Well, as I am seriously considering going to UK for Actuarial Science, I try to look for information in the Study in UK thread as well as an Actuarial Science thread but they don't seem to be providing much info for Actuarial Science. Hence, I took the liberty to start a thread for Actuarial Science, and so far, exclusive to UK which is where I might head to.

Actuarial Science is the study of Mathematics, Statistics, Economics and Finance where all of the topics are inclined towards risk management. In short, Actuarial Science is all about RISK.

A book by David Promislow suggests that the job of an actuary is to turn risk into no-risk, turn uncertainty into certainty.
I'll come up with an easy example - insurance.
We estimate that one person die will cause a financial loss of 100,000 and 1 out of 50 will die.
So, the company insures 500 people, where 10 of them shall die. So, 10 of them dying will causes financial losses of 1,000,000.
In order to reduce the risk, every of the 500 people pay 2,000.
In the end, everyone eliminates the risk just by paying 2,000.
But of course, this is very ideal. There's a lot of things that would factor in. That's why we must study for it!

Alright, now the lists of universities in UK providing such courses.

1. LSE
2. Heriot-Watt (HW)
3. City
4. Southampton (Soton)
5. Kent
6. Manchester
7. UEA
8. Keele
9. Swansea
10. Queen's Belfast (QBU)
11. Warwick
12. Kingston

Universities that grant 8 CT exemptions are..
HW, City, Soton, Kent, QBU.
Yes, as far as I am concerned, LSE doesn't get full exemptions.

http://www.actuaries.org.uk/students/tuiti...tuarial_courses

Brief description of each university.

1. LSE
- in London, higher living cost.
- tuition fee >12k.
- not sure about scholarship.
- Exempt all CT except CT2.

2. HW
- in Edinburgh, moderate living cost.
- tuition fee 9k+,
- possible 15% scholarship for international students.
- Exempt all 8 CTs.
- Do well in the National Student Survey.
- One of the most established AS course in UK I suppose.
- about 20% Malaysians there, I wonder if JPA sends them to there.
- 4 years degree, but not too hard to get 2nd year entry.
- option for 'a year in industry' or study abroad in Waterloo, Canada or Melbourne, Australia.

3. City
- in London, higher living cost.
- tuition fee ~11k.
- possible 25% reduction.
- Exempt 8 CTs.
- Established course I suppose.
- JPA students do go there.
- option for 'a year in industry'.

4. Soton
- in Southampton, a port, moderately low living cost.
- tuition fee 9k+
- 2 streams. One Maths, one Econs stream.
- Generous scholarship. 1 A of A-Level gets 1,000GBP discount - apply for Maths stream only.
- Exempts 8 CTs.
- Not specialised enough, IMHO, as they are called "Mathematics with Actuarial Science" or "Economics and Actuarial Science". Joint Honours if not mistaken.

5. Kent
- in Canterbury, small town, low living cost.
- tuition fee 10k+
- possible 5k scholarship but need to write an essay.
- Exempts 8 CTs.
- Established course I suppose.
- Do very well in the National Student Survey.
- Most number of Fellows in the teaching staffs.
- option for 'a year in industry'.

6. Manchester
- in Machester, moderately high living cost.
- tuition fee ~14k
- not sure about scholarship as I don't care when saw the sky-high tuition fee.
- Exempts some of the papers. Detail please check the link above.
- Not a very old course.
- Not much info as I don't research much.
- Manchester United and Manchester City are based in Manchester.

7. UEA
- in Norwich, moderate living cost.
- tuition fee ~10k
- possible 50% scholarship, for either being a Faculty of Science student, or international student.
- Not sure about exemptions. Reason see below.
- Relatively new course.
- compulsory 'a year in industry'.

8. Keele
- don't know where.
- Relatively new.
- not much info.

9. Swansea
- in Swansea, Wales, moderately low living cost.
- not sure about tuition fee but comes around 9k I suppose.
- not sure about scholarship, too.
- Exempts a few, not all. Check link above.
- Course has been there for some time already. Not sure why still can't get full exemptions.

