Prompt: Your Personal Essay should address why you selected pharmacy as a career and how the Doctor of Pharmacy degree relates to your immediate and long-term professional goals. Describe how your personal, educational, and professional background will help you achieve your goals. The personal essay is an important part of your application for admission and provides you with an opportunity for you to clearly and effectively express your ideas.
I want to get feedbacks on my contents as well as some technical issues. Thanks!
The event that boosted my interest in pharmacy happened while I was sick. I was sick from the serious flu and had taken medicine for two weeks. Since the symptoms became worse, the pharmacist, without any information of the drug, prescribed me Tamiflu, known as an antiviral drug designed to shorten the flu's duration. For the first three days, my symptoms seemed to be alleviated due to taking the drug; however, since my flu was not completely cured, I decided to take more medicines to hasten my recovery. Yet, when I took a bus to go to the library, I felt like I was to vomit all of a sudden. I could not handle my temptation towards vomiting, so I got off at the next bus stop and vomited three times. My situation resulted in additional negative symptoms such as sore throat and skin rash. I was doubtful whether it was my pharmacist's action of misinforming the side effects of taking Tamiflu. But, my curiosity towards the side effects of Tamiflu triggered me to research about the drug. I discovered that the unfortunate symptoms that I suffered from were common side effects of Tamiflu. This experience taught me that it is crucial to be aware of possible side effects of any drugs that I consume, as well as understanding the brief mechanism of the drugs. Through this experience, I have become interested in a patient-centered pharmacy and let my patients to be aware of the mechanism of the drug they consume as well as the possible side effects. I hope to meet my goal as a pharmacist in the future, in which I desire to help patients avoid having undesirable situations likewise to my own experience with taking Tamiflu.
As I attended high school and college, I gained higher levels of scientific knowledge and learned to explore science with broader scope of view. My enthusiasm for being a pharmacist was enhanced by my increasing knowledge of the sciences. Several biology and chemistry classes, including bacteriology and metabolic biochemistry, were especially inspiring because these included topics about drug mechanisms. From these classes, I had a chance to learn about several examples of drugs that were used to treat certain diseases.
Moreover, my internship program at Diabetes & Cancer Institute taught me how drugs interact within the human body. This six-week internship program integrated thorough research about diabetes as well as intense laboratory experiments. I have learned several experimental techniques such as qRT-PCR and Western Blotting. This experience has shown me that drug mechanisms have diverse effects, which played an interesting role in the field of research I wish to pursue. Through internship, I have become more fascinated with pragmatic aspects of biological science basis for studying pharmacy. I witnessed knowledge learned from college level classes is applied in the real world. At the end of the internship, I presented my six weeks of work to audiences. Not only did the internship enhanced me more towards being a Pharmacist, but also taught me fundamental skills in explaining my ideas effectively when diagnosing my patients.
As a vice president of KSEA (Korean-American Scientists-Engineer Association), I have developed my communication skills and confidence through presentations during the staff meetings where I had to stood up in front of staff members to present my idea to enhance our club. To encourage other students majoring in science to join club activity, I, along with another vice president and the president, created ideas for new events that allow students to interact with each other such as mentor and mentee event. I noticed the number of students attending the events had increased over time. This gave me a great deal of confidence and a sense of accomplishment. This successful outcome is a testament to my confidence and communication skills that will be also helpful for people living in the community when they seek my help. Moreover, I learned that my efforts can dramatically encourage other science major students to gain confidence within the field of science.
Through dealing with unexpected side effects from taking Tamiflu, experiencing internship in the lab, and leading my KSEA, I have learned that providing right information to patients and interpersonal communication skills are the key characteristics for being a successful pharmacist. All of these have lightened me the pathway that will help me pursue my dream as a friendly, dependable and devoted pharmacist.
I want to get feedbacks on my contents as well as some technical issues. Thanks!
The event that boosted my interest in pharmacy happened while I was sick. I was sick from the serious flu and had taken medicine for two weeks. Since the symptoms became worse, the pharmacist, without any information of the drug, prescribed me Tamiflu, known as an antiviral drug designed to shorten the flu's duration. For the first three days, my symptoms seemed to be alleviated due to taking the drug; however, since my flu was not completely cured, I decided to take more medicines to hasten my recovery. Yet, when I took a bus to go to the library, I felt like I was to vomit all of a sudden. I could not handle my temptation towards vomiting, so I got off at the next bus stop and vomited three times. My situation resulted in additional negative symptoms such as sore throat and skin rash. I was doubtful whether it was my pharmacist's action of misinforming the side effects of taking Tamiflu. But, my curiosity towards the side effects of Tamiflu triggered me to research about the drug. I discovered that the unfortunate symptoms that I suffered from were common side effects of Tamiflu. This experience taught me that it is crucial to be aware of possible side effects of any drugs that I consume, as well as understanding the brief mechanism of the drugs. Through this experience, I have become interested in a patient-centered pharmacy and let my patients to be aware of the mechanism of the drug they consume as well as the possible side effects. I hope to meet my goal as a pharmacist in the future, in which I desire to help patients avoid having undesirable situations likewise to my own experience with taking Tamiflu.
As I attended high school and college, I gained higher levels of scientific knowledge and learned to explore science with broader scope of view. My enthusiasm for being a pharmacist was enhanced by my increasing knowledge of the sciences. Several biology and chemistry classes, including bacteriology and metabolic biochemistry, were especially inspiring because these included topics about drug mechanisms. From these classes, I had a chance to learn about several examples of drugs that were used to treat certain diseases.
Moreover, my internship program at Diabetes & Cancer Institute taught me how drugs interact within the human body. This six-week internship program integrated thorough research about diabetes as well as intense laboratory experiments. I have learned several experimental techniques such as qRT-PCR and Western Blotting. This experience has shown me that drug mechanisms have diverse effects, which played an interesting role in the field of research I wish to pursue. Through internship, I have become more fascinated with pragmatic aspects of biological science basis for studying pharmacy. I witnessed knowledge learned from college level classes is applied in the real world. At the end of the internship, I presented my six weeks of work to audiences. Not only did the internship enhanced me more towards being a Pharmacist, but also taught me fundamental skills in explaining my ideas effectively when diagnosing my patients.
As a vice president of KSEA (Korean-American Scientists-Engineer Association), I have developed my communication skills and confidence through presentations during the staff meetings where I had to stood up in front of staff members to present my idea to enhance our club. To encourage other students majoring in science to join club activity, I, along with another vice president and the president, created ideas for new events that allow students to interact with each other such as mentor and mentee event. I noticed the number of students attending the events had increased over time. This gave me a great deal of confidence and a sense of accomplishment. This successful outcome is a testament to my confidence and communication skills that will be also helpful for people living in the community when they seek my help. Moreover, I learned that my efforts can dramatically encourage other science major students to gain confidence within the field of science.
Through dealing with unexpected side effects from taking Tamiflu, experiencing internship in the lab, and leading my KSEA, I have learned that providing right information to patients and interpersonal communication skills are the key characteristics for being a successful pharmacist. All of these have lightened me the pathway that will help me pursue my dream as a friendly, dependable and devoted pharmacist.