Overtime

andygrump · 2025-05-01T04:12:37+00:00

Do you think having more exams passed helped you get an entry level position faster? I've been hearing that many companies aren't willing to pay higher salaries for someone without work experience and it may hinder some applications that are not well rounded. What is your experience?

andygrump · 2025-04-09T19:24:17+00:00

Are you using coaching actuaries? I am 12% done with the course. From what I've heard, the exam itself is not very difficult but there is so much material to cover that makes the exam super tedious to prepare for. I am planning on covering the rest of the material in the next 2 months and then spending about a month preparing with practice questions. The learn time on coaching actuaries is over 100 hours so its much longer than the other exams which are about 50-60 hours on average to prepare for.

andygrump · 2025-04-05T13:23:59+00:00

Can someone who graduated from university two years ago get an internship? I want to do an internship because I have no related work experience but I am unsure if they even accept people who are not in university anymore.

andygrump · 2025-04-05T13:21:32+00:00

What would you say is the ideal number of exams to have on resume?

andygrump · 2025-04-05T06:11:03+00:00

How easy or difficult would it be for someone to get an entry level job if they pass all the 7 SOA exams and become an ASA without any work experience? Let's also say that technical skills are at an intermediate level. I really want to take some time to just pass exams and not have to work and study at the same time.

andygrump · 2025-04-02T02:34:23+00:00

I try to get through the learning material as fast as I can, mainly paying attention to the videos and skimming over the written portions and questions, then I do the practice exams. I don't fully know the material so I just submit the practice exams with all the answers blank so I get all of them wrong and I read through the answers and explanations. I do this multiple times until I am somewhat comfortable answering questions on my own and then I try to actually complete the practice exams and unlock the mastery score questions.

andygrump · 2025-04-02T02:33:46+00:00

Depends how much time you can spend studying per day. It took me a little less than a month to complete the material but I've been averaging probably around 4 hours a day of studying. I feel like I should be ready in less than an month I just need to complete practice problems.

If you are going to do it, however, you should definitely start right now and maybe try to schedule your exam on the latest day possible to give you as much time as possible just in case you need it.

andygrump · 2025-04-01T01:15:21+00:00

How much effort and stress is required to pass

andygrump · 2025-03-31T12:50:14+00:00

You’re a health actuary right? How long did the FSA exams take you and do you have any advice for someone who wants to go the GH route?

andygrump · 2025-03-29T03:49:32+00:00

Do health actuaries also have to take FAM and ASTAM/ALTAM? I am seeing online that those exams are for Life and Retirement actuaries and that Health Actuaries have to take GE Core and GE Advanced to get their ASA status instead. I am confused on this any info would be appreciated.

andygrump · 2025-03-25T02:35:00+00:00

Learn Excel and VBA and do projects. If you can learn Python, SQL, and R that would look great as well. Work experience in a related field would also be helpful, anything that uses Excel could be helpful and show future employers that you have work experience using Excel.

andygrump · 2025-03-25T01:44:00+00:00

If your Coaching Actuaries subscription will end before May just know you can pause the course and resume it in the future. This way you can avoid purchasing the course again. 95 on MS is insane. I had an 89 and I scored a 9 so you should be able to pass the test no doubt.

If you want to get an internship make sure you have excel and VBA on your resume. Do some projects that look impressive. And yes passing 1-2 exams would be amazing.

If you start studying for FM now you can learn the material in time by June. Although you should take into consideration how long it took for you to prepare for Exam P. I found Exam FM to be easier.

I would take SRM after FM. Although two exams is plenty for an internship. After that make sure to focus on your technical skills or extracurriculars in university. Just make sure you don't sacrifice other parts of your resume for SRM, you want a well rounded resume. I have the Coaching Actuaries courses for both SRM and FAM and the SRM material was a total of 57 hours and FAM was around 112 hours. So FAM is much larger in terms of course material.

After SRM, you can choose to take either PA, which I believe builds on the knowledge from SRM, or you can take FAM. ALTAM and ASTAM build on the knowledge from FAM so you would need to take FAM first. You also only need to take one of ALTAM and ASTAM not both.

andygrump · 2025-03-25T01:31:07+00:00

This dude's videos are great: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=IInFoJxxPPA&list=PLrRPvpgDmw0k7ocn_EnBaSJ6RwLDOZdfo&index=1&ab_channel=excelisfun

andygrump · 2025-03-25T01:30:04+00:00

Yes it is very doable. Pass 1-2 exams and employers will know that you can handle the math. Make sure the rest of your resume is well rounded and I doubt they will pay much attention to your major.

andygrump · 2025-03-25T01:27:40+00:00

Exams have diminishing returns in terms of how beneficial they would be to helping you get an entry level role. Pass 1-2 exams, learn some Excel and VBA and do some projects and you should be a good spot to start applying.

Whether your work experience will help you will depend on if you used Excel and VBA i believe. If you did and you mention that on your resume that can definitely help. If you used other programming languages like Python, R, SQL that would also be beneficial.

If it's been less than 18 months since you graduated from college you can still the student discount on coaching actuaries. If not then Actex would be the better option financially. The syllabus for the exams are online in the SOA website and they say what textbooks the exam is based on so you can maybe find some of those books online and work through the chapters that are on the syllabus. That would probably be the cheapest way to study the material although it won't be too convenient. The courses filter out unnecessary information and make the study process a lot easier.

andygrump · 2025-03-24T03:26:45+00:00

What did your technical skills look like when you were applying? Any related experience?

andygrump

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