An Actuary's Progress

The First Week....

2006-08-24T17:07:00.000-07:00

...is always the hardest, I suppose.

When I got back to graduate school...boy, let's just say these classes are tough. I'm so tired right now that I don't have much to write, before falling over. I'll give you something of a framework:

* I have my own office. It's really an inner foyer between the door to the hallway and the door to the offices of two other professors, but I'll take what I can get.
* Microeconomics and Risk Management are my biggest classes. Lots of Masters/Ph. D. students. My Probability class has about seven people in it. (Including one person with a masters and another with a Ph. D. in physics.) My Econometrics class has three people in it -- and it will probably be the hardest class of the four.
* Debating about whether or not to take the "boot camp" class as an audit. I might very well do so.
* Probability is taught by the good Dr. S. He's already given us a homework assignment, which doesn't seem so hard...yet.
* Econometrics is tough, because a) I haven't seen the material, b) I don't know if I have the math background, c) the professor is Dr. N, who speaks accented English and isn't the best for explanations.
* Microecon might be enjoyable, but this might be a tough class. One of my problems is "find the utility function for "Things go better with Coke!" I suspect it is U(x,y) = x^a*y^b , where x=things and y=Coke. Even if you lose things, you will compensate for the loss of them by getting more Coke.
* Probability is a lot of set theory and sigma-fields. I pray I don't get lost in it.
* Risk Management is taught by the dept chair. Who wasn't there today. So a colleague of his taught in his place. He only taught for 30 minutes. Didn't learn much...but he's Dr. K, the man I'm going to be working for this year.

Interregnum

2006-08-21T09:28:00.000-07:00

Right now, it's Monday, the first day of classes at our University. I have no classes today, those have been reserved for Tuesday, Wednesday and Thursday. So I've been a graduate student for two days now and haven't actually done anything.

Last Friday, we had the doctoral students' orientation. I met a young fellow named B. who is also a Risk Management major. He's Chinese, and he heard about our university due to a visit to China from one of our faculty. He has a bachelor's and a master's from his Chinese University. We'll call him "B." for now. B. states that there are only five universities in China with insurance programs.

Together, B. and I make the new class of Risk Management students. According to our doctoral advisor, the Risk Management/Insurance department accepts students based on how well their financial portfolio did. It didn't do so great last year, so this year there were only two new doctoral students.

I found out two things I didn't know. First, we would be assigned to one of the professors and work about 10 hrs/week. That's not bad. When I went to grad school about 20 years ago, we had to teach a class as well. No teaching for us right now. Some of the graduate students have worked with the same professor since the day they showed up, and that professor eventually supervised their dissertation work.

Which makes me wonder who I'll get assigned to. I know Dr. S, but he's a new guy -- do I really want to be the first dissertation he ever supervised? Dr. N has never supervised a dissertation. As for Dr. G, as doctoral advisor he might be way too busy to call on for a supervision.

And then, there's Dr. C. The Famous Dr. C. One student worked with him and ended up co-authoring three journal articles along with dissertation work. The problem with Dr. C is...well, he's scary. He has a real curt, straightforward manner. I've never had to have a conversation with him.

Supposedly, one of the truths in finding someone to supervise your dissertation is that it should be someone you get along with. If I don't get along with Dr. C, there's not much point in asking. Maybe I'm just looking to far ahead, but I want to work with someone in a productive relationship for both of us, and if we're going to be spending that "academic time" together, you want there to be a good relationship. (Sounds like a marraige, doesn't it?)

Second, we will have an office. It will be an office shared with three other people (the department has some overcrowding) but I never expected an office at all. I can hang my shingle there and hide out between classes, if the office isn't getting any use.

But of course, I have to have a key, and before that, I have to find out who I'm working for...and Dr. G hasn't gotten around to that, yet. So I wait. Or rather, B. and I wait since it's likely we'll be sharing an office.