10. QBU
- in Northern Ireland, moderate living cost.
- ~10k tuition fee.
- No scholarship as far as I am concerned. Got also 1,000GBP like that only I think.
- Exempt 8 CTs.
- Quite established.

11. Warwick
- in Warwick, moderate living cost.
- ~10k tuition fee.
- No generous scholarship.
- Course name is called MMORSE, Master of Mathematics, Operational Research, Statistics and Economics, I think.
- 4 years undergraduate Master.
- Option for specialism in Actuarial Mathematics for the last two years.
- MORSE is Warwick's flagship course.
- Doesn't get full exemptions. Miss 1 or 2. Check link.
- Should be quite established due to Warwick's strength in social sciences and mathematics.

12. Kingston
- don't know where.
- don't bother to know much.
- not worth checking out I guess.

That's the brief discussions for each of the university.
Basically, the places worth going are..
HW, City, Southampton, Kent and perhaps LSE IMHO.

I am sorry that I don't have much info about some of the universities. But, info upon request. I will go and search them up.

Just in case you all do not know.
Exempting the 8 CTs do not make you a qualified actuary. Recently, the IA/FA adds in a CT9 that can only be passed by attending seminars.
Completing CTs, you become an 'actuarial trainee'.
You need to complete 3 papers of CA only you can become a qualified actuary. By that time, you are called as Associate of Institute of Actuaries (England) or Associate of Faculty of Actuaries (Scotland).
If you further up, you took 2 ST papers and 1 SA paper. Then, you become Fellow - Fellow of Institute of Actuaries, Fellow of Faculty of Actuaries.
You can use the title, AIA, AFA, FIA, FFA when you reach the stage. For instance, Tan Ah Kow FFA, Lee Ah Chao AIA.
So far, Malaysia has only about 50 Fellows, be it from IA, FA (UK), SOA, CAS (US), IAA (Aus) or CIA (Canada).

Hope this helps.


A short note regarding Master course. (from later post in this thread.)
For Actuarial Science, there are two type of Master/postgraduate course.
First type is the continuation of Bachelor degree, giving you exemptions in CA, ST, SA papers.
Examples include MSc Actuarial Finance by Imperial, MSc course in Cass (I think it's called Actuarial Risk Managment) etc.
For such courses, you need either a Bachelor in Actuarial Science, Maths, Economics or Finance I believe.

The other type of Master is for non-actuarial graduates.
This sort of degree gives exemptions on CT1-8.
These courses are offered by Southampton, HW, Leicester etc.
To get into this course, you need to have 'high mathematical component' in your degree, or having a mathematics, statistics, economics and finance degree. By the definition of 'high mathematical component', I am not sure if courses like Engineering and Natural Sciences that utilise Mathematics are eligible or not. My *guess* is yes.

This post has been edited by tanjinjack: May 6 2009, 06:03 PM

after 8 papers of exemption you only need to take 7 right?

8 CTs is what you can get the most from a Bachelor degree. (Some degree claims that they prepare you for CA la, but no exemption.)
Then you need to complete 1 CT9, by attending seminar.

------finish CT stage-----------

CA got 3 papers, must clear all. CA2 is seminar, CA3 will be seminar also.
CA1 is written paper.
You become Associate - qualified actuary already.

-----finish CA stage------

ST got 6 papers, but you just need to complete 2.

-----finish ST stage------

SA got 5 or 6 papers, but need to complete 1 only.
Then you become Fellow.

-----finish ALL----------

So, if you take in seminar as well, you have 1+3+2+1, total 7 papers to complete lo.

if i'm nt wrong there is a CT9...its better if u do pstgrad cos u can get more exemptions...

