6 Best Pharmacy Associate Degree Programs for 2024

As many as 1 in every 4 new jobs over the next decade are expected to be in healthcare, making it one of the country’s fastest-growing career fields. As the area’s No. 1 trainer of healthcare professionals, Austin Community College's Health Sciences Area of Study is proud to equip our students for the important work that lies ahead—for a cost that is considerably lower than other institutions.

Students who aspire to enter medicine, dentistry, veterinary medicine, or the pharmacy field are advised to enroll in the Pre-Medicine and Pre-Pharmacy degree, an option of the Associate of Science degree in Science and Mathematics.

This degree includes instruction in the basic sciences and aspects of the subject matter related to various health occupations. The Health Science Broad Field program provides a general, introductory curriculum in health sciences that prepares individuals for transfer to various baccalaureate degree programs.

Learn how to support a licensed pharmacist and assist them with patient consultations with Santa Barbara Business College's Pharmacy Technology degree program. General duties of a pharmacy technician include dispensing medications, assembling daily supplies of medication, stocking and inventorying prescriptive and over-the-counter medications, preparing commercially unavailable medications, maintaining patient medical records, repackaging medications, and delivering medications.

The Pharmacy Management program, at Burnett International College, is designed to prepare students for employment as a senior or lead pharmacy technician or coordinator, pharmacy manager, or pharmacy technician supervisor/trainee in hospitals, nursing care facilities, private or public retail drug stores, drug manufacturing facilities, and wholesale drug houses. Students are taught how to identify and understand drug nomenclature, dosage forms, routes of administration, and abbreviations used in pharmacy. Additionally, students are taught how to identify medications by their trade and generic names, as well as understanding basic pharmacology. Graduates of the program will be well equipped with the necessary critical thinking,knowledge, and communication skills to enter into the health care industry and succeed in this field. This program offers a sequence of courses that include, but are not limited to, medical terminology, pharmaceutical compounding, sterile techniques, IV preparation, preparing purchase orders, receiving and checking supplies purchased, printing labels, typing prescription labels, delivering medications, control records, data processing, computer application, human relation skills, and health and safety.

The Pharmacy Technician program consists of both classroom and clinical education and provides students with the skills and knowledge they need to qualify for entry-level positions in retail and chain, hospital, and mail-order pharmacies. Pharmacy technicians help licensed pharmacists prepare prescription medications, provide customer service, and perform administrative duties. Their duties include receiving prescription requests, counting tablets, packaging, compounding, labeling bottles, and recording of drugs. Hospital duties include making drug mixtures to fight infection, preparing cancer medications, and making 24-hour liquid food. Technicians perform administrative functions such as answering phones, stocking shelves and operating cash registers.