Our Friday meeting was a meet-and-greet type of meeting. Not too much real information, and I doubt it would relevant to write about.

Today, I returned to campus for three reasons:

First, to find out who I'm working for. No such luck. Dr. G isn't even in the office.

Second, to sign up for employment. This involves going over to payroll and filling out a lot of forms, and of course, I'm missing one needed bit of info. The university requires direct deposit. I don't have a canceled check, I have to bring one tomorrow. I would like to get paid at the end of the month, honestly, I would.

Third, to take a course in how to turn on a campus workstation. Campus workstations are all over class, and this way, I can just log on to one and download whatever data that will make my life easier. That's at two. Ninety more minutes to kill.

However, today's visit was worthwhile -- I got a discount card for my department to buy books. But I've already paid for books! So bring books back, bring receipt, get discount, pay for books again....

The motto of the graduate student. "Hurry up and wait."

So Where The Hell Are We?

2006-08-15T09:44:00.000-07:00

I am now about to begin my first semester as a Mathematical Risk Management graduate student. This Friday, we will have our first orientation as doctoral students. It starts at 11:30 am and is destined to last possibly as much as seven hours, with lunch and dinner offered.

I think I could probably use the experience of the Right Minded Actuary to make small talk in an academic setting. I'm never comfortable during these occasions, and I always end up saying the wrong thing. Undoubtedly, it's best to say nothing -- or to find someone who likes talking about themselves and let them talk until the cows come home.

We have finally moved into our little house. And we've waited for contractors, for phone people, cable people, plumbers, electricians, yard workers, painters -- the list goes on, forever, not to mention the art of actually moving things out of the apartment to the new house.

(Incidentally: right now, I'm in Birmingham, AL. The wife wanted company on a business trip, and I was glad to oblige.)

So I didn't get much study done. I had hoped to read Axler's "Linear Algebra Done Right", but right now, I'm stuck in the middle of Chapter 6. And, as any student can tell you, I found time for a lot of other fun things that didn't forward my education. I'm going to have to get better at this planning business.

Other than that, no news except waiting for the hammer to fall. What I learned to pass Exam FM seems like ancient history -- if a subject isn't reinforced, it disappears. The Exam P stuff seems to be fading away as well. Then again, many of these students might have had a summer off. (So what is the academic schedule of overseas students? Do they come to the US just out of classes, still in the right frame of mind? This three-months off lay off didn't do me any good.)

If you have a subscription to the WSJ, you can read this article about a plagiarism scandal at Ohio State University. It seemed that a master's degree student in mechanical engineering was having trouble getting a thesis topic approved -- so he went rooting about in the old theses for some inspiration.

He found an interesting topic, and followed the tracks of the "literature review". Basically, when you're writing a thesis, you review the literature, providing your reader with a path of what has been done before. When this student went further backwards -- looking at the cited materials in the first thesis -- he found that entire paragraphs and pages were lifted from existing works without paraphrase or attribution.

So, what was the fallout?

* The chairman of the mechanical engineering department at OSU is stepping down.
* One thesis supervisor might be "fired" (his academic contract will not be renewed).
* A professor at Miami University might lose his job -- he was one of those who graduated after writing a partially-plagiarised work.
* Students accused of plagiarism are being contacted to either revise their theses, or have their degrees revoked.

The explanation being given is that these were foreign students who did not have a great command of English. Supposedly, they a) came from countries with looser definitions of plagiarism, or b) did not know how to paraphrase accurately in the English langauge. I don't know if that's an appropriate excuse -- their supervisors, furthermore, were also not from America, which complicates the matter.

All I can imagine is reading dusty risk management theses somewhere, and being confronted with such a thing happening at my own university. And I ask myself, "what would I do...?"

(P. S. No spellcheck at this computer. Pleaze ignor bad spelin.)

My Exam P Score

2006-07-04T08:57:00.000-07:00

My score for Exam P was...drumroll please....

