Passport to a profession in the Degree of Pharmacy

Abstract

The incorporation of the Spanish university system into the European Higher Education Area has brought about a series of adaptations. Among the recommendations is the inclusion of an external training period in a company, which has resulted in significant changes in the degree syllabus in order to balance the theoretical and practical education required by the students. This new framework has been legally confirmed by the Spanish Government (Real Decreto 1393/2007, de 20 de octubre y Real Decreto 1707/2011 de 18 de noviembre) and, in the case of the University of Barcelona, by the publication of internal guidelines (Normativa de prácticas académicas externes dels estudiants de la Universitat de Barcelona). Taking advantage of this new opportunity to adapt the Pharmacy degree to real-world problems in industry, the Dean’s team of the Faculty of Pharmacy, with the support of the Faculty administrative staff and the Students Advisory Service, have assumed the challenge of including a new subject in the syllabus entitled Training in Companies. In parallel, a new activity has been set up to ensure that the students choose the most suitable company department/job for them and to help them pass the company interview. Under the name of Passport to a Profession, a series of ten explanatory talks has been scheduled every academic year. These talks deal with a broad range of topics aimed at providing the students with the basic tools they will need to make the most of a company training period and to make headway in the professional world when they finish their degree. In addition, three Faculty of Pharmacy-Pharmaceutical company workshops and two round-table conferences have been held in the last two years in order to bring the university and industry together. Notably, the project to provide students with company training is expanding on an international level, with two to three undergraduate students contracted every year by a United Kingdom-based multinational pharmaceutical company. The statistical data of the whole process has been analysed for a more in-depth understanding of the activity and to improve the programme.