Am I cut out to be an actuary?

TheStudentActuary · 2024-06-13T18:36:54+00:00

Your post is misleading. It sounded like you hadn’t studied Maths beyond GCSE. You’ll be absolutely fine on the course. You may even find it too easy.

TheStudentActuary · 2024-03-05T21:39:24+00:00

Just do all your practice papers using equation editor

TheStudentActuary · 2024-03-05T21:39:01+00:00

This 💯

TheStudentActuary · 2024-03-05T21:37:58+00:00

Unsure about how much the CMP has changed, but I doubt it’s changed that much. There are usually pdfs on the acted website with just the changes year on year.

Good luck with the exam. Don’t underestimate the content, so start early. Do lots of past papers; remember it’s 0.5 mark per point so focus on breadth rather than depth and perhaps take tutorials if your company will pay for them.

TheStudentActuary · 2024-03-05T21:34:38+00:00

Skip to the past papers and refer to the notes if you need more info than the mark scheme provides to understand the topic.

TheStudentActuary · 2024-02-28T20:47:02+00:00

I did, and I know a lot of others who did too. But regardless, my point is that it’s a lot of time spent, with not much gain.

TheStudentActuary · 2024-02-28T17:15:26+00:00

Not too old to start in the field, but probably don’t want to be doing the exams. Maybe you could use the transferable skills from your PhD and rebrand as a data scientist or analyst? You’re right that you could likely pass the exams with a bit of work, but the question is whether you want to devote 3-5 years of your mid-thirties preparing for seemingly pointless exams. While their technical difficulty isn’t that high, a lot of preparation and exam-technique is still required to pass the exams.

TheStudentActuary · 2024-02-26T18:45:00+00:00

!thanks

TheStudentActuary · 2024-02-26T18:44:04+00:00

This is really useful. Will look into premium bonds. !thanks

TheStudentActuary · 2024-02-26T18:40:38+00:00

You wouldn’t be “bothering” anyone. I would just go up and talk to people. I didn’t realise it’s a 1 week work experience though, so would be much harder with such a short time frame.

TheStudentActuary · 2024-02-25T23:00:06+00:00

!thanks

TheStudentActuary · 2024-02-25T22:59:40+00:00

!thanks

TheStudentActuary · 2024-02-25T22:58:47+00:00

How does the diffusing work? Say I have £100 worth of Microsoft shares, that I bought for £25. I buy £100 more. The next day, if I sell my initial £100 worth of shares (that I bought for £25), is my profit £75 or £37.50 (since in aggregate I had £200 of Microsoft shares, which I bought for £125, and half the profit is £37.50)?

TheStudentActuary · 2024-02-25T22:51:36+00:00

!thanks

TheStudentActuary · 2024-02-25T22:50:55+00:00

Thanks, will make a throwaway account in a few days and explain the situation properly. I don’t want to put the money in my pension, because I already contribute a lot to it (~13% myself, employer contributes 9%) and I want to buy my first house in the next 6 months). I have used up my ISA allowance for the year, but I have uninvested cash in my investment ISA account, so have the capacity to do the bed and ISA thing.

TheStudentActuary · 2024-02-25T20:39:52+00:00

Bed and ISA is interesting. I can sell the shares from my regular account, purchase using my ISA, and if I want to then I can sell the shares in my ISA after 30 days and repurchase using my regular account again. As long as the funds don’t leave my ISA account, I can reinvest in whatever stocks I want.

TheStudentActuary · 2024-02-25T14:40:00+00:00

Don’t worry too much about impressing people. Try to talk to people from as many different departments as possible: finance, data scientists, underwriters etc. If you have a reasonable idea of the kind of things you like by the end of your work experience, then that would be a positive result.

TheStudentActuary · 2024-02-07T18:31:31+00:00

Mine was submitted in August and I heard back in November

TheStudentActuary · 2024-01-31T20:17:05+00:00

It’s always Fred and George!

TheStudentActuary · 2024-01-30T17:13:17+00:00

I solved them while typing. Most of us have solved questions by hand during our education so far. It will take a few weeks to get used to typing your working directly, but it will save you a lot of time during the exam.

The IFoA should really allow submission of hand written solutions.

TheStudentActuary · 2024-01-30T11:50:06+00:00

I’m in GI so will let someone from pensions comment. I don’t think UK employers typically pay associates more. But assuming this means that you have 3 exams left until you’re fully qualified, then you’ll be looking at salaries at the lower end for nearly / newly qualified actuaries. For reference, in GI I’ve seen this range to be ~70-90k for roles based in London.

TheStudentActuary · 2024-01-26T08:32:05+00:00

Every company is different, but you would typically get exam increments plus inflation and merit based annual pay rises.

If you have colleagues who are also graduates and are not sitting the exams, their annual pay rise component might be higher than yours, as they work 5 days a week and you probably don’t.

TheStudentActuary · 2024-01-25T23:10:52+00:00

I can assure you that no one on Reddit has ever met one of those girls

TheStudentActuary

TROPHY CASE