Nearly 750 pharmacy colleges are available in overall India. From those colleges B pharmacy, a four years under graduation degree offered by a nearly 450 pharmacy(AICTE approved) colleges . Approximately 25,000 pharmacy graduates(Pharma fresher) are coming out from these institutions every year. In case of engineering, it is a technical course and have several courses offered in it like ECE,EEE,CSE, IT etc. But Pharmacy is not like that It is a single course, If you say B pharmacy, its just a B pharmacy that’s it.
Best colleges:
Top and best pharmacy offering colleges in India are Manipal college of pharmaceutical sciences, University Institute of pharmaceutical sciences, NIPER, BITS PILANI, Poona college of pharmacy, Bombay college of Pharmacy etc. To tell you statistically these are only the 1 to 10% of all the pharmaceutical institutions in India, Off course I haven’t any idea on those students who are graduated from these colleges, But I have a good idea on those students who were came from the remaining 90% of the pharmaceutical institutions because I am also belongs to this same category. This article is produced by keeping those 90% of students in mind. Here am interested in talking about the job opportunities in pharmaceutical companies only. (Remaining job opportunities will be discussed in another article)
B pharmacy syllabus contains nearly 34 to 35 subjects designed to expertise the student in all the fields which is related to the pharmacy. It contains mainly Pharmaceutics, Pharmaceutical analysis, Pharmacology, Pharmacognosy and Chemistry (Organic chemistry, Inorganic chemistry, Pharmaceutical chemistry, Biochemistry and Medicinal chemistry). Also have the practicals for the above mentioned subjects. After completing the b pharmacy successfully by taking the consolidated marks memo and Provisional certificate in your hand, the actual problem will start from then onwards if they start for searching a job in pharmaceutical industry.
In most of the cases they have a very less knowledge on pharmaceutical industries even they are with a certified pharmacy course. Now tell me how their wish will be fulfilled without having a proper knowledge?. After getting the certificate from the college, if they have any doubts about career, most of the students even they don’t want to go to the college also because of several reasons.
If they know any person from the pharmaceutical industry who is already doing a job, they may have the chance to know something about pharmaceutical companies and their situation regarding a job aspirant, if they don’t know anyone then one and only way is internet. If you are searching for “B pharmacy career opportunities’, definitely it will start with a common and boring sentence ‘There is a lot of opportunities for……. ’you will get a every related information with well structured paragraphs and with beautiful representations. It will show you 232 vacancies for b pharmacy in this website.com, 735 vacancies in that website.com, but still you stay as unemployed for some more months until and unless you worked hard to get a job.
Actually there are several reasons to face like this situation by the student in career starting days. Usually they have a three papers in pharmaceutics that is Pharmaceutics I,II and III (the names may vary depend upon the universities) which is all about compounding the different formulations and their design but they don’t have at least one chapter regarding the overall pharmaceutical company structure, functions and activities even though that subject studying students are expected to do job in the future also.
Even though, industrial training (mini project work) is designed to create some awareness in students, most of the industries will not give a chance to assist them. We can’t point out the industries also for this situation because even a single mistake (like changing the rpm, drying time etc) from an unexperienced person will make a very large impact for that manufacturing company, they have to pay for it. If the plant is manufacturing a USFDA approved products, even a single documentation mistake will leads to withdrawal of the product from the market. These all are strictly maintained sterile areas and no one will be allowed into the plant manufacturing areas until and unless they have a close observation on them or after giving a few days training to them.
Another reason is lecturers. If a m pharmacy or phd completed person enters into a teaching field, He will teach the b pharmacy students and helps them to get the certificate and theoretical knowledge. In most of the cases even the lecturer don’t have an industrial exposure to educate the students. For example:he/she starts his career in pharmaceutical industry, they does not want to move to teaching field because salary is more in pharma field compared to teaching filed after getting the experience. Another reason is if they still want to change his career to teaching, they will not get enough salary because of not considering the experience from their field. So industrial experienced persons will not available in the colleges. Likewise Majority of the Phamaceutical colleges doesn’t have an industrial experienced persons to educate the students.
Conclusion:
An ounce of practice is worth more than a tons of theory, even you have a 20 years experienced teaching professor in your college, a 6 months experienced person in industry will create a great awareness in the students regarding overview of pharmaceutical companies and their departments. Subject knowledge is ultimately required, there is no question about it. Apart from subject knowledge, you should also know how to grab an opportunity to utilise this subject knowledge practically.
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