HEAPS of questions on Actuarial Studies, PLEASE HELP! (1 Viewer)

[Bilson]

Hi. I'm currently a year 12 student and considering taking up one of the combined Actuary courses at Macquarie (finance or law) in 2008. They say you need to be good at maths and interested to be motivated. I'm not sure whether I have a genuine interest in maths or not. I'm doing quite well in 4unit, hoping to get +95 but my mum's a maths tutor which is probably why I’m doing quite well. I still enjoy doing 4u maths, probably cause I’m getting decent marks, so I’m not quite sure whether this counts as a genuine interest in maths, one that would motivate me for Actuarial Studies???
To those who are currently doing it in Macquarie, how many hours do you need to spend each day on studying, in order to get a distinction average and credit average??? I'm very concerned about the free time I’ll get if I do actuary. Will I get time to go out, party, girlfriend and importantly, part-time or casual job???
Also, is it true that in order to get a good job, you'll need good grades and work experience in order to separate yourself from the other people doing it? Is it really that competitive or will a credit average throughout the whole of uni, land you a good job???
What can one expect, in terms of salaries, first year out of uni???
And say for example, I take combined actuary with finance, how many years will it be before I become a FIAA, as in with all three parts completed???
Is it possible for me to complete the actuary part first, start working part-time and then complete my other degree in junction with my part-time job???
Does UNSW offer the same exemptions from the FIAA 3 part criteria as Macquarie???
Is actuary hard because it’s Difficult, or is it hard because its Tedious???
Does doing actuary with combine law at Macquarie seriously make it impossible to pass???
How many people does Macquarie take in for Actuarial Studies each year???
What’s the male/female ratio???
How many hours of uni a week for combined degree at Macquarie???
Will it be likely that I retire at an early age because the job is too tedious or repetitive???
What percentage of students drops out after 1st year???

One last thing. This sounds pretty random but I’ve heard that people doing actuary start growing heaps of white hair pretty damn early... like 2nd year.... comments on this myth???

Thanks

 

[ctkid]

One last thing. This sounds pretty random but I’ve heard that people doing actuary start growing heaps of white hair pretty damn early... like 2nd year.... comments on this myth???

Thanks

LOL, thats funny but overall, wow mate, you realli are in2 your future early eh. well im in your stage too, year 12, so still deciding everything but never though of all this in depth as much as u. hopefulli sum of the nice felllas around here can help you out

 

[AppleXY]

lol, whats with the explosion of actuarial threads. Its just a person who is highly specialised in the areas of calc, prob and stats for businesses (insurance companies etc). If you like Math and biz (a strong passion), it might be worth considering.

 

[BoganBoy]

im currently first year at mac diong acst/law. i didnt do that well at 4u math at school (91), but quite frankly u dont need to be a math wiz to excel. its awesome that you are which just mean u will have a easier time to pick up on new concepts.

acst is not hard to study for at all, just a lot of new concepts which needs to be followed up on. so its very easy to lose ur track amid all the party, gf, job etc. ive got 2Dinctions and 2 Credits for my first sem and its just because i was so addicted in WOW that i hardly studied.

In terms of study hours, it really depends, if ur getting 95+ for 4u, then probably less than less bright ppl but still need to study quite a lot. to get D average i'd say 1-2 hour per day and then good cramming before exam. to get Cr average may be half an hour aday + cramming before exam.

To get a job as actuary graduate u defintely need good grade and work experience etc, but then again isnt that the same with everything?

First year out of uni, without completing part 3, expect around 60k-70k, awesome salary for first year, potentially goes up to 200k after 8 years depending on ur ability.

to become FIAA, u need 4 years uni for part 1 and 2. then part 3 is 'minimum 2 years study'. however most ppl would get a job with sum company after graduation so obvously they will not study fulltime, therefore it takes considerably longer to pass part 3. not to menton the pass rate is about 50%.

Yes its possible to finish acst first, in fact, macquarie acst/law program allows u to finish acst in 4 years and then 5th year is full on law.

UNSW dont have same excemption as macquarie, they only allow u to excempt part 1, while u gotta do part 2 and 3 with the institute. big big disadvantage.

