Cory's Blog

            So many choices, so little time and energy. Alas, this was my conundrum as I strolled through the USC student organization fair Wednesday on Greene Street. Here at USC we have nearly 300 organizations (294 to be exact) to choose from. We offer everything from social fraternities and sororities to sports clubs, honor societies, political groups, and student media. I could literally go on for pages describing all of the organizations and what they do, but I won’t, because my fingers would get too tired!

            On top of all these USC organizations, now that I am in Pharmacy school, I have several more opportunities to get involved! Here is where time management, planning, and the ability to just say “no” to some groups come into play as I will try and balance out my school life and my extracurricular life.

            As of now, I am taking eight, yes, eight classes in Pharmacy school for a total of 16 hours. Outside of class, I am an advisor for Alpha Lambda Delta, my honor society, a captain for my softball team, a committee chair for the Out of State Mentors, and, of course, I write this blog!

            In addition to these activities, I plan on running for some sort of office of my class in pharmacy school, and trying out to be a University Ambassador (the people that give the tours when you come and visit). Also in the School of Pharmacy, I will most likely be in two student groups, with a level of involvement that is yet to be seen. On top of that, I will try and work out five to six times a week. Needless to say, my plate is very full, but that is the way I like it!

            The point of this post is to show how important and fun it can be to get involved be it in college, or high school. I made the majority of my friends and important contacts by playing intramurals and becoming heavily involved in my organizations. I did make the mistake freshman year of joining a few organizations because I thought it was what I “was supposed to do” but quickly found out that it is quality over quantity, and dropped out of them because I wasn’t truly interested.

            I am now in a leadership position in my honor society, the out of state mentors, and was also the president of the orientation leaders. The moral of the story is to find something, or things in my case, that you are passionate about, and make the most of it, much like I did in my role as the intramural chair in Alpha Lambda Delta.

            However, now I have to go organize my life as I try and fit all my extracurriculars in on top of my class load. It is a nice problem to have here at USC with all of these options, but it doesn’t leave a lot of time for the school part of college! Until next time, take care!

Posted by Cory at 01:34 PM | Permalink | Comments (0)

            Mrs. Smith decided that she wanted to bake a cake to sell at a local bake sale. She decided upon trying to make a triple chocolate walnut cake. It sounded delicious to her, but she didn’t have a recipe for one. So, Mrs. Smith went to the store and bought all the ingredients she thought she would need, as this cake was to be made from scratch. All of the ingredients cost her $15.

            After going home and baking the cake, it fell apart and didn’t taste so good, so she decided to give it another go, because she thought the cake needed just a couple of adjustments. Her second trip to the store to gather more ingredients cost her $5 more. Unfortunately for her, the cake still did not pan out.

            Being the determined baker she was, Mrs. Smith felt like she really knew how to make the cake perfectly, and it was off to the grocery store to find herself a couple more key ingredients. These final ingredients cost her $5, bringing her total to $25 for the cake.

            Her persistence paid off as the cake was a huge, delicious hit! Her friend, Ms. Thomas thought the cake looked so good she wanted to bake and sell it too, so Mrs. Smith gave her the perfected recipe, and Ms. Thomas was able to buy all she needed for the cake for $15.

            Both wanted to make a $10 profit, but since Mrs. Smith had taken all the extra effort and ingredients to make the cake, she had to charge $35 to make the same profit that Ms. Smith only had to charge $25.

            What’s the whole point of this cake story? Well, it was the same story that my Intro to Community teacher, Dr. Papajohn (no relation to the pizza chain) told us regarding generic prescription drugs. Companies (symbolized by Mrs. Smith) spend hundreds of millions of dollars developing a specific drug, and must charge more in order to make a profit. Once the patent on the expensive drug from the parent company runs out, the generic company (Ms. Thomas) can just use the same perfected technique from the company that developed the original at a much cheaper price for them and the consumer because they don’t have to pay for the research and development.

