GCE A Level but still.. I really need suggestions!!!

I would choose UW if I were you. It is quite famous for its ActSc.

PS: The co-op program is not an easy program. Most of my seniors who are studying there couldn't find a job for internship due to the low supply of job.

I applied to regular one u mean ur seniors couldn't find a job after graduated or during the co-op time

During the co-op time, it's very difficult to find job.
And things aren't exactly rosy once you graduated either..

Anyway, depends on you really..
If you're looking to advance your path in UK paper, go for UK uni..
If you're looking for US paper, then waterloo is the way to go (among the best uni that offers AS in north america)
All are good uni, you won't go wrong with any...

During co-op time. The demand for jobs is much more than the supply of jobs. Some of them had to come back to msia for internship.

so which way (UK or US) is better to go that can get job easier?

AFAIK, there is no difference in difficulty of getting a job (in Malaysia)

I would like to find a job there but not in Malaysia.. I mean US or UK has more job opportunity for actuaries.

As an international student/a foreigner, there is not much difference between the job opportuniy in both the US and UK unless you are very outstanding. They are currently having a quite-high unemployment rate.

ratloverice says it all..

A bit late to the conversation, but I'll weigh in my experience. Waterloo grad here, currently working in Canada.

I do not have first-hand account of UK university life, but from what I have heard from 2 exchange students from Heriott-Watt is that things are more stressful in UW. That is partly because we used to not have any exam exemptions - so students need to focus on school and SOA exams.

CIA now has exemptions so that may ease off some stress, but as I don't qualify for it I have not really looked into the details. One thing to consider is whether or not SOA recognises the exemptions.

As for job opportunity, I believe in most places supply definitely outnumbers demand. However, an equally important consideration is work eligibility. Again, I am not familiar with UK's POV. For Canada, there's a Post-Graduate Work Program (PGWP) Visa.

PGWP gives you an open work visa (any employer - any field) for a length up to the length of your study, capped at a maximum of 3 years. Acceptance is almost guaranteed, and you do not need to have a job lined up. Also an important merit of the PGWP is that employers do not need to apply for a special Labour Market Opinion to hire you despite being a foreign national. This means that you are playing a level field vs. Canadians (shh, don't tell them that).

After this, PR requirements do not seem too hard to meet either. This of course, may change by the time you're done with school - who knows?

As for joining UW as a regular student (which I did so because of lackluster grades in my ADP) - personally I'd advise against it if you qualify for co-op, but I know of at least one senior who quit co-op (due to additional fees) and handled his own "work terms". Most of my friends did their first co-op in Malaysia or Singapore, and managed to get Canadian positions after that. But yes - it is tough and competitive. You need to juggle your studies and job search at the same time. Kudos to the co-op students, really.

If you do not go into the co-op program, make sure you try your very best to imitate the program yourself. I did not and I regret it. Upon graduation, I was competing with my peers who have 2 years of work experience. No shit, it took me a long time and it was tough - not to mention I'll consider it luck that I got my current role. Most friends who were in co-op managed to secure an offer/multiple offers before graduation. Those that did not, had their roles shortly after.

Another plus of the co-op program - pay is good. From low twenties to high twenties (and rare low thirties) per hour. You can support a few terms of tuition through co-op pay. Not sure about internship pay, but I would assume that it is similar/slightly lower.

Wherever you go, try looking into their exchange program. That's another thing I regret not doing.

Last piece of advice - look into other programs that the universities offer. You may find something that interests you more. Personally, I was drawn to Computing and Financial Management at UW but unfortunately it was a co-op only program.

All the best!

This post has been edited by Crazy.SoT.Gila: Mar 19 2014, 02:14 PM

I'm a qualified actuary working in the USA for years. Few more misconceptions/knowledge I would like to share:

1. There are many types of actuaries and they are very different.
I work in the P&C field. Other actuaries work in life, health, pension or even outside of insurance industry. Actuaries within these field can be furthered granularized to specific function. Like in P&C, most actuaries work in traditional roles in either pricing or reserving. Some actuaries work in non-traditional roles, such as predictive modeling, cat modeling, etc. I spend most of my career developing highly complicated capital models for insurance companies for regulatory compliance, which I believe is a very rare skill in Malaysia. But here is the states, or in EU, this skill is highly sought. I know some traditional reserving methodologies, but I am more familiar with the stochastic reserving. So the point is, there is a distinct difference between actuaries in each field, and the discrepancy still exist between each function within a field. I can hardly communicate "actuarially" with a life/pension actuary, and vice versa I guess. Or if I were to change my specialization to P&C pricing, I would be a complete newbie.

