BPSA Annual Conference 2016 Cardiff

“Annual conference is a great opportunity to network with leaders of our future profession, as well as with students from all around the UK, making new friends along the way. Everyone should experience annual conference at least once!” – Amy Hume year 2 student

“Fun, indescribable in words, must go, opens opportunities, chance to meet new people & network”  - Toh Phang Sum year 4 student

This year's annual conference was held in Cardiff the capital city of Wales, it was a full week conference with Conference Business in the morning where we debated about motions such as "School of Pharmacies should arrange more placements", " All medicines should state allergy ingredients on the box" or "Pharmacy First schemes should be at a national level". Each delegate would then listen or give speeches for the motion, against the motion or abstaining from voting the motion. Delegates could also ask questions for clarification, debate about the motion and then ultimately vote upon it. Once a motion has passed, it becomes BPSA policy for the next three years and the BPSA executive committee does their best to implement the motions by speaking to School of Pharmacies, General Pharmaceutical Council GPhC and other relevant organisations.

Apart from that we have different theme social nights where you dress up and have fun, meeting new people from other universities, Royal Pharmaceutical Society RPS  and much much more.

On BPSA day we learned many skills, fine-tuned our CV and learnt tips to prepare for interviews as well as had the opportunity to talk to various people from companies such as GSK, Boots, Community Pharmacies, Pharmacist Support, NPA and much much more.

I found myself benefiting tremendously from attending Annual Conference as I connected with new friends, learned new things and created lasting friendships. Annual conference is a very good opportunity and if possible you should go at least once during your time studying pharmacy.

Malaysia Campus BPSA day

Sum Sharing his experience throughout the 4 years MPharm Degree, extracurricular work, summer placements and interview tips.

During Easter 2016, the three of us (Sum, Natalie and Millie) flew over to the Malaysia campus and gave presentations about our experience doing the MPharm Course, Introduction to BPSA and CV/ Interview Preparation Workshops to both the 1st & 2nd Years.

Millie 2nd Year Introducing the BPSA
Natalie 3rd Year CV & Interview Preparation
Sum 4th Year Experience Share as a 2+2 student.

Millie gave a brief introduction to the BPSA, the competitions involved as well as area conferences and annual conferences. She later explained how the the BPSA represents Pharmacy students, helps and support all students studying a UK pharmacy degree. Sadly the audience was intent on listening and our photographer forgot to take a photo.

CV & Interview Preparation Workshop.
Natalie talking about how to write a CV that stands out from the crowd, which is essentially the ticket to getting an interview and then following up on how to prepare for the interview. She explained a CV is a standard 2 full A4 page document and how to structure the relevant sections such as summer placements, work experience and skills. Later she taught about how to prepare for the interview such as reading through your CV,  learning more about the place you are applying to as well as leaving a good impression with the interviewer.

Sum elaborating further about common interview questions such as "Strengths & Weaknesses", the way to answer is to acknowledge any weaknesses you currently have, what are you doing about it to change or improve and what you have learnt so far or achieved.

For example: One of my weakness is I  talk too fast and I struggle with giving speeches, in my first year running for PharmNotts Committee Position as Public Relations I lost to another candidate by one vote as he was the better speaker.
Therefore, I joined the public speaking society to learn and improve my presentation skills .
Recently at a national scale BPSA  Annual Conference in Liverpool 2015, I gave a wonderful speech for a motion which lead to a standing ovation of 200 members present. I have learnt from this experience and worked hard to improve upon my weakness and will be able to speak better in front of people during my pre-registration year,

Q&A session and meeting with the Johnson & Johnson winners who went to BPSA annual conference in Liverpool 2015 and Cardiff 2016.

All in all, this is our last BPSA event we did this year , and we felt great as the first and second years benefited from these presentations and found it helpful, informative and beneficial.