A “Phriendly” Hello!

Hello fellow U of T Students! Allow me to introduce myself, my name is Sandra and I’m a new face to the Life @ UofT team! I’m currently a third year student studying at the Leslie Dan Faculty of Pharmacy here at U of T. As the Professional Faculty blogger, I’m looking forward to sharing a different perspective in student experience along with allowing you to learn more about the professional faculties offered at U of T!

I noticed whenever I strike up a conversation with a non-pharmacy student, they always ask questions about the pharmacy building – particularly, those “balls” that seem to just float in the air! Well, as someone who spends countless hours in this building, I’ll provide you with a virtual tour of this illustrious structure! If you ever find yourself on the North-West corner of University and College, then you can’t miss this 12-storey wonder! You open the doors and you enter wondrous open space, which is affectionately referred to as the “Atrium” – completed with a Second Cup, a receptionist area, and a quaint study space off to the side.

You’ll notice a large staircase leading both down and upstairs. Downstairs leads to two basement-levels with each floor featuring a lecture hall to seat more than 200 students. If you travel upstairs, the next two levels are dedicated to providing study spaces for students. The second floor accommodates group study where as quiet study areas are found on the third floor – unfortunately these areas are restricted to pharmacy students only (although, you may get in if you sneak behind a pharmacy student!). The remaining floors (i.e. everything above the third floor) are dedicated to administration offices, professors’ offices and their labs, along with professional practice labs, compounding labs and workshop rooms for students. Now you’re probably dying to know what’s up with those "balls" suspended in the air! The conceptual design was to make them look like “pills”, however, we refer to them as "pods". And they also happen to be lecture rooms! Yes, classes actually happen in mid-air! On the second floor there is a catwalk that leads to the entrance to one of the pods that can seat 60 students. Similarly, there is another catwalk on the 4^th floor which allows access to the smaller pod which can seat 40 students. Something also neat is that there is study space on top of one of the pods because it aligns with the third floor!

So that was a little sneak-peak of some interesting features of the pharmacy building! I hope I convinced you to take a little detour on the way to class to check out this state-of-the-art building!!