2. Actuarial field is more than what you think it is.
Most actuaries in Asia work on the life side, which is understandable since the P&C market in Asia is not as mature as in the states. But because of this their concept of "What an actuary does" is very limited. Just try to ask one of them what is a cat model and how actuaries make use of them. I can tell 90% of them do not know.

3. You need different skills in different types of actuarial works.
Some may say the math used in actuarial works is not hard. But again I can tell you - Your concept of what an actuary does is very limited (even if you are a qualified actuary). Some actuarial works require highly fluent computer programming skills, some require extensive Math background, some require excellent communication skills, etc. My coworker worked on a project that required her solving correlation matrices and mathematical proofs, which I probably not able to do.

4. You work in insurance field directly or indirectly.
Some say you can go to banking industry with actuarial science knowledge. Let me tell you this. Most things you learn in your exams are insurance related. And after you spend years passing all the exams, you change to banking industry? This sounds ridiculously to me. It would only make sense for people stop taking exams, but we don't call these people actuaries. I do know some actuaries work outside of insurance industry, and do something that is completely non-actuarial, but that is rare. Most actuaries work in insurance field, either directly or indirectly. Directly means you are employed by the insurance companies, indirectly means you could be an insurer regulator, a consultant, etc. A lot of actuarial knowledge is highly specialized and not transferable to other fields. Even for actuaries in banking industry, they are most probably working on some insurance products offered by the banks, and so technically speaking, their works are still actuarial related.

This post has been edited by Igloo0000: Apr 7 2014, 08:31 AM

Hi all, new to this site. I was previously resided in Australia and joined the IOA , passed 4 papers. Now I have relocated to Malaysia and considering of switching to SOA. Few things I need enlightenment on.

1) I am under impression that SOA is more recognisable Malaysia employers, is that true?
2) Are study material and exam fee for SOA much cheaper than IOA? I couldn't find any information on this, I am paying around AUD$240 per subject for study material and AUD$550 per exam.
3) What is structure of the exam? IOA exams are generally 3 hours long, all writing no multiple choice of course.
4) Hard to get exemptions for the exams I have done in IOA?
5) Lastly, SOA or IOA? I know this is bit vague but I am just trying pool some feedbacks.

Thanks!

Are you talking bout IOAA (Aus) or IOA (UK)?
Anyways, here's some answers:

1. Nope, they are generally equal footing (SOA, IOA and IOAA). But most ppl in Malaysia is under SoA
2. IOAA, then, maybe yes, SoA is cheaper (for exam fees, not sure bout material). IOA, no. SoA more expensive.
3. Check out http://www.soa.org/Education/Exam-Req/default.aspx
4. Not sure. Can't answer.
5. Depends really.. If you are planning to reside permanently in Malaysia, SoA and IoA is better (in general) than IOAA.

Note, when I say IOA it means UK (Institute and Faculty of Actuaries). If your IOA indicate Aus IOA, pls "adjust" and read my post of IOAA as your IOA.]

Hope this helps.

I'm not an actuary (respect) but what you say here doesn't seem fully correct based on what goes on in European, North American, Asian and Australian markets.

You are right in that most actuaries work in insurance ... that's where the need for them is because the finance side can be filled by non actuaries with accounting, risk, financial or investment backgrounds. But these is plenty of actuarial outside of insurance, in learning and in practice.

You talk about actuarial like actuarial maths = insurance maths. The latter may be true, but non-insurance can and often is 'actuarial'.


***


Out of the UK/Australia beginner exams, most are not focused on insurance (and don't even need to bring up the word insurance): Financial Maths (easily banking/finance), Financial Reporting (easily banking/accounting/finance), Probability & Math Stats (just normal Maths or Stats), Models (Stochastic Modelling and Survival Models can have 100% non-insurance applications), Econ (normal), Financial Economics (normal Finance and Quant Finance)

only 2 out of these 8 are explicitly insurance... Contingencies and Statistical Methods (or Risk Theory and Credibility Theory)

Half of the 6 SOA tracks do not have to be insurance related - CFE, QFI, and Retirement

Half of the available IFOA ST and SA exams do not have to be insurance related... ERM, Finance, Investment, Retirement

Half of the IAA Part 3 specialisations do not have to be insurance related... Finance/Investment and Retirement

So you see one can actually go through the entire system and still not have any advanced knowledge on insurance... the real specialised knowledge comes from choosing the life/general/health tracks, and working in the industry


***

There are many examples of people who have switched to the 'banking' industry (I mean the banking side not the insurance products side) after qualifying. Some of these are commercial banks. Some are investment banks. Many have wealth (funds) divisions. Many have quant (trading) roles. The IBs have corporate advisory and capital markets. The retail banks have savings products. They can touch insurance but they absolutely don't need to. The ones who work with credit risk, market risk, investment risk, funding risk, insolvency risk, interest rate risk, even ERM can still be actuaries (not just from the FSA/FIA/FIAA).