(bitdabitdabitdabitdabitdabitdabitdabitda)

...TEN. That's a "one" followed by a "zero". It is the maximum score on Exam P.

I'm still picking my jaw off the floor.

This Actuary is Progressing....

2006-07-02T15:38:00.000-07:00

Here we go.

SOA grades for Exam P are in.

I PASSED! Woo-hoo! And now I have both Exam P and Exam FM under my belt!!

Where I've Been

2006-06-25T18:15:00.000-07:00

Undoubtedly, if you've been following this blog, you might wonder where I've been. Have I been studying too hard? Locked in a closet, in fear of the results of Exam P?

No. My wife and I have purchased a house, and of course, we're trying to upgrade it. If you want to see some of the things we've done, go to:

http://upgradingthishouse.blogspot.com

Insurance Fraud in California

2006-06-12T16:41:00.000-07:00

You know, if your SUV is giving you problems with high monthly payments and no end in sight with gas prices...just burn it!

Insurance Fraud a Problem ....

The Summer Reading Process

2006-06-09T11:18:00.000-07:00

You might ask what an actuary/Ph. D. student reads over the summer. I'll give you a look at my summer reading.

Linear Algebra Made Easy, by Sheldon Axler. It's my primary book of the summer, and I'm sawing my way through the propositions and proofs. I don't intend to complete the book, just the "important parts" outlined by Dr. S.

Optimization by Vector Space Methods, by David Luenberger. A master text in the field in solving problems in economics. Very difficult, I'll be ecstatic if I can get through a few chapters.

Recursive Macroeconomic Theory, by Lars Ljungqvist, 2nd ed., 2004. (red cover) Supposely a major book in the field. I'll have to buy it and therefore, it can wait -- Dr. S says this book is too frequently checked out to easily find.

Economic Literacy: What Everyone Needs to Know about Money and Markets, by Jacob De Rooy. About ten years out of date, but a great simple explanation of economic terms (my econ skills are just about nonexistent).

The Undercover Economist, by Tim Harford. FINISHED. A book about real world examples of economic reasoning.

Against the Odds: The Remarkable Story of Risk, by Peter L. Bernstein. Basically, the history of probability and risk management, from the ancient Greeks to Black-Schoeles.

Short Changed, by Howard Karger. The world of "alternative financial services": pawnshops, check cashers, and rent-to-own stores, and how their usurious practices prey on the vulnerable.

A comment from the Good Frank S. asked how I'm doing with the Axler book. Fairly well. My questions are answered. I didn't do the question that asks:

"For U, V, W subspaces, is dim (U + V + W) = dim U + dim V + dim W - (dim U intersect V) - (dim U intersect W) - (dim V intersect W) + dim (U intersect V intersect W)?"
I suspect the proof is just like the simpler case, but more laborious.

Movin' On Down The Line

2006-06-04T13:15:00.000-07:00

Well, it's official. My wife and I are moving again. Just as the right-minded actuary posted regarding the pros and cons of renting vs. buying a house, here were are...buying a house.

Today, we signed what is more or less an agreement to purchase, and we close on the house (i. e., actually purchase it) around the 20th of June. Which means moving all of this crap out of the apartment, taking away from some of my study time. I haven't studied this weekend because my mom was here -- she had a great time -- and it looks like I might not be studying much of the summer, either.

I can say something good about the new house. It has a very nice desk that comes with it. You can consider that desk actuarial headquarters.

Say What Now?

2006-05-31T22:17:00.000-07:00

Right now, I'm diving into that wonderful tome known as "Linear Algebra Made Easy". I'm trying to prep myself for what's going to happen to me in August when my Ph. D. classes start.

So far, it's been tough, but it's straightforward and I don't feel like I'm lost. However, the problem is that the problems do not have solutions given in the back of the book. So I don't know the answer to: "does every subspace have a subspace which acts as an additive inverse under subspace addition?" (If you know, please put the answer in the comments.)

