Actuarial Exemptions from a Maths Degree

Raeral

Hi, I'm currently in sixth year and trying to decide on college course for next year. I was thinking about becoming an actuary but I think I'd rather do a "pure" maths degree in college (specifically, maths in Trinity) rather than an actuarial degree as I feel the actuarial degree might be too limiting if I decided not to become an actuary. So, with respect to that, has anyone heard of anyone doing a maths degree and getting exemptions from any of the actuarial exams. Thanks

jeepers101

As far as I know there are only three universities offering courses with exemptions; DCU, UCD and UCC. All three undergraduate degrees are actuarial based.

http://www.actuaries.org.uk/students/pages/university-courses-and-exemptions

Raeral

Yeh I know about the actuarial courses (there's 5 in total here in Ireland) but it's also possible to apply for exemptions from each of the core technical exams even if you don't have a degree accredited by the institute and faculty of actuaries. That's why I was wondering if anyone had done the maths degree at Trinity and applied for the exemptions in this way. And, if so, how many they got.

Thanks anyway though Jeepers

Eliot Rosewater

I'm studying pure mathematics in UCC (final year), and am friends will all of the Financial/Actuarial mathematics class, so I've a few comments that might be useful.

First: only a small proportion of people actually get all of the exemptions. In the UCC class of 20 I'd be surprised if more than 5 got them all. The exemptions often require first-class-honors grades in the relevant modules, hence the comparatively small number of people who get them all. So specifically going into a certain degree to get exemptions isn't as beneficial as it initially seems.

Second: from the sounds of it, a good proportion of people in the financial mathematics class are looking for jobs outside of actuary. For the people who get non-actuarial jobs, I'm pretty sure having the exemptions will be of little use. So, again, specifically going into a certain degree to get exemptions mightn't actually pay off, if your interests shift.

Third: from a jobs perceptive, a pure mathematics degree can be as good as a financial mathematics degree. Ultimately, successfully pursuing a degree in any mathematical discipline shows that you have developed good critical and analytic skills, which is what financial employers want. In certain cases having a pure mathematics degree can be better: a hedge fund worker who gave a talk at UCC said that their policy was not to hire financial mathematicians as they already have too many preconceptions!! In Britain, the standard practice is for potential actuaries to do a pure mathematics degrees and then do all of the professional exams while employed.

The advantage, then, of doing a pure mathematics degree is that certain paths remain open. I can apply for actuary jobs, but members of the actuary class can't apply for pure mathematical stuff. You don't know how your interests will change during your degree.

Those are three arguments in favor of a pure mathematics degree. I have one argument against: from my own experience in UCC, getting the actuarial exemptions without sitting very specific modules is difficult. I've almost got one or two, but just missed out because 10% of the exemption came from a small module I didn't do.

misslt

I'm not familiar with the maths degree in Trinity, but the core technical exams are:

Financial maths; statistics; accounting and finance; modelling (survival and stochastic); contingencies (actuarial maths); statistical processes (actuarial statistics); economics and financial economics.

Those aren't the exact titles but essentially that's what the subjects are made up of, so you'd need to be cover a fair amount of each syllabus to get an exemption.

I'm doing actuary in UCD, so if you do have any questions about the course feel free to ask.

jeepers101

I'm pretty sure I went down that route before. I contacted the institute to see if my maths degree could earn any exemptions and they told me its up to the university to apply for them.

They're fairly strict on what material has to be covered to earn exemptions. In short I highly doubt any of the pure maths degrees will earn any.

Raeral

Thanks for the replies, will think it over

Pembily

Also some of the universities that do offer exemptions may not in the future as it's not as cost effective for the actuarial body who sets the exams.

CJC86

Basically, you can keep your options open by doing a Maths degree, or you can get some exemptions by doing an Actuarial degree, but you can't do both. Unless you're hell-bent on becoming an actuary, I think the Maths degree is the better option.

Tau

I did pure maths and then became an actuary. In your position I would recommend it every time. Doing actuarial science really limits you a lot. Employers are happy to take people with pure maths degrees. Where I am the new grads coming in are about evenly split between actuarial and non actuarial degrees.

People worry too much about the exemptions. If you come in with exemptions from all the CT exams, it generally just ends up taking longer to get the later exams, where it helps to have a bit of experience.

Getting a good mark in your degree is worth more than having some exemptions. The easiest way to get a good mark in your degree is to do something you like. Don't do actuarial science. I'm an actuary, I like being an actuary, I think it is a great job, but the CT exams were really boring material. I cannot imagine having spent three years at uni doing actuarial science. It would have been awful.

Uni is your one chance in life to go study what you want to study. Don't do actuarial science.

EDIT: For what it is worth, I got CT3 and CT6 exemptions, but it wouldn't have taken long to just do them if I had had to.