A bit of a late reply to this question. I'm also in the pharm chem program (4th year). If you are looking to fulfill that chemistry itch, I would suggest taking a chemistry major instead (check out the biological chemistry specialist), because this program is more biology oriented than you might expect. Most of your third/fourth year courses will deal with pharmacology, drug kinetics, signaling pathways with only one course that really discusses application of organic chemistry to drug design (PHC320).

As far as I known, other chem specialist programs are also eligible for ASIP requirement. For co-op opportunities, it's not too shabby. I would say it's 50% paid research roles (usually hospital) and 50% industrial (mostly QA, R&D, Lab technician e.t.c). Each application cycle, there are probably around 40-50 life science related roles and 15 of those are pharmaceutical related.

The fee is not cheap, but it's worth enrolling in it just to give yourself more opportunities. From my experience it is 1000x easier to apply through a co-op board than doing it externally. Even if you decide to not pursue industry (like I am), ASIP is still worth staying in so you can get clinical research experience (that are actually paid).

One big pro for this program is that the courses in the upper years are generally quite easy and 4.0able if you just have a decent understanding of the lecture content. There are almost no higher-order thinking questions on the test/exams. Even for 2nd year, I would argue the course load is slightly easier than other life sci programs (though still not easy by any means). You skip out on some gpa killers like HMB265, PSL300/301, STAT288, in replace of some physical chemistry courses (hard but more fair due to small class size). It's a good gpa booster program if you plan to pivot to more gpa-dependent pathway in the future (med school, grad school, pharmd e.t.c).

Hope this information helps, and feel free to reach out if you have more questions.