Best Coffee Shops near Campus

As the weather gets colder and final exams inch closer, coffee becomes a huge part of my day. I always need a quick dose of caffeine to get myself going in the morning. Lucky for us, Columbus is coffee central. There are several shops in town and they’re all great. Columbus even has it’s very own coffee trail! As an avid coffee lover, I have made my way through the trail, and I highly recommend trying it, its loads of fun. Below you will find 3 of my favorite stops along the trail — all close to campus, and easy to find! If you haven’t visited all 3 yet, I hope that I can convince you to do so soon.

1) Fox in the Snow Café (1031 N. 4th St)
Fox in the snow specializes in handcrafted coffee drinks and pastries. My personal favorite is the mocha, it always comes with some cool latte art and tastes amazing as well. During the fall their hot apple cider is the best in town. When it comes to the baked goods, it is hard to decide on just one pastry because they are all delicious. You simply can’t go wrong.

2) Stauf’s Coffee Roasters (Grandview or Grant Ave)
Stauf’s is an awesome shop, and there are several locations throughout Columbus. They serve a vast array of coffees, as well as some specialty drinks and teas. A big added bonus, is that they have wifi and tables for studying, so it’s the perfect place to when you need to hit the books.

3) Boston Stoker (771 Neil Ave)
Boston Stoker is the smallest of the 3, but they still serve some great coffee. I personally enjoy their cold brew. It’s one of the few places I am willing to drink black coffee, because it tastes that good here. This coffee house also has a few tables, and can be a place to study if you’re looking for somewhere new.

 

New City?

Are you moving to a new city?

Are you moving to a large city for your next four years of school? If you lived in a small town for your undergraduate education like I did, moving to a large can be both intimidating and overwhelming. Let’s be real, moving into unfamiliar territory can be scary at first, regardless of the setting. I want to assure you that this feeling will pass! Below you will find some of the steps I took to get comfortable in a new setting and ultimately enjoy my time in a new city.

I knew moving into a more urban setting would be a transition for me, so I decided to move out to Columbus a couple weeks prior to school starting with hopes of becoming more comfortable with the area. My first task was to become more familiar with my neighborhood. I did so by walking around my neighborhood to find out which stores, restaurants, etc. were close to my apartment. As a side note, I live on a high traffic street, so I felt okay going out alone. If you don’t feel safe, don’t walk alone. I then drove around town and found where my favorite stores were located. I even did a little shopping! I also took a day to walk around campus to find out where my classes, coffee shops, and food were located (because snacks and coffee are important too)!

Once you have a good understanding of your surroundings and are comfortable in your area, you can begin to look for fun things to do in and around your city! The ultimate question is what to do. If you are like me, I am always bored, but I say there is nothing to do. I soon realized that is not true, but rather I just didn’t know where to look! Living in a big city will provide you with plenty of options. There is something for everyone, and here is how to find it:

First, consult your classmates. Many of them likely grew up in the area and have a good idea of what is fun and what is not. They are the best resource for navigating night life, campus dining, restaurants, and other low key fun things (that are not well advertised) to do in the city.

Next, go to the Google and literally search “things to do in (insert city here)” and see if anything catches your eye. I love to take on the “top 10 things to do or see” in your city, as it gives me something to do in my downtime that I may have not done before. If you need some ideas, always check the basics: the zoo, aquariums, museums, parks, conservatories, botanical gardens, and seasonal activities like fairs and festivals.

Last, flex your social media skills! There are likely a ton of people in the city who have Instagram or blogs dedicated to posting the highlights of the city (good for food blogs, food trucks, hidden treasures, etc.). I 10/10 recommend following at least a few. I currently follow one of my fellow classmates food blog, and it was a game changer! I now have a list of restaurants I am dying to try and a person to ask for additional ideas.

These are just some of the strategies I used to ease my transition from a small town (with nothing around) to living in a big city where something is happening 24/7. If you would like to talk more about transitioning into a new city, don’t hesitate to reach out to me!

A Week in the life: A P2 Student

Hello everyone! One of the common questions we get as ambassadors is what our normal weeks look like as students at Ohio State. To give you and idea, of both how classes are and how we fit in everything else, I am going to walk you through what a typical week looks like for me! One thing to note – everyone’s schedule is different so this is just one possible schedule out of many.

Monday: 

-Lecture 8:30-11:30 – Monday started off with a lecture on the pathophysiology of Arrhythmias. While the material was pretty heavy, it helped that it was taught by a pharmacist who works in the Ross Heart Hospital and is a specialist in the field.
-Professional Hour 11:30-12:30 – All PharmD students have 11:30-12:30 off every day. This professional hour, I ran across the street to BistrOH to grab a quick bite with friends.
-Lecture 12:30-3:30 – We finished off Monday with a lecture on the pharmacology of anti-arrhythmic drugs and the medicinal chemistry behind how these drugs work. Throughout the lecture, we had a variety of patient cases to help us visualize how these things are applied in real life.
-Interprofessional education event 5:30-8:00 – A special event, this was a session with other health professional students focused on the opioid crisis. It was really interesting to hear the viewpoint of my future colleagues and really helped me to realize how much we will all need to work together to solve the crisis.