            I thought I would just mention this analogy because it illustrates the breadth of knowledge pharmacists must have. Not only must we know the scientific explanations, but also the social practices and reasons that we can explain to our patients. Also, I just thought that it was a pretty cool analogy that Dr. Papajohn gave us that really helps to put drug development into perspective. Aside from those two reasons, I hope that you can take something out of the analogy as well, hopefully learning why some of your “generic” prescriptions can be so much less expensive than the name brand.

      Personally, I thought drug companies had some sort of plan to make as much money off of us, the consumer, as possible. However, after this story, plus the information I learned in my Pharmaceutics class about the difficulties, time, and money involved in developing a new drug, I have a new appreciation for the reason why some drug costs can be so high.

            I hope you enjoyed my little “what I learned in pharmacy school” post today. I just wanted to make sure y’all knew I was staying awake and alert and maybe give you some insight into the “wide world of pharmacy”. Until next time, take care!

Posted by Cory at 02:56 PM | Permalink | Comments (0)

Three days down, about four full years yet to go! I am talking, of course, about my first week of pharmacy school last week. If I had to give a “feeling” I have about it so far, I would have to go with, “so far, so good.”

            Class, for me at least, started a day before the rest of the university on Wednesday instead of Thursday. Instead of having the burden of starting a day early, I like to think that I am getting my money’s worth. = My first official pharmacy school class began at 10 in the morning, and was SCCP 600, standing for South Carolina College of Pharmacy 600. This description still isn’t quite enough to understand what the class really is about, so I will go ahead and let you know that it is a two hour integrated Physiology/Pathology class. Impressive sounding, huh? Well, the only other class Wednesday was SCCP 615 aka Biochemistry/Biotechnology. Both classes look to be a nice balance of challenging and interesting.

            Thursday was my first 8 AM class of the semester as I got the introduction to the class “Introduction to Pharmacy Practices.” (Sorry for the redundant use of the word “introduction) From the classroom in Charleston, our instructor got our attention by immediately making fun of his old age and his experiences as a “Yank” from New Jersey here in South Carolina. This class promises to be very informative on the different aspects of the profession of pharmacy, as well as entertaining; as long as our professor keeps up his antics!

            Changing pace next class was Microbiology, which lasted for two hours! Alright, I’ll admit, this is a pretty cool class, especially to a biology nerd like me, but sitting there absorbing for two hours is going to take a lot of focus. Luckily, I remained awake and alert the whole class, unlike my poor roommate Nick who had himself a nice nap after about 45 minutes of lecture!

            The final class of the day was pharmaceutics, and to be honest, I think I will need to have a few more classes to see what this will be about. We began with some history of the profession, but it also looks like we will also go into different aspects of drug delivery as well. With that, class came to an end on Thursday, and it was off to finally finish this shortened week.

            Friday brought a reprieve from the 8 AM start…with 9 O’clock instead! Although just an hour extra, it goes a long way after a busy week. First class was SCCP 660, or, for understanding sake, Clinical Applications. I am excited about this class because it will basically be a recitation class where we meet up in groups and work on real world pharmacy problems. We also have to do some oral and PowerPoint presentations, which is right up my alley!

            The final class was another installment of Biochemistry/Biotechnology. No need to bore you with another description.

            So, there you have it, my first three days of pharmacy school. Coming up next will be my first full week, along with a couple more new classes that I am sure I will be sharing with you. As I said, so far, so good, but as with any science experiment  or medication development, the bigger the sample size, the more accurate the results. So, we shall see what kind of tune I will be singing in four months! Until next time, take care!

Posted by Cory at 07:58 PM | Permalink | Comments (0)

            My apologies to all of you David Beckham fans, but I am just not buying into the new “soccer craze” that is supposedly coming to America. It has yet to materialize in the last 20 years, and I just don’t see it happening in the next 20 either. I tried to get into the sport as a young lad, but after 3 not-so-fun filled years with only scoring one goal, I decided that pretty much any other sport but soccer was for me. However, there is always a lesson to be learned. What is it, well, I think we have all heard the call when a player (very rarely) does score a goal, there is the over the top soccer announcer who yells “GOAAAAALLL!”

