{"id":53990,"date":"2025-03-17T11:28:06","date_gmt":"2025-03-17T15:28:06","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/web.uri.edu\/pharmacy\/?p=53990"},"modified":"2025-03-17T11:28:06","modified_gmt":"2025-03-17T15:28:06","slug":"networking-event-forges-connections-exposes-pharmacy-students-to-diverse-career-opportunities","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/web.uri.edu\/pharmacy\/2025\/03\/17\/networking-event-forges-connections-exposes-pharmacy-students-to-diverse-career-opportunities\/","title":{"rendered":"Networking event forges connections, exposes pharmacy students to diverse career opportunities"},"content":{"rendered":"

Two students host \u2018speed dating, networking style\u2019 event featuring industry professionals in casual setting<\/em><\/p>\n

The outdated image of a pharmacist anonymously counting pills into a bottle and slapping on a label for a clerk to hand to a customer no longer applies. The pharmacy profession has drastically evolved over the years, and there are myriad career options available to today\u2019s pharmacy student, as highlighted by a recent industry networking event in the Memorial Union organized by two University of Rhode Island students.<\/p>\n

College of Pharmacy students Revaa Goyal and Willy Njeru hosted a career networking event recently, featuring 16 professionals from across the spectrum of pharmaceutical careers. The event gave P2 pharmacy students (those in their second professional year) the chance to learn about the various opportunities in the industry while potentially making lasting connections with future colleagues, which can help lead to opportunities down the road.<\/p>\n

\u201cMy sophomore year, I was looking for opportunities for an internship for the summer, and I found the entire process to be incredibly difficult; there are so many opportunities, it can be hard to find the right one,\u201d said Njeru, who is president of the Industry Pharmacists Association\u2019s URI chapter. \u201cI ended up joining a virtual career fair held by a pharmaceutical company, where I was able to connect with my future manager. After that, I thought it would be really good to have some sort of platform here in the College of Pharmacy, not only to be able to find internships and jobs, but also to be able to connect with other professionals and build that sense of community.\u201d<\/p>\n

Industry professionals included some usual suspects such as CVS, Walgreens and Albertson\u2019s, along with those representing other career paths, including Regeneron, a biotechnology research firm, Becton Dickinson, a medical technology company, and L\u2019Oreal skin care and cosmetics company, among others. Representatives joined colleagues from industry and academia, including professor and former URI Dean Paul Larrat, in leading round-table discussions with dozens of P2 students.<\/p>\n

\"Pharmacy
Pharmacy student Revaa Goyal teamed with fellow student Willy Njeru to host a pharmaceutical career networking event recently.<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

\u201cIt was like speed dating, networking style,\u201d said Goyal, who serves as student representative on the URI Board of Trustees. \u201cWe wanted it to be more casual so students were able to ask the kinds of questions they really want to ask. I know a lot of students were asking how they can get into the field the presenter is in, what they did, what advice they would have for their past selves. Some industry topics that were really interesting was stuff they see in medicine and industry that we haven\u2019t been exposed to at this point.\u201d<\/p>\n

Topics beyond what one might expect at a pharmaceutical conference included eye surgery, hematology, and how to leverage a pharmacy degree in different spaces \u2013 whether it\u2019s clinical pharmacy, industry pharmacy, or other fields. Keynote speaker Elaine Nadeau, national director of field medical affairs for biopharmaceutical firm Lundbeck, led a discussion on such skills as communication, building one\u2019s personal brand, and how to leverage network connections to boost one\u2019s career going forward. Giving students such a look into the future was a key purpose of the event.<\/p>\n

\u201cA lot of conversations were centered on the presenter\u2019s journey from pharmacy school up to where they are now in their career,\u201d Njeru said. \u201cThat was super important because as students, we\u2019re really locked in and focused on what we have to study for in the next exam, so we don\u2019t always think about how our experience here really does play a role in the wider journey we have as a future professional. They provided a new perspective some students might not be aware of.\u201d<\/p>\n

This first networking event was limited to P2 students, but Njeru and Goyal, themselves second-year doctor of pharmacy students, hope to expand it in coming years to include all pharmacy students, as well as more industry professionals to give an even more extensive look at the opportunities available.<\/p>\n

\u201cThere are a lot of pharmacy jobs; even within a hospital, there are so many different things you can do,\u201d Goyal said. \u201cThey always tell us that, but it\u2019s kind of hard to see it when you don\u2019t have firsthand experience with it. That\u2019s what we want to do\u2014bring a few more careers down so students can see there\u2019s more to the profession. Building a network with people who are actually in the industry now, and having someone as a resource you can reach out to is really important.\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Two students host \u2018speed dating, networking style\u2019 event featuring industry professionals in casual setting The outdated image of a pharmacist anonymously counting pills into a bottle and slapping on a label for a clerk to hand to a customer no longer applies. The pharmacy profession has drastically evolved over the years, and there are myriad […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1710,"featured_media":53991,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"footnotes":"","_links_to":"","_links_to_target":""},"categories":[35],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-53990","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-news"],"acf":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/web.uri.edu\/pharmacy\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/53990","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/web.uri.edu\/pharmacy\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/web.uri.edu\/pharmacy\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/web.uri.edu\/pharmacy\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1710"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/web.uri.edu\/pharmacy\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=53990"}],"version-history":[{"count":2,"href":"https:\/\/web.uri.edu\/pharmacy\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/53990\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":53994,"href":"https:\/\/web.uri.edu\/pharmacy\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/53990\/revisions\/53994"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/web.uri.edu\/pharmacy\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/53991"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/web.uri.edu\/pharmacy\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=53990"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/web.uri.edu\/pharmacy\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=53990"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/web.uri.edu\/pharmacy\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=53990"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}