If you’re the kind of student with a love for science, a career in Pharmacy Tech might be for you. Learn how to make it happen here.
Maybe you were always the kid mixing baking soda with vinegar to make a dirt volcano in your backyard? Or, perhaps you’re the type of teen who’s careful not to eat too much sugar before bed because you know it will keep you up all night? Between your love for science and your impressive attention to detail, a career in Pharmacy Tech might be for you.
At Destinations Career Academy, your pathway to Pharmacy Tech helps you feel prepared to assist others in need. With career readiness education (CRE), discover your true passion and develop skills in high-demand jobs while gaining confidence, experience, and industry-recognized certifications along the way. Whether you want to be a Pharmacy Technician or a Pharmacist, your future starts here.
Preparing for success
Destinations puts you in the driver’s seat of your future and sets you up with a team of supporters who will help you stay on track of your goals, including:
- State-certified teachers: Think of them like your personal coaches, who help you create a Learning Plan and make sure you’re succeeding in your classes.
- School counselors: To make sure you obtain your high school diploma with confidence, our school counselors help you map out your long-term plan based on your skills and interests.
- Career counselors: Not sure which classes will benefit you the most? Our career counselors help you pick the right courses for your career and offer support in obtaining internships* .
Worried about your first day of school? Don’t be—with our Strong Start program, you’ll meet your homeroom teacher and learn how to navigate Class Connects so you can conquer online high school with confidence.
Learning new skills
Do you love speaking up in class? Or, are you more of an observer? At Destinations, you have the power to fill your schedule with whatever health-focused classes you’re most passionate about. This means that you, too, can be the type of student that’s always participating, whether that’s in Medical Terminology or Anatomy. Gain confidence in your industry skills while learning how to:
- Detect medication errors
- Calculate the strength of a medication
- Maintain records for prescriptions dispensed and supplied
Do you learn best by doing? Meaning, partaking in real-life experience instead of reading textbooks? If so, then you’ll thrive in our project-based learning courses, like Healthcare Explorations and Health Sciences. These classes reflect work environments by allowing you to solve real-world problems. Research shows that project-based learning can “promote student learning and may be more effective than traditional instruction in social studies, science, mathematics, and literacy,” which makes it the perfect setting for our Pharmacy Tech pathway†.
If you’re hungry for more, you can even enroll in college-level classes at local universities or attend our tuition-free summer programs*.
Project-based learning can promote student learning and may be more effective the traditional instruction in social studies, science, mathematics, and literacy.
— Buck Institute for Education
Earning the certifications
Industry certifications are kind of like a driver’s license. They show others that you practiced the skills, passed the test, and are ready to sit in the driver’s seat to move forward. Employers think of industry-certified exams in the same way, which is why many of our classes help prepare you for the exams‡. Some of these include:
- ACT National Career Readiness Certification (NCRC)
- Pharmacy Technician Certification Exam (PTCE)
While Destinations does not conduct these exams, our courses can help you prepare to take them during or after high school.
Hearing from professionals
At Destinations, you’ll have a chance to meet the healthcare experts that are changing the world before you come one of them yourself. With Nepris, a platform that helps teachers connect industry professionals to your virtual classroom, you can hear from:
- Pharmacy directors
- Medical coders
- Nursing assistants
- Echocardiographers
Depending on your school and class, you may even be able to meet these healthcare specialists face-to-face with class trips to local businesses*. As a part of our CRE program, you can also participate in Job Shadow Week, a five-day program that gives you an inside look at the nation’s top companies and organizations —like Google, YouTube, NASA, Nokia, and George Washington Medical Faculty Associates. Throughout the week, you can learn:
- What education and trainings are required to pursue a career in healthcare
- What students can start doing now to get on the health-related career path
Putting knowledge into practice
Now that you’ve learned the skills, we can’t blame you for wanting to show prospective companies that you’re capable of doing the work. Getting real life experience and talking to professionals is a big part of attending Destinations. Although internships aren't guaranteed, we try our best to help make them happen using Tallo, a networking platform created just for students. Set up a digital profile that includes information like:
- The school you attend
- Classes you’ve taken
- Clubs you partake in
- Achievements, interest, and skills you possess
This information helps companies match you with the right internship, while also helping you figure out what skills, degrees, and certifications are required for your dream career.
Having fun along the way
Clubs and extracurriculars are an essential part of the high school experience, and you’ll be to participate in them with Destinations, too. If you want to get even more involved in the world of healthcare, you can join Health Occupations Students of America (HOSA). Kierra, a student at Destinations Career Academy of Colorado, shared that through HOSA, “we visit the Ronald McDonald House, where we visit sick children. We make sack lunches for the homeless, we go to local nursing homes and pretty much just give back to the people that have given to us.” Outside of academic activities, you can join a sports team at your local high school, choose to join a career club and/or extracurricular activity and connect with students who share similar interests and passions.
From careers in Pharmacy Tech or Sports Medicine, Destinations can help you jump start your career by providing you with the skills, experiences, and connections needed to succeed. Read about our General Management, Cybersecurity, or Education & Training pathways. Or, fill out the form below to be contacted by an advisor and take control of your future today.
We visit the Ronald McDonald House, where we visit sick children. We make sack lunches for the homeless, we go to local nursing homes and pretty much just give back to the people that have given to us.
— Kierra, a 2020 student in Colorado
