# Pharmacy or Computer Engineering?



## prime97

I am really good in science and math. And I want to go into the medical field, but reluctant to get my hands dirty, so I decided to choose pharmacy. On the other hand, I also like computers and want to learn how they work and everything. They both seem to make quite a bit of money. I got accepted to computer engineering from drexel and pharmacy from temple. Which one is the better choice as in when you get out and find a job. (Taking all factors in consideration)


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## Fluvial

"Better choice" is unique to each individual. Perhaps you could list the "factors in consideration", and what you are looking for in a career.


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## udpolo15

I agree with Fluvial. A lot can change in terms of job outlook in the 4-5 years you be in school. I think pharmacy is in high demand and starting salaries are pretty decent. However, I thought I have heard that your salary doesn't grow as much or as quickly as other field.

Have you considered going pharmacy and getting a minor in computer engineering?


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## prime97

(factors in consideration) For example, Obama's health care bill. Will that effect the salary for pharmacy. Another example is that I live in Pennsylvania. Will I be able to find a job when get out of college. I know some of these factors sound ridiculous, but if you know of any other factors, it would be helpful. Thank you!!!


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## prime97

udpolo15 said:


> Have you considered going pharmacy and getting a minor in computer engineering?



That would be a good idea, but how long would that take


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## Dleg

Better yet, look at what each job is really like, and whether or not you would want to do that every day for the rest of your life.

Pharmacy: You're indoors all the time. Mostly very repetitive work: filling out prescriptions. You must talk to customers constantly and deal with their complaints, fears, confusion. There will be a little problem solving here and there, and you will probably also have to be a manager and supervise other staff, maintain bookkeeping, etc. It will probably be like this for the rest of your career, day in and day out.

Computer engineering: You will work indoors all the time. You will probably only rarely talk to another human being, in person. You likely will have no management or supervision responsibilities. You will be working on problem solving every hour of the day, most likely, sitting in your chair in front of your monitor. It will probably be like this for the rest of your career, though you will get to see a variety of applications.


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## Dexman PE

Dleg said:


> Better yet, look at what each job is really like, and whether or not you would want to do that every day for the rest of your life.
> Pharmacy: You're indoors all the time. Mostly very repetitive work: filling out prescriptions. You must talk to customers constantly and deal with their complaints, fears, confusion. There will be a little problem solving here and there, and you will probably also have to be a manager and supervise other staff, maintain bookkeeping, etc. It will probably be like this for the rest of your career, day in and day out.
> 
> Computer engineering: You will work indoors all the time. You will probably only rarely talk to another human being, in person. You likely will have no management or supervision responsibilities. You will be working on problem solving every hour of the day, most likely, sitting in your chair in front of your monitor. It will probably be like this for the rest of your career, though you will get to see a variety of applications.


Agreed.

My mother is a pharmacist and she absolutely hates the customer service aspect of the job. Most of the "problems" she has to solve relate to insurance coverages, medicaid, and customers who dont want to pay the prices for their scrips.

I had thoughts of being a pharmacist as well, but i saw how much customer service was required and i just dont work well with the public. Person to person interaction is one thing, dealing with the public is another.


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## Dleg

^Yeah, I forgot about the insurance hassles. I have a friend who is a pharmacist, and every time I see him, he is tearing his hair out over his computerized billing system, or on the phone with the tech support staff from the software company, because of issues with accepting various insurance types. And then there's the slow payment from some insurers. Of course, that only affects you, personally, if you own the pharmacy. But that's another thing about pharmacists - they're more likely to own their own shop than engineers are (particuarly computer engineers). On the one hand, that's the only true path to fatty money. On the other, it eats your life away.


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## prime97

What are the pros and cons for computer engineering?


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## rktman

Please go the pharmacy route. I graduated college the same time as a high school friend who went to pharmacy school. His salary has been 2x mine for the last 15 yrs. His time on work is 9 to 5, overtime is rare, vacation, stock options, etc. If you find that with an engineering profession, I would be surprised.


