I’m currently a senior in high school going into college next year and I’m trying to see what math I should go down.
Currently enrolled in calculus BC and love math. Also found a i very much enjoyed macro economics last year. But at the same time like physics. Not sure what kind of engineering Id want to pursue if I choose that way either. But what are some advantages and disadvantages of each profession? Pay for each? Most entertaining? Anything would help. Thanks.
Pick engineering and take a class or two on the actuarial track in your first semester. They both have some merit, but it’s hard to tell you which you would enjoy more. They are quite different.
Very few actuaries have or need actuarial degrees while most engineers do. You have many years before you will need to become an actuary. Both professions are diverse enough that it’s hard to make comparisons between the two fields. My opinion is that engineering can often offer more of a creative outlet while actuarial work can often offer a more secure lower stress work environment.
I struggled with this question myself. I love math more than i love physics and the salaries of actuaries are very attractive. It appears you can actually work as an actuary after passing just a couple of exams. From there on your salary is usually tied to experience and how many exams you have passed. I think i was something like, each exam you pass adds about $2,000 to your annual salary and each year adds $1,500.
Most actuaries work for insurance companies from what i heard. But there’s a growing demand for them in business since they are able to assess risk and financial impact of different scenarios in a quantitative way. Who knows where the profession will go?
You can start college following the desired engineering curriculum template, taking economics and such things useful for actuarial preparation as your H/SS breadth courses. If you decide to switch targets to actuarial work, you would be able to switch to math or statistics in the first two years relatively easily. An actuarial science major may be a convenient checklist of courses for actuarial preparation, but is not required, and you can do such preparation in any major where you can take the needed math, statistics, economics, finance, and whatever other courses.
http://www.beanactuary.com has more information on actuarial preparation.
Actuarial science is sad is it not? Studying the failure rates includes people dying and what not. Engineering you get to do some of that risk analysis when designing projects and there’ll always be work for you to improve the systems we currently have.