I wrote an e-mail to Dr. S, who

a) was glad I was studying (I haven't done that much; I'm only just getting over my illness), and
b) recommended several books to read. Furthermore, he told me to think about a lot of subjects such as:

* how many ways can you interpret a matrix being symmetric or positive definite?
* what is an economic or probabilistic interpretation of the adjoint to a matrix?
* what are separating hyperplanes and linear functionals?
* How is a probability measure like a vector?
* How is a markov chain like a matrix?
* How does the concept of correlation relate to the eigen-structure of a covariance matrix....?

And I don't know what any of the above means! AAAAGGGGGHHHHH!!

Sick of It All

2006-05-28T11:47:00.000-07:00

Historically, whenever I put a lot of effort into something -- exams, texts, major events -- what happens afterwards is that my poor overburdened immune system finally collapses.

That is what happened after Exam P. I didn't feel it until Monday, when I noticed that I had a sore throat. Then, it got worse and I essentially did as little as possible -- no study, no writing, nothing -- from Tuesday until Friday. This has been a lost week for me.

However, I am feeling better. It reminds me of the joke that being a graduate student is like the Seven Dwarfs.

You start out Dopey and Bashful.
Then you're Grumpy, Sneezy and Sleepy.
But then you become Doc, and you're Happy.

I think I got the sneezy part out of the way early.

"It's Over"

2006-05-18T12:29:00.000-07:00

I have a T-shirt with a statuesque woman in pig tails and "opera armor" with her mouth wide open, in mid-song. At the bottom of the shirt are the words, "it's over".

And, dear readers, Exam P is over.

My impression is that with the new superrrrr computer system, you would have a guesstimated result lickety-split. However, as the last screen popped up, you got the words, "in seven weeks, candidate numbers will be released". So, no, not until approximately July 13th will I know the results of Exam P.

Taking the exam on the computer is a bit weird. There are a few problems with this system. First, they never give you enough pencils. At the testing center, I got two pencils to work with (can't bring in your own pencil, y'know -- there might be answers written on the side).

When I write, I bear down HARD on pencils. Sharp pencils turn to dull nubs within 15 minutes. So I had to waste 30 seconds of valuable time requesting 2 more pencils. You get your own scratch paper, for obvious reasons, but you have to turn it in later.

The other problem is that you can't scribble on the test itself, without leaving marks on the screen.

The test was 180 minutes, 30 questions, so about 6 minutes to solve. And let me tell you, I used every bit of those three hours. Didn't have time to check my earlier work, and some of those problems I found the solution to almost at the last minute.

It was hard. Those 30 minutes go by fast.

According to the oath which I swear by clicking a button, I am honor-bound not to tell you anything about the contents of Exam P. At least, not until the end of the month by which time everyone should have taken this particular sitting of Exam P.

I try to put the actual test out of my mind, so no private e-mail. As my wife says, "D for done", referring to her initially poor academic career. All I need is a 6 out of 10 from the SOA/CAS, and I've passed.

Now, what's my life going to be like for the rest of the summer? I'll be studying linear algebra on my own in preparation for graduate school in August 2007. Still obstensibly looking for work, although all is quiet on that front. And finally, I might post some actuarial thoughts and articles, like the oft-imitated (but never equaled) Actuary.net .

P. S. Got grades back on all three of my courses. A, A, and A. Thank goodness.

Exam P Tomorrow

2006-05-17T08:19:00.000-07:00

Ugh. I'm depressed and studied out. I just want it to be over.

However, I found a new blog to read about Insurance Law . It will definitely be added to the ol' linklist.

Two Words

2006-05-16T08:22:00.000-07:00

Where have I been? Two words. Exam P, May 18th, and I'm less than 48 hours away from it.

Wish me luck.

Let X Equal Casino Earnings....

2006-05-10T18:19:00.000-07:00

A little vacation for the blog, as my wife and I go to Lake Charles for three days.
She's going there on business, and we'll visit a riverboat casino and try to help the local economy.