So by attending seminars it certifies you for papers? Cool.
How much do you think they Pay is when you become an Associate.(In Malaysia Or UK)

By then you have 6 papers right? 3 papers +3 seminars=6

Btw do you happen to know for UTAR actuarial science(SOA)

This post has been edited by Angel01: May 5 2009, 06:21 PM

Indeed.
For Actuarial Science, there are two type of Master/postgraduate course.
First type is the continuation of Bachelor degree, giving you exemptions in CA, ST, SA papers.
Examples include MSc Actuarial Finance by Imperial, MSc course in Cass (I think it's called Actuarial Risk Managment) etc.

The other type of Master is for non-actuarial graduates.
This sort of degree gives exemptions on CT1-8.
These courses are offered by Southampton, HW, Leicester etc.
To get into this course, you need to have 'high mathematical component' in your degree, or having a mathematics, statistics, economics and finance degree.

wow you seriously know a lot, can i have your msn? I already pmed you. Would like to ask you some questions

Still got CT9, a seminar. Can't be exempted as far as I know. (Sorry for missing it out in the first post.)

Not so easy la.
Attend seminars, then have to present something, impress the panels, only they pass you on it.

Not sure about the pay.
But starting pay for trainee in UK is said to be 25k GBP. Increase as you pass more papers and getting more experienced.

thx for the info cleared some things up for me

but u already in mech enginering?

Hahaha..
Ya, I am in Mech Eng.
But as my starting of my 1st thread says, I am strongly considering Actuarial Science!

LSE is not very open for international student as i know

LSE is open to all with big pockets from what I know, as long as you've got the cash, their doors are open, loads of my friends who're doing A levels got offers from there. All law though.

---

Added on May 6, 2009, 12:41 amIsn't changing majors difficult in the UK system? How do you go about changing from Mech Eng. to Actuarial Sc.?

This post has been edited by Jyou: May 6 2009, 12:41 AM

I have just started my 1st sem, so it's still possible that I can change course, restarting from Year 1 though.
(Now thinking if I finish my degree, and do a Master instead.)

they only accept pre-u that is recognise(means not m'sia foundation or any other) and the student they offer each year have limited space as i made enquiry before
my enquiry is actuarial sc
so not sure for law
hehe

Lol if you wanted to go to UK you should have taken A Levels mah, see now its so troublesome, at least Southampton accepted you de.
And also you were looking for scholarship, LSE is very stingy from what I heard.

---

Added on May 6, 2009, 1:11 amI think an engineering degree and a masters in actuarial science would work nicely, nowadays companies do value diversity and there are more and more engineers getting into the financial sector, I think it's a wise move.

This post has been edited by Jyou: May 6 2009, 01:11 AM

i dont think all preu are acceptable ..its easier to get in with preu like IB n a level other than tat it will be consider on case by case basis if they do accept other kind of preu...
i think uni like warwick n lse r difficult to get in without IB or a level cos for a level 'furher maths r higly desireable' ...warwick r better they gic u a choice: STEP or fm... but STEP is harder...

This post has been edited by vanPersieXX: May 6 2009, 01:17 AM

yes!you are right!
and it's not very much open for international student

Well AUP/ADP isn't a pre-U you know ...

yes i know
tat's y i said they only accept some pre-u
i made enquiry and they asked me do international foundation program
start from 0
haha

Ok lo.
So far, my SAM is accepted in Southampton (with 4k scholarship!), Heriot-Watt (2nd year entry!), UEA and high chance for City.
City people didn't give me a promise, but sweet word. LOL.
Didn't bother to ask LSE.

i didn't comment about other school
didn't u wanna go kent?
heriot-watt is a 4 year program if i am not mistaken
means u have to study 3 years too
no need so aggressive
i just comment wat i know
why u didnt reply my doubt of associate degree

You think I so free every thread I also check de meh. But I replied.
Kent not sure yet, they haven't told me if I can get in or not.

Well ... I just finish my spm last year ... planning to take actuarial science... so if I take ICPU then no chance in UK ark?

