Elena Patestos created the ideal solution for her educational goals as a pharmacy student and found a home at Wilkes.
Second-year pharmacy student Elena Patestos is in her fourth year at Wilkes. Then she has two years left to complete the doctor of pharmacy program. The pre-pharmacy program allowed her to explore career options in a variety of settings while also giving her a home away from home. “The second I got into pharmacy, it was like being part of a big family.”
The senior from Toms River, New Jersey, is also a member of the Wilkes University Honors Program family. To fulfill part of her honors requirements, she served as a teaching assistant junior year. Patestos oversees the pharmacy lab where students learn how products are made in the pharmaceutical industry, creating suspensions and emulsions, preparing medicine doses and making pill tablets. “It’s pretty cool, the different kinds of things we can do,” Patestos says.
Harvey Jacobs, associate professor of pharmaceutical sciences, teaches the two-semester lab. He pushes his students to work hard, while encouraging them to have a life outside of class. “I try to inject a lot of humor and keep it light,” says Jacobs, “but they know what they need to do.”
Patestos keeps marching along outside the Nesbitt School of Pharmacy. The music minor and head drum major founded the Wilkes chapter of Kappa Kappa Psi, a band and music fraternity, and serves as the chapter’s president. She was treasurer of the junior class and is now president of the senior class. She also studied abroad in Peru.
“Wilkes provides you with so many opportunities to grow and experience so many different things,” says Patestos. “The people I met at Wilkes are going to be in my life forever.”
Learn more about our Pre-pharmacy program at Wilkes University >>>