I will try to prove to my wife that for the random variable X, where X equals customer earnings from a casino visit, that E(X)<0. It's a tough battle.

L'Homme Qui Dormir

2006-05-08T10:03:00.000-07:00

I have now finished the third and last of my final exams.

This was the exam from Dr. S, in Math Foundations. The exam consisted of:

a) six multiple-choice questions,
b) some think-about-em questions
c) three essay questions, choose one

The six multiple-choice were based on problems from Exam P. I got 5 out of 6, and I blew the one about the Gamma function but I knew how to set it up correctly. (It was based on adding up a bunch of Gammas and invoking the CLT, but somehow, my alpha and beta were wrong.)

The think-about-em questions were:

1) Find f(y) where X=ln Y and f(x) is given. (Easy).
2) If P(a<=x<=b) = 1/b - 1/a, and find f(x), if x greater than or equal to one,
3) Describe the major distributions based on coin flips. (No problem, but I didn't do the Beta distribution, because he didn't discuss it.)
4) Some weird conditional density function that I didn't do.

The last question was an essay question that asked one to justify pricing by expected loss. I gave him two pages on it.

I would write more...but this is a recreation of the first post, which Blogger ate. More later.

Two Down

2006-05-05T09:32:00.000-07:00

I am pretty much wiped out.

I just finished my elementary probability test. (In a weird side note, I had the advanced probability course before I had the elementary one.) It was definitely challenging. Not much in it but "hat problems", i. e.

"A coat check girl is handing out hats to customers. If five customers give her their hats, and she hands them back at random, what is the probability that exactly two customers get their correct hat?"

Hat problems, special subcommittees were some Democrat didn't want to serve with some Republican (so, how many combinations), red and blue balls dropped in an urn, pulled out, blue balls added, weird dice rolls and all the enjoyable elementary probability problems you've come to expect. And, of course, good ol' Bayes and his theorem.

The test was 100 minutes long, and 95 percent of the class stayed there until the end. Tough exam. I feel I did well; but I really can't say.

Two days ago I had the intro statistics final. That one was a hard one, all sorts of problems about confidence intervals and how to make them narrower (he didn't go over these specific problems in class, but I doped them out). And it's multiple choice, so you can't get partial credit.

If my last two finals were so hard, I wonder what Math Foundations of AS is going to look like? That one happens Monday. Then a trip to Louisiana for my wife to gamble and then, on the 18th, Exam P.

However, like any college student, I had my runaround with the registrar. They were putting a hold on my future registration for classes until I could prove that I had taken courses to show that...I can read and write. My wife says, "you should just sit for those courses and take them." If this happens to me again (this is the second time it's happened), I might consider it.

The Final Day

2006-05-02T07:28:00.000-07:00

It's 10:25 am. I have now been up for 25 minutes.

Yesterday was the final day of regular classes. I have my first final exam tomorrow. I've already put about 4 1/2 hours into studying for it, and I'll finish up today and part of tomorrow on it.

We got more materials in Dr. N's class. Some problem sets in intro probability to do.
I spoke with a couple of the undergraduates regarding the class -- the usual before-class chatter. (They always have a lot of questions about the actuarial exams.)
At our university, we are required to rate our instructors before we get our grades. So I'll give you the plusses and minuses of each of them.

Dr. N

Plus: A very nice man. The quizzes every week keep students focused and studying. Seems helpful.

Minus: His command of English is not that great. A lot of the undergraduates found it annoying. I am not claiming that you have to have a masterful command of English to be a good professor -- some of the best professors out there are English-as-a-second-language speakers. But I think it's paramount to have a good English speaker for an introductory level course.

Furthermore, we "ran out" of course material, covering only the first five chapters of Hassett and Stewart, and then treading water for the last three weeks of classes. We not only ran out of course material, but this lack of planning was reflected in the syllabus. (In short, it was built into the course.) I don't know if the earlier instructors did it this way, but the class loses focus when they know that nothing new will be covered for the last three weeks.

