Comments on: Actuary Career Information : Actuary Hardest Day

By: Dejital

Dejital — Wed, 21 Jul 2010 18:22:36 +0000

The thunderstorm was hilarious the whole way through, love the mention of it near the end. Thank you

By: k3N70n40

k3N70n40 — Wed, 21 Jul 2010 18:02:32 +0000

Useful information. Quite the joker. lol

By: tsingybutt

tsingybutt — Wed, 21 Jul 2010 17:20:52 +0000

I love readily available data!

By: MelTurpin

MelTurpin — Wed, 21 Jul 2010 17:11:14 +0000

Do NOT become an actuary. I have warned you. I speak from over 10 years of experience TRYING and TRYING to enjoy this profession. No amount of money is worth this world of Boredom.

By: mailmepizza

mailmepizza — Wed, 21 Jul 2010 16:53:07 +0000

I can understand why you would be frustrated but I don’t think it’s necessary to project that kind of an opinion. One man’s trash is another man’s treasure. Please explain why you feel this way.

By: MelTurpin

MelTurpin — Wed, 21 Jul 2010 16:45:02 +0000

You said “..but I don’t think it’s necessary to project that kind of an opinion.”

That’s precisely the problem! There is tons of information out there promoting the positive aspects of becoming an actuary, and I don’t doubt it’s a wonderfully satisfying career for many, especially the unadverturous. Too many people wind up as unhappy actuaries, just because they happened to like math and were fooled into pursuing a profession that rarely uses ANY math trickier than + – / and *.

By: mailmepizza

mailmepizza — Wed, 21 Jul 2010 16:07:59 +0000

I take back what i said. It’s definitely good for people to hear criticism of the job as well, just as long as there is a reason for the criticism.

So you are saying you have to be adventurous? Why is that? Also, if it does not use math, what does it use? There has to be quite a bit of brainpower involved if you can take up to 8 exams all requiring inordinate amounts of study time.

How many exams did you pass? Any information would be helpful as I am looking into this career.

By: MelTurpin

MelTurpin — Wed, 21 Jul 2010 15:33:51 +0000

No, I’m certainly not saying you have to be adventurous. I do think that different personality types have different needs in the “adventure” department; I found very little adventure at ANY of the 3 different life/health companies I worked for.

I obtained my ASA designation. Only the early exams are heavy on Math. The further you go, the less math you will see. You certainly need brainpower, but in my opinion you need a brain with a high tolerance for memorizing boring non-mathematical facts.

By: mailmepizza

mailmepizza — Wed, 21 Jul 2010 15:03:21 +0000

So you passed about six tests. That’s pretty good. Can you give an example of the problems you were presented with at work? How long did they take to solve? Why does a high level certification require the memorizing of so many facts? And if they’re not mathematical, what do they pertain to? Thanks for the information.

By: SinistralEbb

SinistralEbb — Wed, 21 Jul 2010 14:40:28 +0000

That’s amazing, particularly when the exams are so much more challenging — that actuaries spend most of their time dealing with simple mathematics. Is that because actuaries use programs/software that does most of the work for them?