Career Path

In this career, your responsibilities may include:

• Helping pharmacists dispense prescription medication to customers or healthcare professionals.
• Working in pharmacies, which can be located in grocery stores, drug stores, hospitals, and healthcare facilities.

Job Titles

In your job search, you may find job listings for this career under different titles. You can find some examples of these, as well as more information about this career, at Career One Stop.

Academic Requirements

Typically requires a high school diploma and on-the-job training, a post-secondary certificate, or an associate degree. If you have an associate degree or higher, adding a Doctor of Pharmacy (PharmD) degree would allow you to work as a Pharmacist. Your existing degree might give you advanced standing or transfer credit towards a PharmD, reducing the time it would take you to graduate. You have several options for how to earn your Doctor of Pharmacy (PharmD) degree:

• Unlike with most doctoral programs, you do not need to earn a bachelor’s degree before applying to PharmD programs.
• You only need to have completed two or preferably three years of related undergraduate coursework before applying to PharmD programs. Your associate degree might satisfy all or part of this requirement.
• You can also apply to “early assurance” PharmD programs before you have started any undergraduate studies, with the understanding that upon acceptance, you will take two years to complete the required coursework before enrolling in the PharmD program.
• Alternatively, you can apply to a combined undergraduate/doctoral “0-6” PharmD program with only a high school diploma. These programs combine both undergraduate course work and doctoral studies into one six-year program.