            You are now probably thinking how does that even resemble a lesson? You see, the call of “goal” in soccer reminded me of the importance of goal setting. I have set goals ever since high school, and when I arrived here freshman year, that practice stayed the same. Goals were something that I have set over my first two years and for the most part, were able to achieve.

            Like I said, I accomplished them “for the most part”. I still haven’t won that elusive softball championship or racquetball crown, but just because I haven’t accomplished those goals doesn’t make me a failure. Sometimes, you must adjust your goals based on the results or circumstances. For example, my first semester in the racquetball ladder, I didn’t win the championship, or even make the playoffs, so the next semester I adjusted my goal to get into the playoffs. Then it was to win a playoff match. This semester it will be to win the whole thing.

            Other than my racquetball championship goal, another intramural related goal will be to win the softball championship after two bitter years of coming up just short. Sports aside, another goal of mine will to get all A’s, which I think will be the hardest to reach due to the hard pharmacy school curriculum.

            Another important goal lesson is to not just make all of your goals performance based, because if you don’t reach it, you can become easily discouraged. So, a few other goals of mine will be to remain positive, get the most out of everyday, and try and learn something new daily as well. These goals sit in the “attitude” department of goal setting. Along the attitude lines is one more goal: to simply do the best I can in all that I do. Kind of a “catch-all,” but if I honestly put my best effort forth, I will have nothing to worry about when the semester comes to a close.

             A few daily goals will be to review my notes and study just a little bit each day, so that when its comes time to prepare for an actual exam, I will already have, little by little, gotten myself ready so that the final review won’t be as difficult.

            As you can tell, I have attitude goals, semester goals and daily goals, but I even have myself narrowed down to hourly goals. For example, on a day where I need to study, I will make a goal to study for an hour, or get through a certain chapter before I can take a break. It is amazing how simple some small goals can make life go by a little bit easier. Heck, I even have goals about how many blogs to write, when to write them, and I how many paragraphs I write at a time!

            So there you have it, some of my thoughts, insights, tips, and actual goals for the upcoming year. Be sure to get going on some your own goals because I really do believe they help you have a vision of where you want to go and how to get there. Now get GOaling! (By the way, another goal of mine is to have less lame word plays and bad jokes in my blogs).

Posted by Cory at 10:23 PM | Permalink | Comments (0)

All summer long I told tales of long days of freshman orientation, with me on the orienting side of course. Well, as a new professional student in the South Carolina College of Pharmacy, it was my turn to be “oriented” at the pharmacy school’s own orientation over the last two days.

            It was quite a change of roles for me as I sat back and let the heads of the college take care of the day’s details; from learning about pharmacy ethics to the logistics of lunch. Overall, the first day was a nice introduction to the college, as well as to the other 109 people that I will be spending the next four years with in class.

            Day two began with an introduction by the Dean of our school, Dr. DiPiro, only there was a little twist involved. You see, the South Carolina College of Pharmacy has a campus here at USC in Columbia, and one down in Charleston at the medical school. So, as Dr. DiPiro gave his speech, he was talking live and in person to us, and live via video to Charleston. This new technology was intriguing, and it is how many of our classes will be taught, with professors here at USC being “beamed” to Charleston and vice versa.

            While I thought it was pretty cool to be sending video of us to Charleston, I was wondering how much quality there would be in the audio and video coming back up to us. However, with one short PowerPoint presentation from Charleston, my fears were gone. The speech was clear, we could see the teacher, and he could highlight anything on his PowerPoint presentation and have it show up in real time on our screen. Pretty cool stuff if you ask me!