This is my guess la.
You still have chance if your percentage is good.
But, I must say, ICPU doesn't prepare students vigorously academically.
I met ICPU graduate doing Engineering but have no clue about complex number. Eventually, he deferred.

I mean no offense to ICPU. Even my SAM isn't very matched up with UK's syllabus also (Thank that I took Specialist Maths).

If you get an entry, and you wish to go, you have to be very well-prepared because the Maths maybe very far from what you have learned in ICPU.

But if you ICPU, try to go to Waterloo la, very famous for Actuarial Science.

waterloo is expensive than soton and it's very lc
i think they hv no exemption from the actuarial body also

---

Added on May 6, 2009, 11:14 amif you are not free,what for u open thread and do research here
people give comment then u dont like
zzzzz

This post has been edited by kim0215: May 6 2009, 11:14 AM

Well, I think if you have some time, better check up the website of FIA or even Waterloo itself la.
Their BSc is accredited by FIA for 8 CTs exemptions.
They have two type of Masters, one for career changers and one for continuers.
For career changes, the 1.5 year course gives exemptions on 8 CTs and 2 CAs.
For continuers, the exemptions go up to ST or SA papers.

Waterloo is regarded as one of the best, if not the best, university offering Actuarial Science in the Northern America.

---

Added on May 6, 2009, 12:02 pmSince when I said I don't like comments?

And, you can't expect a person to be standby 24 hours for his/her own thread right?

This post has been edited by tanjinjack: May 6 2009, 12:02 PM

so it's not SOA?
haha
i thought in canada is SOA
master only hv exemption????
watever lah
my fren who are going to there also not clear about this exemption thing,non of my business also

waterloo is best?haha
i would rather choose wisconsin madison if go waterloo

no need so aggressive about my reply~
u can't standby 24 hours but u can check back all the post what~~~

Canada has a board, called Canadian Institute of Actuaries, CIA.
I am not sure about if CIA itself accredits Waterloo's program or not, but my guess is they do.
Even if they don't, it doesn't matter.
CIA, FIA, SOA and some other actuaries society/association in other countries have signed a treaty. This treaty recognises the members (be it students, Associate, Fellow) across the societies. So, today you are an Associate in FIA, you go to CIA, they see you as an Associate also.

And, read my reply again regarding Waterloo's BSc.

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Added on May 6, 2009, 12:57 pmPardon me, Waterloo's Bachelor program is a BMath, not a BSc.

This post has been edited by tanjinjack: May 6 2009, 12:57 PM

i know,but u mentioned about 'MASTER'
so i was doubtful with ur post @@

Please allow me to ask a little question here.
What're the benefits to gain exemption after the technical Actuarial professional papers (eg CT for IOA/FOA) by pursue to master rather than collect experience by working for actuarial tasks?
I know that UK/US countries have a lot of actuary job-entry level, some companies may even provide study hours to assist you pass your exam. Study master and gain exemption for more further stage of papers will be advantage and more secure. But what i'm thinking is most of the job entry only require you to have some credited papers (let say 1 to 3), so if you manage to obtain 8 exemptions with degree level will be very excellent and delight employers.
To summarize my words, master in AS may only for those people want to do teaching or broaden the AS knowledge in a shorter period of time. Hope somebody can enlighten me.

Well to throw in my two cents regarding the issue above ...

My mother's friend's son is studying in University of Waterloo.
He went there with A Levels and initially declared a major, actuarial science.
But after 2 years he changed his major to software engineering. (He's on co-op a 5 year program, he worked and studies on alternate semesters and from his earnings alone, he manage to support about 2 years of his fees, his mom's very happy)

The reason he gave was that he didn't find sitting in front of a computer staring at spreadsheets and databases an attractive job prospect (apparently that's what actuaries do).
However, he did mentioned that University of Waterloo's Mathematics Department is famous in North America, not only is their Actuarial Science program reputable but their Computer Science program is one of the best there.

