How challenging is Actuarial studies? (1 Viewer)

[mtran75]

I am interested in studying actuarial studies and commerce as a double degree ,however I am not really sure if I can handle it.

 

[uniqueusername1]

I am interested in studying actuarial studies and commerce as a double degree ,however I am not really sure if I can handle it.

Do you really in your heart want to be an actuary? Only do it if you really want to.

My cousin works in data science now - graduated in actuarial with pretty good marks. He said that most people don't actually become actuaries as it is really competitive (only the geniuses manage to get a job). He told me to avoid it unless I really wanted to become an actuary. But, he said the positive of actuarial was that it had a lot of transferable skills (some ended up in marketing, finance, others in data science etc...).

Idk how accurate this is but, @icycledough can confirm

 

[icycledough]

I can definitely help you out here.

If you do choose at do it at UNSW, there's 6 available double degrees you can do it with, or if you want, you can do it as a major without any double degree.

Commerce (4 years)
Comp Sci (4 years)
Economics (4 years)
Inf Sys (4 years)
Science (4 years)
Science - Advanced Math (5 years)

First year actuarial is all common subjects for everyone, so out of the 8 subjects you will do, there are 3 commerce subjects, 2 economics subjects, 2 maths subjects and 1 specific actuary subject. Personally, I love how diverse the course is, especially as you delve into a lot of different areas and have a variety of assessment tasks (for e.g financial report on business, coding assignment, video presentation, essays, etc). There is also group work as well (I'm not sure how you feel about it), which personally for me, was much better than in high school, where you would have a few guys not do anything for the assessment. Obviously because of the current pandemic and overall situation we are in, meeting new people will be much harder, but hopefully things ease up when you start uni and you'll have the luxury to be able to attend face-to-face

Macquarie University also offers Actuarial, and in fact, I think Macquarie is more renowned for its actuarial program. You'll have to do your own research on it as I don't have a clue how their program is structured, to be honest. Regardless, both will have amazing programs and I'm sure you will enjoy it.

In terms of job prospects outside university, there's a whole list. Some jobs include

• Accountant/Auditor
• Actuarial Analyst
• Asset Management Trainee
• Business Analyst
• Business Consultant
• Credit Analyst
• Cyber Security Analyst
• Customer Experience Officer
• Data Analyst
• Digital Innovation Officer
• Economist
• Financial Adviser
• Human Resource Consultant
• Insurance Analyst
• Investment Banker
• Marketing/Brand Manager
• Risk Assessment Officer
• Superannuation Adviser
• Strategist
• Tax Adviser
• Wealth Management Analyst

These are only a few of the many there are available (I got these from the UNSW Actuarial site); hope this helps

 

[quickoats]

Macquarie University also offers Actuarial, and in fact, I think Macquarie is more renowned for its actuarial program. You'll have to do your own research on it as I don't have a clue how their program is structured, to be honest. Regardless, both will have amazing programs and I'm sure you will enjoy it.

Might be a tad biased here (even though I left) but I reckon the MQ degree is structured better than the UNSW degree. You start with an intro actl unit in the first semester, unlike UNSW who waits for term 3. This unit is pretty fun (for something about superannuation and insurance) which is designed to go side by side with the introductory actuarial statistics unit.Also, semesters means that you will pretty much be doing an actuarial subject that counts towards your exemptions every single term, rather than having odd terms where you don't touch it at UNSW. Also, semesters let the content sink in a bit deeper. Both are good unis though, but I reckon MQ takes the cake in terms of structure etc.

 

[icycledough]

Might be a tad biased here (even though I left) but I reckon the MQ degree is structured better than the UNSW degree. You start with an intro actl unit in the first semester, unlike UNSW who waits for term 3. This unit is pretty fun (for something about superannuation and insurance) which is designed to go side by side with the introductory actuarial statistics unit.Also, semesters means that you will pretty much be doing an actuarial subject that counts towards your exemptions every single term, rather than having odd terms where you don't touch it at UNSW. Also, semesters let the content sink in a bit deeper. Both are good unis though, but I reckon MQ takes the cake in terms of structure etc.

I can agree with that for sure. I definitely think with regards to actuarial as a program, MQ is probably more renowned for that specific course for reasons as you mentioned. I do agree with some trimesters not having an actuarial component in it at UNSW, which I think is probably the biggest criticism I have of it, that it can feel quite disjointed if you don't do it for a few terms and come back to it. A few corrections though; with the introduction to actl unit (known as ACTL1101), we started it in the 2nd trimester but I still get your overall point with what you were trying to say ... I guess that without being able to experience the other program yourself, it can be a bit hard to understand for yourself what type of program you will be interested in

 

[quickoats]

I can agree with that for sure. I definitely think with regards to actuarial as a program, MQ is probably more renowned for that specific course for reasons as you mentioned. I do agree with some trimesters not having an actuarial component in it at UNSW, which I think is probably the biggest criticism I have of it, that it can feel quite disjointed if you don't do it for a few terms and come back to it. A few corrections though; with the introduction to actl unit (known as ACTL1101), we started it in the 2nd trimester but I still get your overall point with what you were trying to say ... I guess that without being able to experience the other program yourself, it can be a bit hard to understand for yourself what type of program you will be interested in

Ahh interesting... for ppl in my year, actl1101 was done in term 3 which I thought was kinda late?

 

[icycledough]

Maybe people in your year could have criticized it for being that late and then the actuarial department would have taken on the feedback to move it a term earlier?