How I Decided to Become an Actuary

It was February 2005. My wife decided that she wanted to get away from her present job in telecommunications to move to another city (with the same company). We had moved two years earlier, and I said, "I'll move if I can give up nursing."

She said, "Maybe you could go back to school." She said, "Why don't you become an actuary?"

I said, "what's an actuary?"

I looked it up online, and it sounded interesting. I took some business core classes in the summer of 2005, and took actuary science classes after that. Looooved the math. Came to love those word problems, which seemed to have such powerful real-world applications. Loved E(X), and risk. Took Exam FM in November. Passed Exam FM and was one of only three people in a class of twenty-five to pass it.

And now, I've been admitted to the Ph. D. school in risk management. I'd like to do Catastrophe Risk.

And that is how I decided to become an actuary. (Someone found my blog by asking that question, so I decided to answer. But no, I don't know what the passing score to Exam P was in February 2006.)