<p>Looking through all the responds…</p>
<p>I would say actuary is the a good career for you.</p>
<p>I want to emphasize something here on actuary:
- Problem-solving is a must (not even an option). </p>
<p>As current actuarial intern, I observe that actuaries (who passed all the exams requirements and have 20+ years experience, they are smart smart smart people who love math, who constantly use math (complex modeling to predict the future like assessing operational risk, investment risk,financial risk… alright this sound fancy and general so let me refer to some specific examples of their work). </p>
<p>In general, government regulates all the licensed insurance firms to protect the consumers by making sure they follow 2 things:
a. Loss ratio >= 60%, loss ratio is defined as aggregate claimed paid / aggregate premium collected. Now this seems like a trivial equation but also remember that actuaries do not just look at the past, they predict the future so they have to use complex probability modeling to determine the loss ratio in the future years and make the trends. How would they know future claims or future premium? They have to rely on some assumptions and some complex math like regression. However, there is no exact formula that they can use so they have to model this by some valid and reliable method that must follow the law and there are some standards like NAIC standards practise of actuary work. </p>
<p>b. These insurance firms also have to let the government know that they have enough reserve to pay for anticipated future claims. Again, the work behind this is really complex math. </p>
<p>In summary, as actuary working in government, you regulates the insurance firms plus others; for actuary working in insurance firms, you need to do these filings (the work that not just involve lots of complex math but also complex laws and regulations) plus many other tasks that involve math. </p>
<ol>
<li>More than extensive use of math.
Think about why do they require us to pass so many exams? Also, these exams are really crazy math… I can surely bet that people who don’t love math will not pass these exams or go into this field.
For exam 1: You need to know probability solidly.
For exam 2: You need to know the math that goes behind finance so you apply these big complex math concepts to analyze cash flow to figure out rate of return, net present value, net future value, amortization, bond (this isn’t easy as it sound), balance etc plus a new advanced topic “derivative” which is generally taught in “GRADUATE” level financial engineering course.
and then many more following exams assume the knowledge of 1 and 2 so they will be even harder to pass.
All these exams use extensive math!
Now, let give you some #, the passing rate for many of these exams is about 50% or so. Also, the people who take these exams generally have solid math background and usually math/statistics majors and what only about 50% pass? These exams are tough, not only do you have to know math, but you have to know math even when you sleep!
Check <a href=“http://www.soa.org%5B/url%5D”>www.soa.org</a> for more information on exam registration, samples of exams, passing rates …etc </li>
</ol>
<p>3) decent pay. Let me give you a reliable source for actuary salary.
[Actuary</a> Salary Survey - actuary jobs - D.W. Simpson & Company, Inc. , actuarial, actuaries, Employment, Salaries, Insurance, Statistics, Mathematics, FCAS, ACAS, ASA, FSA, Student, FCIA, FIA](<a href=“http://www.dwsimpson.com/salary.html]Actuary”>http://www.dwsimpson.com/salary.html)
Geneally, starting out with 1 exam plus no experience to all the way up being ASA or FSA.
The range is about $50,000 to $166,000. This also depends on the employers, the location, experience etc</p>
<p>Yeah, as many have mentioned, actuary has been suggested as one of the best profession by various sources. </p>
<hr>
<p>My background:
UCLA math/accounting/management (joint major from math and business department) alumni.
USC graduate student in industrial engineering.
Actuary wanna-be (I passed exam 1 and preparing for exam 2)
Actuarial intern in CA government.</p>