            After the bells and whistles of this “distance learning” were shown off, it was time for the “main event” down in the Columbia Convention Center. Our White Coat Ceremony was where all of the pharmacy students were given our white lab coats (hence the name of the ceremony”) and signed our pharmacy oath. It was a very exciting event, especially when my time to walk across the stage came, and Dr. Buff, an associate dean here, made reference to how USC “gets them from a long way away” as he mentioned me being from all the way in Tucson, Arizona.

            Once all of us “newbies” had gotten our coats, it was off to a lovely reception at the Convention Center. While we were out there, myself, Nick, and his lovely girlfriend, Melisa, had our picture taken. Here ya go! Do we look professional or what?

 http://uscbloggers.com/cory/Me%20nick%20and%20Mel%20White%20Coat.jpg

            Well, that’s all I have time to tell you for now. The last few days have been a whirlwind of moving, unpacking, organizing, buying for the apartment, orientating myself, and just trying to prepare myself mentally for class to begin. As of this minute, I am only about ten hours away from my first ever pharmacy class! I better get some shuteye. More news to come, I promise! Take care!

Posted by Cory at 11:01 PM | Permalink | Comments (0)

            Just when I thought I had finished my move in quota for the year…it was Saturday, and time to help out with the USC “Move in Crew.” For the last two years, I have volunteered helping to move new students specifically into the Capstone residence hall.

            A quick word about Capstone: it is sixteen floors, and there are three elevators. Now, I know that you all are quite bright out there in computer land, and if you do the math on that, you will realize that not everyone can take all of their belongings on an elevator. So, when it came down to moving the freshmen’s belongings, it was time for a workout that puts the “Stairmaster” machine to shame. Try doing the Stairmaster for four hours, while carrying boxes, clothes, TV’s and yes, in one instance, a giant case of Red Bull (someone was already planning on some late nights it appeared.)

            By the end of the day, Nick, who has also volunteered the last two years, and I were downright exhausted. Several times going up past the 10^th floor with heavy items took their toll. It was all for a great cause though, as we were just part of the larger campus wide Move in Crew that helped move freshman in on Saturday.

            To all of you who are thinking, “Well, that Cory and all those other hard working studious students had to help with move in while all the university officials just watched them sweat. That’s just not fair, it’s just not fair!” I say not so fast my blog reading friends. Many high ranking USC officials, staff and faculty assisted with move in. I know for a fact that fellow blogger Scott Verzyl, director of undergraduate admissions, was at Capstone sweating it out with us as well. Also in attendance was principal of the Capstone Scholar program, Dr. Spurrier (not to be confused with our football coach!).

            As you can see, it was a university wide effort to help move in freshman, and it epitomizes how USC feels about its students. Carolina prides itself on taking care of its students, from the tours you receive while you are in high school, to getting you prepared at orientation, up to move in day and until you graduate. This attitude is just one of the many traits that attracted me to USC, and now I love being a part of the wonderful tradition here!

            However, after two days of move in activity, I am flat out hosed here on Sunday night, and with pharmacy school orientation in just 10 hours, I need to get some shuteye! Take care y’all!

Posted by Cory at 09:32 PM | Permalink | Comments (0)

            My feet ache, my arms are in a jello-like state, and my shirt is stained with sweat. It must be that time of the year here at Carolina: that’s right; I am talking about move in day!

            Yesterday and today the majority of the students living on campus went through the process (for the freshman it was more like a “right of passage”) of moving in what seemed like all of their worldly goods into their residence halls. I still remember moving in two years ago with my parents and aunt and uncle. We stuffed my poor little Pontiac Sunfire and my Uncle’s midsize sedan to the brims, unloaded my “goods” on the sidewalk in front of Maxcy, dragged them upstairs and unpacked it all in under two hours. Good times and much sweat were had indeed.

