Pre-Pharmacy

Prepare for many career options including working in community pharmacies, hospitals or physician practice sites, universities, government agencies, pharmaceutical research companies, nursing homes and hospice and home care by studying Pre-Pharmacy at Houghton, in conjunction with University of Buffalo.

The Houghton program in pre-pharmacy, in partnership with the University at Buffalo (UB), is a seven-year program resulting in a biology BA (at Houghton) and a PharmD (at UB). The program entails three years of study at Houghton and four years at UB. Students in the program must meet UB academic requirements and interview for the program.

The Houghton portion of the program includes coursework in biology, chemistry, physics and mathematics as well as a number of courses required for admission into the UB PharmD program.

The Doctor of Pharmacy (PharmD) from UB is a professional degree program designed to prepare students to serve as contemporary, compassionate, creative and scholarly pharmacy practitioners, educators, researchers and leaders in the advancement of the pharmacy profession. The curriculum consists of courses in basic biomedical sciences, clinical sciences, pharmaceutical sciences and pharmacy practice. The coursework is integrated with progressive patient-centered practice experiences with a focus on educating practitioners capable of providing care. It is capped by a nine-month experiential program. This program in pharmacy leads to licensure in any state provided that the graduate passes and obtains licensure in the state requested.

Learn more about Houghton's partnership with D'Youville University and Lake Erie College of Osteopathic Medicine

Why Study Pre-Pharmacy at Houghton?

  • Do science in your very first year in our hands-on, experiential program.
  • Be mentored, supported and cared for by invested faculty members who care about your academic success as well as your spiritual, emotional, and professional growth.
  • Travel to a developing country to study foundations of health development.
  • Conduct, publish and present real research with one or more of Houghton University’s faculty members.
  • Take advantage of Houghton’s partnership with the University of Buffalo, a research-intensive school that is ranked #1 in New York State and is the premier school of pharmacy and pharmaceutical sciences in the State University of New York (SUNY) system.

Major Requirements

Biology major with pre-pharmacy emphasis (BA)

Learn about the Biomedical Sciences Major

Personal Attention from Invested Faculty

The biology program includes five faculty members with doctorates in their fields. With a departmental emphasis on personalized teaching and close relationships among faculty and students, pre-pharmacy majors have many opportunities to get to know their professors on a personal level. Professors teach the labs as well as lectures instead of relying on teaching assistants to teach the laboratory sessions, and class sizes are deliberately capped to maximize interaction between faculty and students. Each student has an adviser from the Department of Biology whose interest/expertise are aligned with the students’ (as much as possible) to personalize advisement related to graduate school or career preparation as well as course selection.

Experiential Learning Opportunities

At Houghton, we emphasize hands-on engagement in the field of biology where our students do science as scientists in the first year of the general biology sequence. Learning experiences are often open-ended and require critical thinking and input from students regarding design, implementation and analysis. Students can work directly in the field through off-campus study, practicums, internships and student-faculty research collaboration.

Undergraduate Research

Many motivated majors do real research with one or more of the faculty at Houghton University. Some of these students publish their findings in peer-reviewed journals or present talks and posters at regional and national conferences. Opportunities for research include the Collaborative Research in Biology course, independent study, senior honors projects, and the Summer Research Institute. Students have also traveled with faculty to work with collaborators (e.g., Cornell University and the Sierra Nevada mountains of California).