The University of Texas at El Paso (UTEP) School of Pharmacy is home to a diverse population of students and provides enriching opportunities. The city of El Paso is bordered by Ciudad Juarez, Mexico, with an estimated total population of more than 2 million people. El Paso and the surrounding border region is critically underserved in the areas of medicine, and approximately one-fifth of the population lives in poverty.

UTEP “IDEAL” students are prepared to be Innovative, embrace Diversity, demonstrate Engagement, provide Access, and develop Leadership skills to meet the needs of a 21st century demographic.

“Why do you want to go to pharmacy school?” I remember first hearing those words as a pre-professional student pharmacist, sitting across from a faculty member, in the middle of my interview to transition to the professional part of the Rutgers PharmD program. It was a pretty standard question, and an answer that my upperclassmen friends had told me how not to screw up. “All you have to do is say you want to help people. That’s it!,” they told me. And that’s exactly what I did. But if I were to be honest in answering that question, my answer would have been very different.

As I reflect on the 2017 APhA Annual Meeting & Exposition in San Francisco, I can vividly recall experiencing a variety of emotions before, during, and after attending. During the months leading up to the meeting, my thoughts had become speculative in nature as I had attempted to imagine the ambience within the Moscone Convention Center: the sights, the sounds, the experiences. As a first-year student pharmacist attending my first APhA Annual Meeting & Exposition: Would I be able to network with others? Would I be able to share my ideas to others? Would I be able to learn from others?