I've just started my second semester of second year pharmacy, so please feel free to PM me with any questions you have--I do try to come on BOS once a week.
Chemistry in pharmacy is not hard. Biochemistry is a lot to remember, but it's interesting and two of the three lecturers you will get are good. As SabtheLab said, it's mainly about keeping up to date--you will find that the lecturer for intermediary metabolism is
really repetitive and so half your notes are the same content anyway.
Extra research? Well, I did use my textbook for some nifty diagrams (and I'm one of those people who borrow and hardly ever use textbooks in general), and the rest--Wikipedia
There's med chem as well which is boring as anything but it's not hard....oh and IPS/Pharmaceutics and Formulation--all you really need is a basic understanding of organic chemistry, stereochemistry (your D/L, R/S, cis/trans, axial/equatorial), acids and bases (pKa and pH), thermochemistry (basically, that G is free energy, H is enthalpy, S is entropy and G being -ve makes a reaction spontaneous), and an understanding of inter (and intra) molecular forces, i.e. your H bonds, your dispersion/London/van der Waal's forces, dipole moments, etc.
Any gaps in your knowledge will be covered at some point, so don't worry too much. First year chemistry in any science degree should be fine. Overall, pharmacy is really quite overrated.
As for the pracs, I'm not sure what you're referring to--as in, just science experiment type pracs or actual dispensing? Dispensing I dont know because we don't do it till third year.
SabtheLab, are you in first or second year?
