Actuarial Studies and Finance (1 Viewer)

[mreditor16]

I was sent a PM by a user, and I thought it'd be more valuable for them to get opinions from a variety of people:

"Hi, I noticed you are probably finishing up second year actuarial studies and finance and wanted to ask you some questions about your learning experience!

1) Why did you pick actuary? Do you enjoy it? What aspects of actuary do you enjoy learning?

2) Has learning actuary and finance changed the way you think about things? How has it? e.g. probabilistic interpretation of everyday events such as road traffic.

3) Can the knowledge you've obtained be readily applied to everyday life? Whether it's expanding an intuition, modelling real-world phenomena, quantifying something, etc.

4) Do you know what quantitative finance is? Have you considered a career in quantitative finance?

Thanks!"

I will try to give my thoughts in a post below, hopefully sometime soon.

 

[leehuan]

It's the same (first three) questions that I got, albeit for me it was just actuarial studies (cause I don't do finance, at least not yet). And I didn't really leave long responses but I'll post them up anyway.

(The user who asked the question will remain unidentified unless he reveals himself)
______________________

1. Well just like anyone else I had no firm clue about what I wanted to do. At open day I learnt that I definitely wanted to do math, but I chose to combine with actuarial because a) well I made the cutoff but more importantly b) I was recommended to do it by my accelerated maths teacher in Yr 10 (I did 2U that year).

2. I really don't think it's made that much of a difference yet. I spent more time on what I would do if I were to drop because of the disastrous mid-sem exam (and only decided against it because I ended up with a decent mark anyway). Subconsciously I do consider things more probabilistically but no drastic changes in my way of thought has occurred.

A worthwhile mention though was on the very last thing about ethics; has you wondering what one wrong thing can do to a whole business industry. But I don't really think professionalism is that important to this question

3. It's a combination of mathematics, economics, finance and accounting. I'll let you think about how those interweave, and if individually they can be useful for everyday life. (E.g. economics is well around us but there's utility theory involved so...)

 

[si2136]

I received the questions like that too, and I have responded those with my best knowledge accordingly.

The knowledge that you study from Universities that aren't the traditional degrees can be somewhat applied in real life. Since you mention QF, university doesn't teach you trading, or IB, or financial modelling or excel. University teaches you life skills to be independent and do your own research and studying, where you learn those skills somewhere or on the job.

QF is a steadily growing field around the world, it isn't that strong yet in Australia, however there are a few firms that offer QF and Risk in the CBD. QF is an awesome career to enter in, and finance isn't actually one of the requirements (Usually it's Comp.Sci, Mathematics or Statistics).

 

[leehuan]

Well, universities DO teach you Excel in some courses. Just maybe not necessarily for quantitative finance

 

[Confound]

I received the questions like that too, and I have responded those with my best knowledge accordingly.

The knowledge that you study from Universities that aren't the traditional degrees can be somewhat applied in real life. Since you mention QF, university doesn't teach you trading, or IB, or financial modelling or excel. University teaches you life skills to be independent and do your own research and studying, where you learn those skills somewhere or on the job.

QF is a steadily growing field around the world, it isn't that strong yet in Australia, however there are a few firms that offer QF and Risk in the CBD. QF is an awesome career to enter in, and finance isn't actually one of the requirements (Usually it's Comp.Sci, Mathematics or Statistics).

Not sure which university you went to but i'm pretty sure universities do teach trading, IB and especially financial modelling with a side dish of excel

 

[eyeseeyou]

Do you do much economics in Actuarial studies?

 

[si2136]

Do you do much economics in Actuarial studies?

Not at all.

 

[leehuan]

Do you do much economics in Actuarial studies?

The basics of economics are required. But basics just means first year micro and macro - no in depth stuff at all.

 

[eyeseeyou]

The basics of economics are required. But basics just means first year micro and macro - no in depth stuff at all.

So 2nd yr is just maths and stats?

 

[Zoinked]

Not sure which university you went to but i'm pretty sure universities do teach trading, IB and especially financial modelling with a side dish of excel

Si is a highschooler

 

[si2136]

Si is a highschooler

It does teach you, but not in Finance or Actuarial Studies, but instead, in mathematics.

They teach you what an IB does etc., but not the skills that are required in the IBD.


Do they really teach trading? Like TA?

 

[mreditor16]

Not at all.

Completely incorrect, economics does definitely rear its head in actuarial subjects (refer to the coverage of utility theory in ACTL3182, for example, as well as the economics inherent in the electives ACTL3191 and ACTL3192 which delve into superannuation etc.)

Not to forget that microeconomics and macroeconomics are compulsory subjects for actuarial studies, and count towards the completion of one of the CTs for Part I exemptions.

 

[mreditor16]

I was sent a PM by a user, and I thought it'd be more valuable for them to get opinions from a variety of people:

"Hi, I noticed you are probably finishing up second year actuarial studies and finance and wanted to ask you some questions about your learning experience!

1) Why did you pick actuary? Do you enjoy it? What aspects of actuary do you enjoy learning?

2) Has learning actuary and finance changed the way you think about things? How has it? e.g. probabilistic interpretation of everyday events such as road traffic.

3) Can the knowledge you've obtained be readily applied to everyday life? Whether it's expanding an intuition, modelling real-world phenomena, quantifying something, etc.

4) Do you know what quantitative finance is? Have you considered a career in quantitative finance?

Thanks!"

I will try to give my thoughts in a post below, hopefully sometime soon.

1) I picked actuarial studies, because I was equally interested in mathematics and commerce/business. And my first impression of actuarial studies was that it was a profession that required the application of mathematical techniques to solve real life business problems.

Actuarial studies can be very very challenging and strenous, but overall I feel it is worth it and yes I overall personally enjoy the degree.

2) I believe there are tidbits of knowledge and content that do pop up in real life and your day to day goings-on - none come to mind at the moment, however. I would say the applications of content learnt were really crystallised once you start working in an actuarial role, because you actually do directly utilise and apply a lot of the content that you learn at university.

3) Refer to 2)

4) Nope, not at all, sorry