you when academic begins and resume when on another vacation ( the first-semester vacation is about a month while the second semester is three months). A good example is computer programming (I learn blogging). After the first year, it is possible to apply for another that will help to build your curriculum vitae. However, because this will be expensive, most works for experience require capital.

In other cases, learning something that will take years to learn is also beneficial. However, it means no other directions.

• Work For Money

Working for money also add one or two things to your skills. Although, most managers will not expose the practical details of the work you are doing because you are not there for the experience. However, it still pays. In totality, take a job not just for the money but also for what you will learn.

Advantages

There are numerous advantages to working during vacations. Some of them are:

• Money: Whether you are working for experience or money, money will still come to you. If you work for money you will have more than the person working for experience since there is a bargain every month.
• Experience: Working for experience will improve the quality of your C.V to employers. The best part of it is that it will give you an added advantage of starting something of your own. It makes establishing yourself easy.

Working for a community pharmacy will give you experience, money and will improve your academic performance.

Whatever you choose, let it reflect what you intend to gain in the future. It will benefit you in the future both on your own and for your employer.

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