Canada is not under SOA.



No. The 1 to 3 papers are applicable in US but not UK.
US has less papers than UK.
From what I know, actuarial science students in US are encourage to finish 1 to 4 papers before graduation for ease of job hunting. UK is different (they have different number of papers and the 8 exemption for degree level is referring to the UK board, not US)
You got mix up regarding the two board.

Masters in AS allows professionals from other fields to break in into the risk management fields due to the exemptions given. There are students who after taking their undergrad in Actuarial Science going on to do masters for the sake of exemptions (I suppose they do not want to sit for the exams on their own, the exams after all have a reputation for high failure rates, see the connection?)

This post has been edited by Jyou: May 6 2009, 04:48 PM

Well, you are right that experience is a very important asset in actuarial job.
There are some employers prefer hiring students that pass the CTs on their own, instead of getting exemptions from an educational degree.

As said in my earlier post, there are 2 kinds of Master.


Hope this answers your doubt.


Yeah, they are among the three universities that Microsoft look for graduates, according to Waterloo themselves.
But they didn't do well in THES ranking, don't they?

Yeah Microsoft hires from Waterloo.
Lol most Canadian universities don't do well in world rankings, except for McGill and University of Toronto. I'm not sure why, perhaps the isolation up there?

But the good thing about Canadian tertiary education is that there's government regulation, not like US. The worst Canadian universities are not that bad, as compared to the worst of US universities. You're ensured quality education regardless of which university you attend.

Wow! I like this topic! Jinjack you have done a very thorough research on actuarial science course!!

Well, the actuarial science course in waterloo is said to be the best in the world. The uni itself is a considerably good uni, although I wont say best, but as I mentioned earlier, the actuarial science course there is regarded highly. Some insurance companies in Msia only hire interns from Waterloo uni. This was told by one of the companies.

Wisconsin Madison is a good uni too, but it is definitely not cheap to go there since it is a private uni. It has good rankings, but I would say that if comparing actuarial science graduates from both Wisconsin and Waterloo, the ones from Waterloo should be more sought after.
Again, you can do ADP 2 years programme in most of the colleges in Msia i.e. HELP, Inti etc and if you get considerably good results, Wisconsin is one of the universities on the list where you can transfer your credits too..

Coming back to UK actuarial science course. LSE's actuarial science is not as strong as City's. City's actuarial science graduates are more knowledgeable in terms of actuarial knowledge compared to some of LSE graduates. Of course i wont generalise this as a whole, but this is the experience one of my LSE actuarial graduate friends related to me, when she is working in the firm, the City graduates have a better grasp of actuarial knowledge. However City might not be as tempting as LSE in terms of global reputation, and this is the obvious reason why LSE would be chosen over City. If I had an offer from LSE and City, I would have chosen LSE too!
However LSE is said to emphasize more on graduate teachings. Undergraduate teachings does not seem to receive as much importance as research at graduate level. Try checking out the satisfactory of undergraduate students scores in the university rankings tables. Google them, and you would perhaps see that the score of LSE in this section is relatively lower compared to other uni, if I am not mistaken. I would say that City's teaching qualities has an edge over LSE.

Warwick MORSE is indeed quite a highly regarded course in UK. And to get into a four year course of Warwick MMORSE, you need at least a second upper class from your second year. Even if you are only doing 3 years MORSE, you can still gain about 3 to 4 exemptions from the professional papers, if you are doing exceptionally well in certain exams in MORSE that entitled exemptions. Warwick do not have generous scholarship though. There are only two scholarships relevant to us, namely the Malaysian scholarship, and MORSE scholarship.

oh ya! LSE is very generous in terms of financial bursary btw. haha! And it has a very huge presence of international student presence there, so it is not right to say that they are not open to international students. Well, which UK universities would be not open to international students?? Because we are the cash cow to them, as simple as that.