            Fast forward two years and yesterday it was me, my good ol’ Sunfire, and my friend Chris (Biology 09’) with his Honda CRV. I packed the majority of all of my belongings into the Sunfire, and Chris just took a couple bulky boxes and my TV. We arrived at Desassure (my place of residence), and we unloaded his car, and he was off. It was up to me to fend for myself and get the all of the vacuum sealed clothes, microwave, and assorted other goodies out of my own car.  About 5 leg burning trips up the two flights of stairs later, I was all moved in, and by all moved in, all of my stuff was inside our horseshoe apartment. I still had to unpack everything, but there was to be time for that later because…

            About a half hour all of my “goodies” were inside, Nick 09’ came with his father and I helped them unload all of his belongings into our apartment. Let me tell you, when you are 6 feet 7 inches tall like Nick, clothes tend to weigh a lot more, which I found out firsthand!

            Well, once he was all moved in, it was time for a break right? Not so much, as Nick’s girlfriend Melisa and her roommate Kathryn needed help moving in their belongings into Woodrow. After much sweat and back straining to get them all in, it was time to relax in our new digs? Right? Come on!

            Nope! Morgan (Business 09’), my third roommate at Dessasure, had arrived, and so we had to schlep a large SUV load up the two flights of stairs. However, once Morgan had moved in, we were done! Quite literally and figuratively, as we had nothing more to move, and no more energy to move ourselves!

            Last night, after we had gotten everything inside as best we could, the whole crew took in a nice relaxing meal at Monterey’s, a Mexican food restaurant in the Vista where we shared stories of the summer, tales of the day, and a large bowl of queso.     

            It was satisfying to be moved into the apartment that I will call home for the next 9 months. I am very happy with our place here in Desassure, and hopefully I will have some pictures coming in the next few weeks once we get all our dishes put away, and our posters on the wall. Until then, take care!

Posted by Cory at 12:14 AM | Permalink | Comments (0)

I sit here today on the eve of moving in to begin my third year at the University of South Carolina. It is hard to believe that I am actually beginning my third year here, especially since I have had to come from so far away in Arizona. I definitely would not be typing here today in my situation if I had had to do it all on my own. Which reminds me to remind all of you loyal readers out there: before you move in to college, or start your next year of high school, do Cory a favor and give your parents, other family, and close friends a BIG hug because odds are if you are starting college, your senior year, or any year for that matter, you are where you are because you’ve probably  had a lot of help from Mom and Dad, and maybe Brother, Sister, Grandma or Aunt or you best friend.

            This post is my virtual “hug” or to use a little hipper term, “shoutout” to all my “peeps” aka family and close friends without whose help I wouldn’t be the successful student I am today.

            To begin, my mom and dad have been instrumental in shaping who I have become, they are, of course, the ones that took care of me my whole life, and who continue to even after I left the comforts of home. They were the ones who allowed me to go across the country fro school. In helping with getting me through school, I like to refer to my mother as my “agent” because she handles the financial issues, insurance, and all of the other problems that seem to be beyond me. My mother’s role reminds me that I am lucky my parents are helping me to pay for school. They always welcome me home with open arms and see me off with good luck.

            Also have to thank my Aunt Lois and Uncle Bob, with whom I don’t think that I would have been able to come across the country without them letting me into their home in Hilton Head during Thanksgivings, Spring Breaks, and summers that have allowed me to be so far from home, but to still have a home to go to.

            I have to thank all of my wonderful friends at school. All of the fun and great times I have had would never have happened without them: from my surprise birthday party, to the fun times on the softball field and the summertime trip this year. Not only have I had great times with my friend, but my friends have also had my back. Freshman year, I came down with pneumonia, and needed an emergency trip to urgent care, and my friends were there to take me, worry about me, and take care of me. With their help, I was able to keep up in all of my classes while I recovered. Without all of their help, caring, and kindness, who knows if I would have been able to get through being sick for a month with pneumonia and still been able to stay up on all my class work?