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## FusionWhite

I hated my last job and considered doing the pharmacy thing. My FIL is a pharmacist and owns his own business and does very well for himself. I spent some time at his pharmacy sort of watching what goes into actually working as a pharmacist and uhhhggggg.....BORING. Yes the money is good but if your looking for excitement, go elsewhere.


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## Happy

For where I live in Oregon:

Starting salary as a pharmacist - $50-53 /hour. No overtime required. Large bonus available if you work somewhere off the beaten path (I've seen $30K for a 2 year committement in small coastal towns).

Salary as a pharmacist after working 20 years in the field - $50-53 /hour. Never really changes unless you buy your own business, but I have a feeling that mom/pop drug stores are becoming a thing of the past as chain retail pharmacies will dominate the business.

Starting salary as an engineer - $20 to $30 /hour. More $$ after you get your PE. However, one key difference is that if you work really hard and are valuable you have the potential to make more than that in 20 years. Also potential to make big dollars consulting. Most engineers probably will never break $45-50 /hour, but the possibilities are certainly there.


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## chaosiscash

^ Don't forget the cost of med school vs a BS in Eng.


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## Dexman PE

chaosiscash said:


> ^ Don't forget the cost of med school vs a BS in Eng.


pa

Pharmacy isnt quite med school, but it is a masters degree.


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## prime97

is it easy to find a job for computer engineering? Pharmacy? What about 10 years in the future?


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## speedyox

prime97 said:


> is it easy to find a job for computer engineering? Pharmacy? What about 10 years in the future?


I'm a computer engineer and a few years ago when the economy went to crap and the job market in Chicago got terrible, I briefly considered pharmacy as an alternate career. I decided that I was better off as a computer engineer with 5-10 years experience than paying for a pharmacy degree and starting over as a new grad.

A computer engineering degree can get you jobs in a few different areas such as system architecture, digital design (Verilog/VHDL programming), electronics design, network design, software engineering, and other electrical engineering and/or software jobs. It's pretty much all inside work doing analysis and design. There's lots of interaction with other people but little interaction with customers. Computer engineers tend to make more than other engineers (civil, mechanical, power, etc) and have virtually no need to ever get a PE. Computer engineers can expect to break 100K / year after ~10 years and top out somewhere in the low 100s (today's dollars).

Pharmacy requires more school before you can get a job and pharmacy school is expensive. I don't really know what pharmacists make but they start out higher than most computer engineers.

I don't have any crystal ball or anything, but my gut tells me that it will be easier to find a pharmacy job than a computer engineering job in 20 years. I see electronics and software design going overseas more and more while pharmacists still work in all the pharmacies. But my gut could be all wrong-- pharmacists might be replaced by sophisticated software and be totally obsolete.

If it were me, picking today, knowing what I know now, I'd probably choose pharmacy.


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## chaosiscash

Dexman PE said:


> chaosiscash said:
> 
> 
> 
> ^ Don't forget the cost of med school vs a BS in Eng.
> 
> 
> 
> pa
> 
> Pharmacy isnt quite med school, but it is a masters degree.
Click to expand...

It depends. My two buddies that are pharmacists both went to Med school for four years. They have "Doctor of Pharmacy" (PharmD) degrees. I think you can just be a registered Pharmacist, or something like that, with just a special masters. I'm not really sure what the difference is, other than length of time.


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## Happy

Pharmacists graduating after 200-something need to get a PharD. That means an undergraduate degree and then another 4 years of pharmacy school. Pharmacists who got their license prior to the rule change can work with their BS in it.

Also, demand for pharmacists is pretty high right now. Companies still recruit from overseas to fill demand. You're pretty much guaranteed work.


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## Dexman PE

Happy said:


> Pharmacists graduating after 200-something need to get a PharD. That means an undergraduate degree and then another 4 years of pharmacy school. Pharmacists who got their license prior to the rule change can work with their BS in it.
> Also, demand for pharmacists is pretty high right now. Companies still recruit from overseas to fill demand. You're pretty much guaranteed work.


