1. How long does it take to finish a Ph.D.?
4-5 years
2. Are there scholarships or fellowships available?
In the first year students receive financial support from teaching assistantships, unless they bring their own scholarships.
In years 2-5, students may be supported as a teaching assistant, a research assistant, or by their own pre-doctoral fellowship award (see Q #3).
3. What is the stipend?
Teaching assistants receive stipends plus Graduate Assistant Tuition Fellowships, health insurance supplements and Texas resident status to help defray costs. Students must pay all fees and some tuition. Below are the net amounts you would get each year:
For a TA in year one: $16,145
For a TA in years 2-5: $17,149
However, outstanding applicants are eligible for an additional $6,000 Presidential Fellowship. Also, you may earn more if you are a research assistant, or have your own predoctoral fellowship (up to $23,000).
Individual students can apply for competitive fellowships from agencies such as the National Institutes of Health and the American Heart Association.
4. What is the cost of living in Houston?
The average rent for a one bedroom apartment is in the bottom ten nationally at $724 / mo. (Marcus & Millichap, cited by CNNMoney, February 7, 2007). Housing for graduate students is being built on campus with similar rents for loft apartments.
5. What are the teaching duties like?
In the pharmacy professional program (Pharm.D. students), it is mostly grading papers and proctoring exams, for 5-10 hrs per week. A few graduate students with special skills may be asked to help teach the Pharm.D. students in areas like chemistry.
6. Do you offer a master’s degree to new students?
No.
7. What are the minimal academic requirements?
GREs in the 70th percentile or above are desirable, but there is some flexibility because the admissions committee looks at the whole application. It especially helps if the applicant has research experience. Last year the average GREs of our applicants were: verbal, 64%tile; quantitative, 78%; analytical 49%. A GPA below 3.0 would make admission very difficult.
8. How many students will you accept in fall 2008?
2-10. There are too many variables to be more precise.
9. Do you admit students in the spring?
No.
10. What is the academic program like?
Most sit-down didactic courses are in the first year, with 2-3 three-credit courses in each of the first two semesters. In the second year, there may be 2-3 three-credit courses total. After year one, you will be mainly doing research in a lab.
11. How does the research requirement work?
In year one, students rotate through 2-3 different labs before choosing one to work in for the remaining 3-4 years in which to perform thesis research. If a lab does not have external funding, the student and mentor can apply to the department for financial support of the student’s work.
12. What about the qualifying exam?
After year two, the student (1) must write a research proposal and defend it; (2) take a written exam in the general subject area.
13. What is the difference between a M.S. and Ph.D.?
In general, with a Ph.D. you can be more independent, apply for grant funding to do your own work and teach professional and graduate students. You have much more choice in research topics. Most colleges prefer to have professors with the Ph.D. teaching undergraduates, also. Of course the salary is higher. With a Ph.D. you would do research about, or teach about, the actions of drugs and how best to deliver them. A Master’s degree is more like vocational training for a specific job,
whereas a Ph.D. implies scholarship and acquiring and teaching knowledge.
14. What is the difference between Pharmacology, Pharmaceutics and Pharmacy?
Pharmacology is the study of drugs mechanisms and drug effects on normal and diseased animals, tissues and cells. Pharmaceutics is the study of the physical, chemical and biological properties of drugs and the relationship of drug properties to dosage form design, fabrication, evaluation and therapeutic efficacy. Pharmacy is dispensing drugs (e.g. Walgreen’s) or increasingly, working in a hospital and being consulted by physicians on medication issues. Some pharmacists work in industry or academics (e.g. Pharmacy schools) doing pharmaceutical research or assisting with drug studies. It is a profession that requires licensure and a doctoral degree (the Pharm.D.).