Actuaries can work in Capital Modelling (like you pointed out) which applies to all regulated retail banks or depository institutions, they don't need to sell insurance

Also as pointed out Asset Liability Management, Superannuation or Pensions, Asset Management, Corporate Finance, Trading/Structuring, even Marketing (Wealth or Funds) ... not insurance unless you make it

And non traditional stuff like Energy and Weather, if there is a financial risk, can be Actuarial

Besides, if you work on insurance products then you're in the insurance industry too whether it's a bank selling them or not

LSE's reputation has slipped quite a lot in recent times

of course Asians worship LSE... you will have a good shot at interviews... losing only to or competing with Cambridge, Oxford, and Ivy League equivalent and those are friggin rare in Malaysia

basically in Europe and North America it'll still be one of the top schools for Economics. in actuarial it's nothing special (doesn't even have 8 exemptions) but it's closely related enough (some like to call actuarial an economic science) that it would be a pretty good school

that said, it's still one of the most prestigious schools you can go to that teaches a full Actuarial degree... it is the one uni that everybody everywhere knows, no matter what the ranking, 50 or 200

and you get to live in London

not sure if they still get a lot of world class guest speakers... but do not go in expecting to get world class teachers in all your classes, many Malaysians go to LSE or have graduated from there so you should be able to find out more

last thing i wanna say, don't be fooled by rankings. my school was a few years ago very highly ranked, but obviously without LSE or Ivy prestige. it could not possibly justify the international student fee, even with a better ranking, especially given how rich the school is (bad spending). ranking doesn't mean anything. repute is worth some.

sometimes the good schools with talent and that do cutting edge research in their specialist fields are not very reputable... eg City and Macquarie may be pioneers in Actuarial and have all the markers but they don't grab attention as the schools with all the sought after graduates

I can tell you are not an actuary not because you said so, but because you define insurance very differently from an actuary. You define insurance narrowly in that your insurance understandings seem to focus only on the products, but product is just one of the many areas actuaries focus on. In fact many actuaries do not work on products but their works are still insurance related.

This depends on how you define “advance knowledge of insurance”. If you narrowly think insurance field solely as selling insurance products, then you are right. But I don’t think that way, and many actuaries don’t think that way. Understanding insurance is about understanding the entire life cycle’s cashflows of insurance products and all the risk involved. When an insurance policy is first offered, we experience underwriting and pricing risk. Some commercial policies could have credit risks. Some exposures are subject to cat risk. And when claims start to kick in, we need to estimate IBNR, which is when reserving risk comes in. Some long tail lines, such as professional liability has extreme long tail. And to manage these risks, we might need reinsurance. Every piece I mention here is about insurance.

You don’t need to explicitly mention the word “insurance” in the exams to relate them to insurance. I was once in the exam committee, responsible for drafting exams questions as well as grading the candidates’ papers. Some exams might not seem to be directly related to the narrow definition of insurance (or any specific insurance products), but in the real insurance world applications, they are. For instance you mention financial reporting. Pricing actuaries might not need to know a lot about financial reporting, but many other actuaries do. If I do not know the differences between GAAP, SAP and SII balance sheets, I wouldn’t be able to build a complete capital model. Don't just look at the names of the exams, focus on the exams materials and the exams questions. We put a lot of attentions on the insurance industry in the exams, even though the exams' names might look generic. There are a lot of things that are unique to insurance, for example the treatment of DAC in GAAP in SAP accounting. You don't need to know this if you are not in insurance.

These exams are designed primarily for insurance sector, and again I meant the broad definition of insurance, not just selling insurance policies. If you want to sell policies, you don’t need to take actuarial exams. If you want to do investment/trading, you don’t need to take actuarial exams. If you want to do corporate finance in banking or any other sectors, you do not need to take actuarial exams.

And by the way, actuaries involve heavily in ERM in the insurance industry because we understand risks in insurance field more than any other people. So actuaries working in ERM are still considered as working for insurance industry (refer to 4th point). My career is a good example here. I work in the corporate actuarial and therefore not involve in any specific insurance line. From corporate perspective, my work is part of the ERM process. And I have to admit my work is insurance related because at the end of the day I am employed directly by an insurance company. Don’t be narrow-minded to think that insurance related means you have to sell policies. No actuaries sell policies and I have never met an insurance agent before in where I work.