Tuesday:

-Work 7:00-12:30 – As mentioned in my last blog post, I work with the OSU Wexner Medical Center as an informatics intern.  Tuesday morning, I worked with some of our pharmacist specialists to standardize how we make patient progress notes. I was amazed at how diverse a range of specialists we have right across the street from the college and it was really interesting to hear from all of them how they work through their cases.
-Lab 12:30-3:30 – Lab is my favorite part of the week, class wise. Our second year lab is focussed on hospital pharmacy so this week we were compounding sterile IV bags of ceftriaxone. We also have a heavy focus on communication skills in lab so I practiced presenting therapy changes to a physician. It was great to be able to practice with one of our TAs acting as a physician and now I feel ready to do the real thing on one of my rotations.

Wednesday:

-Lecture 8:30-11:30 – More lecture! This time we learned about the therapeutics behind treating atrial arrhythmias.
-Professional Hour 11:30-12:30 – This professional hour, I went to a meeting of a brand new student organization. Bringing our grand total to 18, this new organization focuses on specialty pharmacy. They had a guest speaker who had a lot of insight into the field but most importantly – they had free food.
-Lecture 12:30-3:30 – To round out the day we talked about Venous Thromboembolism from another faculty member who also practices at the Wexner Medical Center. While we only had him for a few hours, we learned a ton about the topic and worked through some patient cases that made the material so much clearer.

Thursday:

-Work – 7:00-12:30
-Professional Hour 11:30-12:30 – This professional hour I mostly studied but also shamelessly used the excuse of supporting a good cause to get some tasty baked goods! During professional hours, student orgs sell everything from white coats to t-shirts to cupcakes. It’s a great opportunity to support some of our charities and satisfy your sweet tooth at the same time.
-Workshop 12:30-3:30 -Thursday workshop was focused on patient cases for Arrhythmias and Venous Thromboembolism. Using a team based learning approach, we talked about all the considerations that need to be made in treating these disease states. All the different specialists were there so we got to see how the team works together to prioritize and manage complex patients.

Friday:

-Workshop 8:30-11:30 – Friday workshop will focus on pharmacogenomics. I particularly am looking forward to this since it’s such a cutting edge field that even a lot of practicing pharmacists don’t know much about. The fact that we get exposure to it so early on is very exciting.
-The Circleville Pumpkin Show 2:30 -??-  Since the week can’t be all work and no play, me and some of my fellow Phi Delta Chi Brothers are going to blow off some steam at the famous Circleville Pumpkin Show! I’ve never been so I’m not entirely sure what is in store but I’ve heard they have pumpkin flavored versions of literally anything you can think of. I can’t wait to see what all I can find!

So there you have it, a week In the life of an OSU student. It’s pretty jam packed with a lot of exciting things that spice things up between lectures. I hope this gives you an idea of what it’s like here!

Student Org Spotlight: SSHP

Hi again!

This week’s blog post will be a student organization spotlight on the Student Society of Health-System Pharmacists, better known as SSHP. SSHP is one of over 15 student organizations at the College but is unique in the fact that it primarily focuses on health system (hospital and ambulatory care) pharmacy.

Who is SSHP?

SSHP strives to educate members about and provide opportunities related to hospital and health-system pharmacy. They want to help current pharmacy students be the most competitive candidate for residency and beyond!

What is a residency?A residency is additional post-graduation training meant to better prepare pharmacists for practice by providing them with a wide range of patient experiences. It provides the knowledge and experience that pharmacists need to meet the complex demands of today’s health care environment.

The Local, State and National Level:

While SSHP at Ohio State is the College level, there is a local, state and national level of the organization as well—this is true all over the country! For Ohio State, the local chapter is the Central Ohio Society of Health-System Pharmacists (COSH), the state level is the Ohio Society of Health-System Pharmacists (OSHP), and the national chapter is the American Society of Health-System Pharmacists (ASHP). Each level holds different events and programs, for example, COSHP hosts monthly dinners which double as a networking opportunity and contain an educational lecture (and delicious dinner); while ASHP hosts Midyear every December, which highlights residency programs across the country, provides continuing education for pharmacists and students.

What does SSHP offer for students?

  • General Body Meetings—like most general body meetings at the college, lunch is provided while you hear from clinical specialists who can practice in a variety of settings—from ambulatory care, to pediatrics, oncology and hematology, emergency medicine and much more!
  • Socials! There is at least 1 social per semester that allows students of all classes to network and get to know one another better
  • Mentorship programs! There are mentorship opportunities available through the Wexner Medical Center and Nationwide Children’s Hospital.
  • CV Review
  • Leadership Opportunities and Positions
  • Clinical Skills Competition—this starts at the school level and can go all the way to the National level depending on student success. Students are paired with a classmate and given a complex patient case to manage and present.
  • Professional Development
  • Community Health Service hours through the Columbus Free Clinic and Generation Rx Collaborative

SSHP is truly a wonderful organization for any student that is interested or may be interested in residency or hospital-based pharmacy!

As always, feel free to reach out to me with any questions!

Cassie Rush