Unfortunately there is only 3 places to get work as a pharmacist: hospital, retail, or your own business. All 3 are completely different animals. Hospitals are a little more calm, less "customer" interaction, but also the lowest on the pay scale. Retail means you work at Walmart, Walgreens, a grocery store, etc. There is alot of customer interaction (and many are NOT pleasant people), a ton of very repetitive, monotonous work, decent pay. Retail is where the majority of pharms work, and from personal experience, they burn out very quickly. You basically have an 8yr medical degree to count from 1-100 about 200 times PER DAY, then each time youre done counting you have to deal with a pissed off customer who's pissed for one of a multitude of different reasons (cost, insurance coverage, you took too long, its not the same thing as the last time, etc), and you have to do this all over an 8, 10, or 12 hour shift where you're on your feet the whole time and lucky to have a 30 min lunch break. Owning your own drug store is the same as retail except that you have to worry about running a business in addition to all the retail stuff i said above. The money for all 3 is great, but like others have stated, there isnt much in the payraise side of things simply because there is no need, use, or reward for experience. Walmart sees that an entry level pharm does the exact same thing as a 20yr guy.

If you havent noticed, I absolutely HATE customer service when it comes to the public. If i have the opportunity to actually sit down and work with a client, its one thing, but I go crazy if i have to have the same conversation with 200 different people in a single shift (Hi, how are you today? Thats good, did you find everything you needed? How can i help you? blah blah blah).

From a personal reward side, Engineering is the way to go. You can see the fruits of your work, you can "hang your hat" on project, there is room for advancement and rewards for those who choose to work for them.

After 20+ years of working retail pharmacy, my mom is still seen as expendible by Walmart, and she makes roughly the same per hour as she did shortly after graduating (adjusting for inflation). Regardless of how long she works for them, Walmart only cares about the mistakes. You have 10 years of flawless trackrecord, one mistake and youre fired (and im not talking a "life or death" mistake either). You can get fired for giving 101 instead of 100.

So yes, there may be plenty of work for pharmacists, but be prepared to get a medical degree to work in an expendable industry.


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## Dexman PE

You want to see some of the best cost-benefit positions out there, look at nursing. After 9 months on the job my wife was making more than I was as a civil PE. She only needed a BS degree to get the job, and many hospitals both encourage and pay for further training. You are rewarded for continous good work, there is room for advancement (charge nurse, floor manager, department lead, etc.). Plus, it opens the door to be a Nurse Practicioner (sp?) which is basically a MD and allows for additional advancement.

Only challenge (at least here in Denver) is landing the first job. Once you get 5yrs experience, many doors of opportunity will open up and allow you to go down whichever path you want.


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## snickerd3

don't forget hospitals are going the machine dispensing route. A hospital here got a machine to do the medicine dispensing for the entire hospital. What took 3 pharmacists all night to prepare the next days medication now they just need one to fill/watch the machine. doses come out individually wrapped and labeled.


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## Dexman PE

Its important to look beyond the paycheck when you graduate. Yes a pharmacist makes more than an engineer out of school, but is it the work you want to do (day to day, year to year)? Does it provide the opportunities in the future you want? Does is provide the flexibility you want (ie, location, work schedule).


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## prime97

Thank you guys!!! I'm thinking of going in the computer engineering path, but I have one more question. If I do computer engineering, can I try to get a degree in software engineering. Are some of the courses the same?


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## wilheldp_PE

prime97 said:


> Thank you guys!!! I'm thinking of going in the computer engineering path, but I have one more question. If I do computer engineering, can I try to get a degree in software engineering. Are some of the courses the same?


With software engineering, you are going to get a mix of computer science and project/program management classes. You will learn how to plan, code, document, and deploy software.

With computer engineering, you will get a mix of computer science and low voltage electrical engineering classes. You will learn how to design processors and PCBs and write drivers and similar software to work with the hardware.

The two programs will share courses in general math, science and engineering (as will all ABET accredited engineering programs) and some computer science classes.


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