Acst of course is hard, but many graduate every year, around 70, so the fail rate is no way as high as sum of the figure ive heard.

acstlaw is defintely harder. im in my first year and already its kinda tiring. however my goal for law is simply a pass so that make it doable. set reasonable goal for urself.

we take 210 ppl each year, 100 of them are international. 70 graduate in the end.

male/female ratio is 50/50, surprisingly.

around 17 hour a week for law/acst and u gotta go uni every day.

around 20% drop out after year 1. because there are certain subjects we gotta get 'credit' to be able to 'pass', confused? me too.

white hair after 2nd year? where did u get that from?

 

[Newbie]

lol bilson

you may choose two of the four: study acst/law, get D average, have time to party and working part time during uni

 

[flamearrows]

The same for any of the "heavy" double degrees, I'd say. Shoot for a scholarship and dodge the problem of working part-time.

 

[Jarsh89]

Wow, this is a very helpful thread for me as I am looking to be an actuary. I am in year 12 doing the IB and have a keen interest in Math however not 95+ in math if thats what I think it means. It is intersting your comment about Maquarie Vs UNSW BoganBoy, as I was going to put UNSW down as my first choice with a single degree in it. Can you not do this degree and then after 3 years you start working but also go to Uni Part time for a year for your Part II criteria.

Also I have heard that if you miss out on the specific degree at Maquarie, you can just do the Bachelor of Commerce with the same subject and transfer after a year.

 

[milton]

basically, in my opinion, if u just want to concentrate on actuarial studies, then go to macq, i mean they have been around for 30/40 yrs.
however, unsw in general has much better other courses, campus and facilities.

you can get part 2 exemptions at unsw, but only if you're doing a combined degree, honours or some other 4 yr degree.
part 3 definitely needs to be done independently with the IAA

 

[Jarsh89]

Thanks alot for that milton. So how many hours a week do the classes and lectures go for in total? I read somewhere you should do 10 hours a week per course, so do you do two or three at a time?

 

[ks21]

At UNSW its about 4 subjects per session. I think they recommend 10 hours (a week including classes) per 6 uoc in general, however the amount of study per course really depends on the individual. I will be graduating with part 1s at the end of the year (single degree), and will be doing part 2s part-time as non-award courses at UNSW next year (so yes Jarsh89).

Regarding the UNSW vs Maq Uni debate ...

UNSW: Better uni overall, close to the city and one of the best commerce degrees in the country.
Maq Uni: Better for actuarial studies and more options to get part 2s done.

I picked UNSW because I wasn't 100% sure I wanted to do actuarial studies and didn't want to get stuck at Maq Uni, incase I hated it. Also, I wanted to study finance aswell, so it was either a 3 year double major commerce degree at UNSW or a 4 year double degree (applied finance + commerce-actuarial) at Maq Uni. If I had been more sure of doing actuarial studies, I would have gone to Maq Uni, but I am so glad I didn't because UNSW has been awesome. Employers don't really care about the university you attend, but care more about students with all their exemptions (good grades), extra curricular activities and interpersonal skills.

Hope this helps!

 

[RIZAL]

One last thing. This sounds pretty random but I’ve heard that people doing actuary start growing heaps of white hair pretty damn early... like 2nd year.... comments on this myth???

That is not a myth, at least not for me. I started developing a massive white patch of hair during STAT271 which is a 2nd year actuarial subject.

Who did you hear this from?

 

[milton]

I only have 15hrs a week over 3 days. i heard that at macq u need to go all 5 days and they have 9am starts. but that might have changed for this semester.
recommended is 10hrs/subject per week, but thats only if you want to top the course. just a couple of hrs reading textbks and doing qs outside of lectures and tutes will get u over the line.

 

[IceOnFire]

Hey I am just wondering if it is possible to do Actuarial Studies part time.

Thanks.

 

[lifesucks]

Hi everyone, I dont want to create a new threat for my very specific question, so i'll just do it in this old one.

From the open day at maq, i gathered actury is a competitive field and most people do double degrees to increase their chances.

My dilema: I got myself a nice part time job at a bank for next year, which rules out any double degree. So would I stand a chance with a simple, 3 year acturial degree? I understand work experience counts in this industry, yes?

(Oh, and im definitely not doing acturial work at the bank. im still in the "finance" area though, would that help in the work force? or should I settle for a Bcom?)

