Local teens <em>Explore</em> pharmacy, law and accounting on Lipscomb campus
Janel Shoun |
The students were there to learn how DNA, and scientific research in general, is a part of the pharmacy profession.
About 40students have signed up for Lipscomb University’s first pharmacy Exploring program, coordinated through Learning for Life, a subsidiary of the Boy Scouts of America. The students have committed to meet seven evenings over the course of the school year to learn about the pharmacy profession and hopefully figure out if it is the right profession for them.
“The Exploring program is not only bringing a valuable experience to Nashville’s teens, but it also does a great service for the pharmacy profession, which is expected to suffer from heavy shortages in the next few years,” said Sandra Hood, director of operations for Lipscomb College of Pharmacy and coordinator of the Exploring program. “These kids will get a head start on their college and professional career and we get the opportunity to tell a new generation about the exciting field of pharmacy.”
The program has drawn students such as Omar Salman, a 15-year-old student at Martin Luther King Magnet School, who is thinking about pharmacy… or maybe medicine. He went through the Exploring program in medicine last year.
Or Kimberlyn Frensley, a junior at Hume Fogg Magnet High School, who is firm in her career path to become a missionary pharmacist in Brazil.
These kids are just two of the more than 2,000 Davidson and Williamson County students who are participating in this year’s Exploring program, trying out 25 different careers at 40 locations around town, making the local program the fifth-largest Exploring program in the nation, said Kate Ritchie, an Exploring executive at the Middle Tennessee Learning for Life program.
Lipscomb is playing host to three Exploring “posts” in pharmacy, accounting, and law and government. In fact, Lipscomb is holding the first pharmacy Exploring program held by the Middle Tennessee chapter. Around 400 students expressed interest in the pharmacy profession this year, Ritchie said.
Each year Learning for Life administers a career interest survey to almost all high school students in Davidson and Williamson counties and tabulates the results to find out the most popular careers in the upcoming generation. Pharmacy generally ranks in the top 20 most popular careers, but until now, there hasn’t been a pharmacy organization to take on coordination of a pharmacy program, she said.
That changed last year when Lipscomb announced its creation of a College of Pharmacy. The pharmacy college has already opened applications and will enroll the first class of 75 students in August 2008 pending receipt of pre-candidate status from the Accreditation Council for Pharmacy Education.
“Lipscomb is definitely doing a service by offering these students this program,” said Ritchie. She praised Lipscomb’s pharmacy Exploring curriculum for exposing students to various areas of pharmacy and bringing the information down to the students’ level.
Lipscomb’s Institute of Law, Justice & Society, also a new entity at the university, took on creating an Exploring post for law and government this year. These students have already heard a talk by the president-elect of the American Bar Association, H. Thomas Wells, and over the school year will be learning the keys to winning an argument, touring the courthouse and critiquing Hollywood’s depiction of lawyers.
Around 600 students indicated an interest in law, government and public service, attorney, judge or politician in this year’s career interest survey, said Ritchie. Law has always been in the top 10 of popular careers.
Of course, these high schoolers are still kids. Professional musician and athlete rank as the most popular careers in any given year, Ritchie said, and the Exploring program does comply on music with posts on the business of music and on being in a rock band. But there are also posts for veterinary medicine, physical therapy, fire and emergency services, education, banking, architecture and many more.
With the recent wave of forensic investigation shows on TV, Ritchie has seen that career climb in popularity on the career interest survey, which brings everything back to DNA.
Strawberry DNA, which the future pharmacists found interesting, but also kind of gross. But DNA is the key to figure out the future drugs and therapeutic devices.