Honestly speaking, I would advise people to go to universities with better rankings although the course you want to do there might be second to another university whose ranking are not that great, but appears top in the course you want to do. Some employers in UK only targeted certain universities when it comes to recruitment. So my thinking is that even though if you are doing a course which is the top one in UK, but unfortunately in a not really prominent uni, you are going to miss out alot on the career fairs opportunities etc.

If you really want to go UK uni, especially certain uni like LSE (not only actuarial science course), ask the college education counsellors what modules are more preferable by LSE in terms of getting in. During my year of application, LSE asked for 3As as entry requirement, but they totally disregarded the "A" in Accounting. The 3As have to come from another three modules you do, not including Accounting. I am not sure how the entry requirement are like now.. but nor harm checking this out. Whats the point of doing Accounting if you want to go LSE, but LSE did not consider the A in this subject at all?!

Hope this shed a little light over everyone's doubt!

P/S: jingjack where are you doing your Mech Eng btw?

tabbycat,
That's a great comment, summarising quite some important points.
Are you in a position to comment more about the US system?
It's to me that more Malaysians are following the SOA instead of the IA/FA.

I am doing my Mech Eng in University of Nottingham, Malaysia Campus. See my signature!

Warwick's MMORSE sounds the most impressive to me. I was checking it out several years ago too but the requirements are pretty high. If I'm not wrong, AAA for ALevels.

I have an acquaintance who graduated from LSE in Ac.Science but he decided not to practice it. Nonetheless, investing firms and banks there already grabbed him even before he graduated.

Jinjack unfortunately I am not really in the position of commenting about US system. I am a student at UK, well at one of the universities you guys mentioned, and everything I commented up there was what my friends in respective universities related to me, or I experience it myself. You can still practise Actuarial Science too even though you are doing Mech Eng. In UK, I feel that employers look for overall ability and personalities. These seemed to be more crucial to them rather then you having a relevant degree to the job they are recruiting i.e. accounting and finance degree for jobs in Big Four. This is stg very different from Msia employment.

Baoz, your friend must be really really outstanding to be grabbed by banks even before he graduated!!!!!! When did he graduate? Is he still working now? Mind to tell which bank is he working in??

My friend graduated from LSE Actarial Science (back to 3 years ago) and served Morgan Stanley for two years in their investment department. Redundant previously and now got a job in Holland (not sure the name of the bank. the redundancy was happend due to the credit crunch and the whole team of his was redundant)

Yes a lot of redundant cases but these banks are still taking in interns very actively though.. hmm

I suppose it's the name.. LSE. Whether he's outstanding or not I dunno. But should be okay lar. I don't know which bank, but should be one of the big ones there.

My cousin too graduated from Cambridge with a Bachelor of Economics. Straightaway got a job in JP Morgan already. After that moved to Lehman Brothers which went kaput last year. But thankfully wasn't retrenched. The company who took over (Nomura) kept him.

WOW!

this thread is so informative.
i am taking SPM this year end.
ive been considering ALevels and then LSE for actuarial.

my knowledge on actuarial sci is really shallow. i hardly understand what are you guys talking about. haha
do they call their papers, CT?
and what is the best choice after SPM? ALevels? if so, which subject?

should i go straight to UK or should i go to a college in malaysia first?
which college do you guys recommend for pre-u studies?

thanks!

Wow, so many stories of fresh graduates being picked up by IB... must be damn good and lucky, because look at the situation since 2008 to now, they are cutting jobs like heck... but so many Oxbridge etc...

Is it possible to regret not applying to Oxbridge? LOL.
Didn't think I'd want to study Economics as a degree but I don't know how different it is from the overall profile of quantitative business degrees (finance, business statistics, actuarial science, commerce).

I know Actuarial Science is directed towards risk and contingency, with emphasis in stochastics and modelling, which are of particular interest to IB analysts

Good luck all

Hey everyone, do any of you know the percentage of undergraduates from lse getting a fellowship in actuarial science? Or if you have any comments on the difficulty of passing the exams in uk, please do tell thanks!!

