hei guys, is it possible with doing about 4 or 5 papers, i can get a decent job with a decent salary??

4 ~ 5 papers get you the chance to interview, not the job. and you have to be first class and have good communication skills . I have friend with 5 passing papers, could not get any actuarial job.

For fresh graduate, normally your salary will not be adjusted/increased for the papers you have passed, so it would be the same. I do know there is one company that adjusts your starting salary for papers you have passed. but the starting salary is low(lower than rm2500, with 5 passing papers you get somewhere near RM3000, but not more than that)

there is a lot of candidates that i have met/interviewed with at least 4 papers or lot of exemptions, but could not get actuarial jobs due to various reasons.

conclusion: job opportunity for actuarial graduate is very very low. less than 30% of actuarial graduate actually get the actuarial job.

i hope this thread is still active..

tbh ive been offered a loan from mara in the AS course in taylors (i applied for it by using my trial result) which means i have to enroll by january

the problem is ive started doubting whether i should accept it or not. yes i too like most of the people are into maths. so id like to ask do the jobs where AS graduates work as involve a lot of communication? since communication skill is vital when im not that good in communicating (though i probably can improve myself during adp) in what kind of way do they communicate? (im sorry im just not good in explaining i might as well reject the offer..)

help im just really torn between to accept the offer not

i just want to make a decision that ill regret the least. there are always pros and cons. it would be actually pretty hard for me after spm as i would likely to compete w everyone in the country for another scholarship other than mara. i was an mrsm student so it would be quite a loss if i couldnt get loan/scholarship from mara :c

im terribly in dilemma so if i am to reject it there will still be lots of chances out there right

This post has been edited by kirsi: Jan 5 2014, 04:16 PM

There's not a lot of math is AS. Don't be disappointed later

In general, AS doesn't require a lot of communication skills.
But, the work of AS doesn't generally involve lots of maths... And if your reason to be interested in AS is because you like maths, perhaps you're looking at the wrong field.. While maths plays a vital part of AS (i.e. you do hv to be good at maths), it's not the sole factor, neither is it the main point...
There are a lot of other aspects which doesn't require maths as well.
Also, when you say you like maths, you also have to determine what type of maths you like. Some like calculus, others algebra, some others statistics and probability. The maths is AS is probably not the maths you think you like.. It's mostly Actuarial Mathematics and Financial Mathematics.

A typical Malaysia high school leaver wouldn't know this, nor are they hardworking enough to find out. That's what I've gathered after posting here for years.

Quite true.. Had one simply read this whole thread, he/she would've gathered most answers that we answered..

I've been recommending Spivak's Calculus for year and I doubt any one here has ever bought that book to actually test if they like math or not.

You mean the "Yellow Pigs"?

Yes that Spivak. He's an amazing author.

communication skill is important and is the factor for you to get an actuarial job. normally only first class students will be invited to interview for actuarial job. and during the interview your communication skill is the key since everyone has excellent results. anyway i think this applies to many other competitive jobs as well.

ok aside from this, being an actuary, you need to be able to explain numbers to people like CEO, clients, your boss and etc. there is a lot of communication in actuarial job especially high level position. many of the times you will have to explain the methodology, numbers, assumptions made and many other things.

Boy am I glad I decided to study applied maths! Despite being bombarded with questions like "Why not study actuarial science, your starting pay will be good, it's rewarding etc etc", I was quite hellbent on doing applied maths because at least at some point, I would have the option of either majoring in pure maths, statistics or computing.

Currently studying in UTAR where there are at least 150 students per intake taking Actuarial Science. As for applied maths, the most for each intake is 15-20.
It's actually a bit unfortunate because I'd like to think that at least by doing AM, you get to equip yourself with nifty programming skills (I've studied C, C++, C#, Java, PHP, SQL and I'm only in year 2 lol.) and that enough will make pretty valuable to any future employer (Taking into account you have good PR skills and a sharp, non-robotic mind)

I don't deny that AS is a pretty tough course and I salute people who can study their arses off and succeed, but when you graduate, you're adding yourself into another glut of AS graduates. That alone makes the competition so fierce, it's almost impossible to start out well.

TL;DR: So freaking glad I'm doing AM and loving it!

can share more about the jobs that one can do with AM ? notice you are studying computer programming languages ? is it not that overlapping with Comp Science/IT ? thanks.

I've studied about 3-4 languages per year and honestly, I only remember the ones that my simple mind can analyse easily. I've about 2 years more to go and I guess when I'm done, I'll have more than just basic knowledge in a few languages, provided I do my revision from time to time. As for overlap, yeah it does. But I guess applied maths is more wider in coverage whereas CS/IT is more deeper when it comes to computing

Good thing is this isn't a course with limited job scope. You can end up becoming a system admin, webmaster, cryptologist, market/system analyst, statistician, foreign exchange trader, portfolio analysts etc. It all depends in what you decide to major in.
I'm interested in cryptology and my final year project is gonna be based on that, so there's always a possibility that I end up a consultant for IT companies specializing in encryption software. Fingers crossed!

One thing I stress on is never to take this course (or any other) just for the sake of a fancy named degree or whatev. Do it for learning and you'll be surprised at how fun it really can be. Not saying job prospects aren't important, but you need to bring something to the table instead of just a transcript

Sorry for the wordiness!

Hi there,
would like you to share about the subjects you are taking for AM. What's AM all about ? how did you discover that AM is what you want to study ? thanks in advance for sharing here.

Hi, AM in UTAR is Applied Maths with Computing. Hence, it consist of 2 parts - Mathematical part, and programming part.
For mathematical part, you will learn calculus, probability and statistical subjects. IINM, you get to choose at your later years whether you want to enter more "pure" maths type, or more "statsitical-maths" type.
Programming language I'm not sure how many you'll learn but it's quite a few and it's quite in-depth.

Hopefully my info help.

Though, try not to deviate too much from this thread's topic (i.e. actuarial science)

hihi...anyone know which campus offer part time actuarial sciences programs?

I hope there is someone still active for this post...
So I got offers for actuarial science degree for LSE(very high reputation uni), city university (cass) (one of the uni offer best act. science undergrad) and uni of waterloo ( said to be the uni offer the best act. science programme in nothern America)... I wanna get some suggestions... which uni should I go for...

Congrats on your achievement. Which pre-U qualification you used to apply ? Thanks.