            Along with the family members I mentioned and my friends, I have had always been able to be cheered up with a call to my grandfather. Whenever I feel uneasy the night before a test, he will be expecting a call. All through my first two years, and without a doubt, in the coming four more, I will seek his words of wisdom and advice.

            So, there you have it, my shoutout to my “fam” and “peeps.” I am sure that I have left out many others (this is starting to sound like an acceptance speech from some award isn’t it?), from other family members to professors, but I only have so much space. Now, if you still haven’t yet, find your Mom or Dad and give them a big ol’ hug, because they deserve it! Remember to take time and thank those in your life who have helped you to get this far because I’ll bet that they will be there with you to help every step of the way in the future as well.

            That’s all the advice I have to share with y’all today, so take care, and the next time I “speak” will be from my new home in Desassure on the Horseshoe!

Posted by Cory at 03:05 PM | Permalink | Comments (0)

            Wow, here I sit just a couple days away from moving into my horseshoe apartment on Friday. It seems like just yesterday I was excited about taking my last final in Organic Chemistry. So, I guess that before I can move on to great things this year, I think it’s important to look back over what I have done where I have been this summer, so that I can maybe get a better perspective as I  get going on this year.

            Now, without further adieu, the summer that was!

            To start the summer off, I spent a couple of weeks back in my home in Tucson, Arizona. After a hectic school year, I welcomed the time off to just relax, enjoy some time with the family, and see some of my high school friends and “de-breif” our school years. While home, my friend Andy and I took in an Arizona Diamondbacks game in Phoenix, and ate at In N’ Out Burger, a favorite of ours up in Phoenix …twice in one night.

            Fully satiated, it was time to head on back to Columbia…

Next up in the Cory Summer ’07 Tour was working Freshman Orientation in my role as a team leader. Despite my best efforts, I was not able to get a break from my roommate, Nick ’09 as we were also summer roommates in Capstone while we worked (that was a joke, as always, it was a pleasure rooming with the often funny, always tall Nick.) We had a great time working with the incoming freshman class of 2011, along with a few hundred transfers as well. I learned a little about leadership and management while working with our staff.

            With good times had and some money in my pocket, it was off to, well, it seemed like everywhere…

            After six hard, but fun weeks of working orientation, it was time to put the “vacation” in summer vacation. First stop was upstate New York whereupon I was promptly surprised by my father meeting me there, as I had NO idea he was coming! We spent about a week seeing the family, helping throw my cousin’s high school graduation party, and eating a lot of Grandma’s cooking.

            With a lot of Grandma’s home cookin’ in my tummy, it was off to the Windy City! I met Mom and my Aunt and Uncle there, where I got to meet a lot of my mom’s side of the family, see all the sights and eat all the eats of Chicago, and got to see my favorite team, the Chicago Cubs win a game in person in historic Wrigley Field!

            I made some great memories as I saw a Cub win, but then it was time to head back down to Bluffton, South Carolina for the rest of the summer with my Aunt and Uncle…or so I though.

            A couple of days into my stay in Bluffton, I decided that I wanted a final taste of home before the plunge into pharmacy school. So, on a bit of a whim, I went back to Tucson for two weeks of seeing the friends a final time, playing a lot of golf, and one heck of a farmers tan.

            So summer was pretty much over, but after living it to the fullest, I can’t complain…

            So, here I sit now in Bluffton, just waiting to move on in Friday. While it may be hard to think about going back to school, I believe I have had such a great summer, that I have no qualms about getting back to the grind. Interestingly, while in high school, the consensus was that people didn’t like going back to school. However, something I have found in college is that people actually look forward to going back to school. Definitely a change in attitudes!

            As for now, I just have some more last minute laundry and packing, some more fine reflections on the past summer, and a lot of looking forward to of the upcoming year. If you have any questions about applying, what to look forward to at USC, or if you want to share some of your great summer reflections, feel free to go for it! That’s all for now, take care!

Posted by Cory at 08:04 PM | Permalink | Comments (0)