 

[Bilson]

another question

i noticed that if i do actuarial at UNSW, it's a major in commerce and i have the option to do a double major. So i can get BCom - major in actuarial and finance
HOWEVER, i noticed that at macquarie, they put it as a double DEGREE and not double major. Is it actually the same thing or what???
​

 

[Kieruz]

Hi, I'm a first year Commerce student at UNSW, I'll tell you about my experience with Actuary and you can draw your own conclusion.

First/2nd semester, you do the same course work as other Comm students except your maths course (QMA & QMB from the ECON faculty) is replaced with MATH1151 and MATH1251 from the math faculty ( I believe MATH1151 is the hardest math course they offer to first years, to give you an idea. I've seen the 1141 class tests from my engineer friends and they're slightly easier). Me? I failed miserably maybe that should be taken into account, but I had family problems to cope with so IDK maybe I would've done better.....

ANYWHO my main reason from dropping however was looking at the ACTL (Acturial) course work itself. In the 2nd semester, you do your first ACTL subject, ACTL1001. Having looked at their work from friends, I'm -happy- I dropped. ACTL1001 is harder than the 3 other courses combined , easily.
Secondly, in 2nd year I believe you are doing 4 ACTL subjects - hard-->infinity.

So really, any hard working 3u+ math student should do well 1st year but 2nd year is when you get owned...I must say you must really have a passion for it. A friend of mine is in his final year (3rd), he got a 99.7 UAI and says that he spends a large majority of his time studying and still finds it "hard". It is a very rewarding job post-grad but be prepared to work your butt off for the 3 years you are there.

Some background on me:
-95.55 UAI
-88/100 in 3u maths, 91/100 for 2u. UNSW recommend a combined mark of atleast 190 (I think) if u only did 2u/3u-->Pshh I wish I had done 4u, some of the course content of 4u is in MATH1151/1251 so it's a huge help, but a friend of mine who only did 2u/3u as well is doing Actuary at MacQ and is going fine.

I guess this whole post can be summaried in a sentence or 2: Actuary is hard, very hard, a whole lot harder than any other Commerce major, compounding this is you have to go well from the beginning to get your exemptions, a hard task for your first semester of uni, but the rewards are there if you are willing to work for it

 

[Bilson]

A friend of mine is in his final year (3rd), he got a 99.7 UAI and says that he spends a large majority of his time studying and still finds it "hard".

when you say he spends a large majority of his time studying, is that like more than 3 hours a day in a continuos pattern throughout the whole year?

 

[Kieruz]

when you say he spends a large majority of his time studying, is that like more than 3 hours a day in a continuos pattern throughout the whole year?

Haha mate I wouldn't know anything that specific. I know him through his cousin, his cousin says he "doesn't get out much", hence he spends a lot of time at home...probably studying. And he told me that 2nd year > 1st year to the nth degree in terms of difficulty.

3 hours of continous study would guarantee you a D/HD average in your first year, even if you are doing Actuary. But 2nd year, doing all ACTL, I dunno, I guess it would depend on your aptitude for maths as well as your hard work, you'd have to have some natural talents to be able to do 4 ACTL subjects IMO. HSC maths is just bs, it's all mechanical and just wrote learning. Math based uni courses actually require you to think, so it might not be the kid with the highest 3u/4u mark who is doing the best.

But you don't go to uni that much either doing commerce, actuary major only has an extra 4-6hrs of contact (1st year, dont know about 2nd) so it's not bad at all. You could manage to do 4-6hrs a day, every day if you were driven and I imagine that would pull you through the entire actuary course.

PS. you might not have to do 1511/1521 either. A friend of mine who failed 1511 last sem is doing a diff math course which still contributes to his exemption, or so he says.

Just try it, if you feel you are up for it. It can only help, as MATH1511/1521 can be used for credit so if you transfer to straight commerce, you won't have to do QMA/QMB. It will also exempt you if you chose to transfer into engineering. Then after 1st year, and after ACTL1001, you can decide from there if you can handle it. Most importantly, you have to go hard from the outset, something I wish some one had told me, because uni isnt "easy" as some people put it - it's easy to pass, but just passing won't (most likely) get you anywhere in life. Don't go into whatever uni degree you chose with that mindset, becuase you'll find your 1st sem marks count for a lot if you wanna trasnfer or apply for a cadet/co-op/scholarship etc

goodluck