This aligns with my 2nd point - Actuarial field is more than what you think it is. I never say actuarial is about actuarial math. But let’s face it, actuarial is for insurance (not the narrow definition of insurance). There are some actuarial applications in the non-insurance field such as retirement as you said, but do you know in what rate this sector is shrinking? In the past many corporations used DB system to fund retirement, but with DC, actuaries are essentially not required.

You must have read some articles describing what actuaries do. Let me tell you this. Many of these articles are not 100% true. They tell you what sectors actuaries could involve in. But do they mention what is the proportion of actuaries working in non-insurance related sectors, such as banking, IB? I am only saying credentialed actuaries here because we do not consider those non-credentialed as actuaries. Come to one actuarial annual meeting in the US, and you will know what I meant. You can definitely find actuaries doing something non-insurance related, there is no doubt about that, but that is rare. My experience talking to people in the meetings is that at least 80-90% works in insurance field, either directly or indirectly, which can be either in pricing, reserving, modeling, ERM, reinsurance, etc. My specialization in the group is already considered rare but I still consider it insurance related.

It is uncommon that credentialed actuaries move from insurance sector to other sectors. Let me tell you why. Some of their skills can still be utilized in other sectors, but definitely not all of them. When they move out they have to compete with people with other backgrounds. Not that actuaries don't like competition, but if you are best at playing basketball, why do you want to give up playing basketball and play golf? Also actuaries have a very confine network. When you move to other sectors, you will end up disconnect in terms of what you're doing and what others are doing in the network. And we have all the valuable inter-connections in the network, why give up the connections? Even for me, my skills seem to be convertable to banking industry, but it is not that simple. In insurance our capital models main drivers are underwriting and reserving risks and we spend years understanding and parameterizing them. But in banking, interest rate and investment risks are more important (I think). So even as an expert in insurance capital models might be just average in banking, and vice versa. That would go back to the question - Why play golf when you are best at basketball.

ALM, corporate finance, trading and marketing are not common career paths for actuaries in the current real world. Pension is a little unique. There are quite some actuaries in this sector although it is not insurance related, but more and more Enrolled Actuaries “jump ship” to move out of pension. Energy and weather can be insurance related (refer to my 1st and 2nd points). We have a specialized cat modeling team under corporate actuarial that helps with weather perils, such as hurricane, wind storms. And cat modeling is a big topic in actuarial annual meetings.

This post has been edited by Igloo0000: May 18 2014, 01:10 PM

You seem to be a bit confused! I never claimed actuaries were intimately linked to "selling insurance". One doesn't need to be a qualified actuary to understand the difference!

You may be right about the role of actuaries in some pension markets shrinking, and about DB vs DC. You're based in North America. In Australia superannuation has been growing (funds industry here is something like 3rd largest in the world, and indeed the capital market here is one of the top 5 in the world by size) and is projected to expand, and not only that, the compulsory rate for contributions will be increasing quite quickly as a result of legal changes. As an actuary you should know better than anyone that not everything you study in the exams is directly applicable to practice (for example, actuarial exams do not have all that much accounting in them but financial reporting is a large part of some actuaries' work). This is the case in retirement/superannuation, where actuarial expertise is valued, even if you certainly do not need to be an actuary to do the job.

Of course only a credentialed actuary (either associate or fully qualified) is an actuary - how could anyone confuse this?

You have a point, that some of the non-insurance exams can be intricately linked with insurance, ERM for insurers or hedging and ALM for insurers, and of course capital management is increasingly being linked back to the risk of insurance products if the institution sells those products. But you can damn well do the exams, and work in ALM or hedging and have nothing to do with insurance (unless you want to call all options and derivatives "insurance" when clearly they are not always the case).

My mom knew a few qualified actuaries in Singapore that didn't even study for Actuarial Science during uni. Maths, Econ i guess that's more than enough to be an actuary.
Hell yeah! Investment banking! On ma way
Oh and 1 more point, chicks love actuaries (if they know what is that) because Maths + Business = HOT
Investment bankers in western countries work 120 hours per week on average and their jobs are pretty pointless for those fresh grad that started to work as an analyst. Basically you're just doing what your Associates/VP works that they don't want to do.

This post has been edited by Y.J.S: May 18 2014, 09:45 PM

It is not about Maths - that is true for all the careers out except for a Maths teacher or professor job.

So if you bank on your mathematical ability to pick a career - it is a misguided way of doing it.

Best way is to use your Bazi chart to figure out your elemental strengths and weakness before deciding on a lifelong journey to find out. At least the ancients knew what was better for them rather than using our school system to decide.