I am thinking of becoming a pharmacist.

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I wanted to become a physical therapist, however the job availability sucks. Unless I want to stay in Maryland, or move to New York, Pennsylvania, Texas, California, or Massachusetts; I'd have to deal with sub-par pay and availability. As a pharmacist, job availability is everywhere and in fact the pay is better. Even in more rural areas, in more rural states the average seems to be in the $100,000 range. Even in a state such as Tennessee, the average salary is around that much. The however salary for a physical therapist in $80,000, BUT in places like Tennessee, it's closer to half that. I figure since both required the same amount of schooling, why not go the route where I'll have more work and get paid better; even when just starting out? Being a pharmacist does seem like an easier job for someone with aspergers, in fact it seems ideal.

Seems like a great idea. With seemingly more and more people taking more and more pills, seems like job security at it's best in 2016. I know where I live in NJ, there are more pharmacies than supermarkets. Especially when you consider all of the supermarkets usually have pharmacies too. It's nuts how many there are.

How long does it take someone to become a pharmacist. Always seemed like such an easy job, the computer tells you what not to mix, and most of the pharmacists I've seen recently barely speak competent English.

About the same as a physical therapist, give or take a year from what I read. I'm still looking into it, but it takes about 6-8 years. I suppose like anything else it depends. It would take me that long to be a physical therapist anyway, so it's not like one as an advantage over the other in terms of how long it takes; although with physical therapy you have to spend 3 years basically interning in a program. It doesn't look like you have to do that with being a pharmacist. I'll have to look into it more.

Seems insane to need so much schooling for being a pharmacist. I mean, am I missing something here or are they basically medical waiters bringing the food (pills) from the chef (dr) to you... They give what's on the paper and maybe make a phone call or two.

Pharmacists need to know what they are giving, need to be able to notice it when addicts are trying to fake documentation to get drugs. They very often have a better knowledge of side effects than doctors, and they educate customers on how to use the drugs, for.ex. reminding people to drink enough water while taking antibiotics.

So basically reading the labels on the side of the bottle to people...

Seems like it's just a money grab to make people go to school for 6 years for that.

One of the reasons I got interested in this field is, I do actually enjoy looking up side effects to medication. I do that myself whenever I take anything, so it's sort of second nature at this point. I find how drugs affect people interesting and I love having medical knowledge.

I should never have gone into pharmacy. I came from Alberta Canada to the USA for pharmacy school. I am a year grom graduation. First of all, the school kills you, I am so worn out. In Alberta the government introduced pharmacy reforms that decreased funding to pharmacies. As a result, there are NO jobs available in Alberta. My friend who graduated in May 2010 still does not have a job. Pay used to be around 95,000/ yr for an ontario pharmacist, but thanks to reforms it is currently down to 70,000/yr and decreasing. The chain drug stores own you, and are becoming all the more demanding now that their pharmacy funding has been cut, and they cut tech hours like crazy. In the USA, the pay is significantly better, but people still are having problems finding jobs. Not to mention that as a pharmacist you will have to work nights and weekends on a regular basis. The Chains in the USA own your ass even more than in Canada, they are evil, they treat you like a robot or a slave, not a professional. Trust me, don't be a pharmacist, it sucks.

Well, I guess I won't do anything.

From what I remember about the statistics of Pharmacist-Jobs, that market has been long-saturated, too many Pharmacists and not enough open positions for them all. The ones who get paid high get paid for a reason. Otherwise this would be a job that has the salary levels of working for Wal-Mart or McDonald's if everybody who qualified to be a Pharmacist worked as one. Most Aspies usually have some form of creativity to be able to come up with ingenius solutions to potentially complex problems so try to see if you can find some way to use that to your advantage. For now let us listen to Elmo talking to a Pharmacist...