There's a MORSE scholarship?
LSE gave me a 3A-excluding-economics offer for Actuarial Science, haha. They don't like Accounting because it's a non-traditional subject and apparently it's easy to get an A or A* for that ... so most top unis in the UK will disregard that subject.

Planning to do MMORSE!

EDIT: Just realised I replied to a 3-year-old post

This post has been edited by RitzyHoke: Apr 15 2012, 06:17 PM

There was no such scholarship last year. Plus this post is so old.

LSE's offers are always predictable. If you have more subjects they will exclude Economics. If you have Further Maths a grade would be specified. And they usually stick to their minimum/standard requirement.

I know that the 3 years course MORSE offers at most 4 CT papers exemptions. Can I take 2 or 3 more extra CT papers by my own during my studies if I decided I really wanna be an actuary?

Quite a number of undergrads from LSE (and other uk unis, as far as i know) don't go on to be an actuary, but rather they choose (prefer) to work in banks/investment banks/finance/investments etc.

Some of the CT papers arent that difficult, but to pass everything and be fully qualified as an actuarist is quite challenging.

Yes you can, but there is a high chance you'll be busy with your course (MORSE) during the 3 years. You must put in many hours in addition to the many hours of study you need for your MORSE degree.

My suggestion is to focus on MORSE, get your 4 CT paper exemptions (you need a certain mark in your uni exams, if you get below that mark, you dont get the exemption for that CT paper, so its important to score well on the papers in your MORSE course that gives you exemptions).

If you are interested in investment banking, stocks, finance etc. then MORSE is a good course for you. My experience is that investment banking/finance/investments/stocks etc. is alot more interesting than the insurance line/actuarial, its boring, haha..

Your credibility is severely undermined by the fact that there's no such thing known as an "actuarist".

I lol'ed at that one.

Still prefer Actuarial Scientist. Makes pricing premiums sound so hardcore.

Yeah actuarist is hardly a slip on the keyboard. lol

My english isnt exactly the best and i've been using the term 'actuarist' even though its actuary since my a levels. Other people I know say 'actuarist' too, its wrong, but its just something people get on with. I dont understand what you mean by credibility, what i've written in all my posts is correct. Including the other post about mathematical finance being in an actuarial science course. Like Ive mentioned in my other post, you learn stochastic differential equations, black scholes model, ito's lemma/ito's calculus, martingales, markov chains etc. Isnt that mathematical finance??

Not sure why you would knowingly use a wrong word... given that's the field you've been trained in...

But yeah, that's Mathematical Finance alright. Maybe I was thinking about stuff that wasn't also common to other courses, like Risk, Statistics, and Finance... but of course Mathematical Finance is Maths and all of those things. Sometimes the lines get blurry... Financial Maths, Quantitative Finance... you're right.

Okay. lets put this simple.
Mathematical finance, is too wide of a term to define.
u do it can range from mathematical framework of finance, up to theories behind pricing of derivative instruments, or theory of interest.

SDE, BS model, Ito stuff, martingales, n Markov Chains are just preliminaries of Mathematical finance,
(and even with that, depth of study into each detail of the topic, is another factor).
mathematical finance cover that, but are not limited to that, considering u still have Interest rate derivatives, Exotic option pricings, jump-diffusion process, Stochastic volatility and Monte-carlo method of pricing, Smile dynamics etc.
what lightning is trying to say is, Actuaries in general "seems" to have no much emphasis on this area,
financial economics CT of the actuarial sylabus just cover basic Stochastic differentials, Ito, and other preliminary in mathematical finance. One can only say they do get exposed to mathematical finance, but claiming they did study
a lot on mathematical finance, would just be as absurd as a mathematician that took measure theory saying they did mathematical statistics.

I am not implicit or explicitly proving anyone wrong here, rather point out that Mathematical finance itself is a
wide topic. hence claims of coverage can be inconsistence to one's understanding.