Pittsburgh Pee Ay

Now on vacation in Pittsburgh, Pee Ay. Of course, since the motto of being an actuary is "get to work -- you're not being paid to believe in the power of your dreams", I've not been entirely idle. I've done some of the problem sets in Dr. N's class, and have done some Chapter 6 and 7 problems from the ACTEX manual. (I can't believe that I'm on my way to working through the ACTEX manual for Exam P.)

The biggggg news is that the name of this blog might change from "An Actuary's Progress" to a "A Risk Manager's Progress". Lemme explain.

About two or three weeks ago, I happened to meet one of my professors from the summer semester, Dr. G, by chance. He suggested that I apply for a Ph. D. in Risk Management. And of course, you know, I've been turning it over in my head ever sense. Because when someone offers you something like that, and you pass it up, you spend the rest of your life wondering, "what would have happened if...?"

My wife finally got tired of hearing it and said, "hey, if you're interested in in, why don't you talk to Dr. G?" So, I did.

Now, we're past the deadline for Ph. D. application, but Dr. G says there's a chance I can slide under the radar. Really, here's all I need:

* The scores of the GRE General Test -- I'll take that on March 14th
* Filling out the application -- yawn.
* Writing a two page essay basically stating why you want to be a Ph. D. -- Dr. G says there's no way to mess that up; they basically want to know that you don't want the Ph. D. for "status" purposes. They want to give Ph. D's to people who will either teach or use them in industry/think tank jobs where the Ph. D. is a requirement for success.
* Getting three letters of recommendation.

The hard part might be getting the three letters. The people who best know what I can do I haven't talked to them in 20 years -- those are my math professors at BC. And Professor T has retired and he seems to be hard to get in touch with.

Dr. G will write one of the letters -- that's letter #1. I asked Dr. N to write a letter, and he said "yes", so that's letter #2.

Dr. S, however, stated that he would like to know more about me before writing a letter. So I'll meet him on Monday. As it turns out, he got his Ph. D. from Carnegie Mellon, so I might bring him a Clark Bar. (Carnegie Mellon is in Pittsburgh and Clark Bars are manufactures in Pittsburgh.)

But hey...even if it doesn't work out, I can continue with my actuarial plans. But...if I do get in, it's four years of very hard work.

We'll see what happens.