Dr. S

Plus: Brilliant in math, probably the best of the mathematicians. Very smart in finance as well. Does not build his test around the "90=A, 80=B" scale but is willing to curve and recognize effort.

Minus: I like the man. I can see what he's trying to get at. As Robert Pirsig might have said, he's trying to turn us into thinkers instead of grade-grubbing robots on automatic pilot. The problem is, it's hard on the first class that gets challenged that way. Since no one knows where the grading scale is, or how well they have to do on a test to succeed, it creates panic in every grade-driven individual in class -- including myself. He's introduced interesting material -- proof of "expected loss", hedging, filtering, an intro to ruin theory in our final class -- but most students, me included, unfortunately only want to know one thing -- "is this going to be on the test?" And if it isn't, they lose interest.

Furthermore, some of the work he puts on the board is...well...wrong. He thinks like a brilliant person, "I can go back and fix the details later". Unfortunately, since we've never been exposed to some of this material, the details have to be done right. It can be very confusing.

Dr. Z

Pluses: An expert in his field. Homework is automatically checked with a "100 percent" as I think he's too busy to look at it. Tests are multiple choice, review is very easy. No surpises.

Minuses: No surprises. He rarely, if ever, diverges from the course material or tries to present it in a new light. No new philosophy is represented. In short, if you can read and understand the text, there's no reason to attend any of his classes.

Tomorrow, I'll probably report on one of the obstacles I'll face in a successful graduate career. A clue is in the first line I've typed.

The Usual

2006-04-30T17:40:00.000-07:00

Right now, I'm driving into finals week. Stats final in three days, intro prob final in five days, and foundations of actuarial science in eight days.

How do I think I'll do? Well, I've got "A"s in all of the classes, and it would probably require me to seriously tank my finals to damage that. But, like any grind, insecurity is a hallmark of our personalities, despite the low probability of us making an "F" on a final.

So, we study. I've studied three hours yesterday, and will study three hours today.

And...I already took an exam on Saturday. I took the skills test for my Basic Cardiac Life Support test (I took the written part online). So I have my CPR card, and with my nursing license, I'm eligible for any full or part time nursing job in my state.

But no takers. A St. Anthony candle is lit right now, and it's burning in the kitchen.

As for actuarial science, Notre Dame is seeking to establish an actuarial science major. (Cribbed from the fine folx at Actuary.net.)

Tomorrow: final day of class. I'll let you know what's going on.

Letter to a friend who skipped class....

2006-04-28T11:26:00.000-07:00

-- M wrote:

> Hi J,
>
> How are you doing? I was so tired I didn't feel
> like going to class
> today :), What did I miss in N and S's
> class?
>
> M

M,

Pretty much nothing. In Dr. N's class, he went over the answers from Quiz #14 (median score = 5). He gave us another set of problems to take home (Set #2) and we had Review Quiz #4 (not graded.)

In Dr. S's class, he did a problem like this:

"Assume X is Uniform(0,1). Let Y-sub-t be Bernoulli(x), i.e.,

Pr(Y-sub-t = 1 | x) = x
Pr(Y-sub-t = 0 | x) = 1-x

Compute the density functions f(X|Y-sub-1 = 1)
and f(X|Y-sub-1 = 0)

He then confused the daylights out of us. We had five minutes to work on it on our own, and after no one could do it, Dr. S worked out two ways to do it. The first way worked; the second way didn't. He didn't have his notes...I suspect he planned to put it on the computer, but he couldn't get the classroom computer to work.

That mess is supposed to develop the Beta function. How, no one could say.

BTW, who should I be voting for in the AS Club elections? I don't know 1/2 of these people.

--J

Two More Days

2006-04-27T13:31:00.000-07:00

Yesterday, not much going on. We continue to review material in Dr. N's class. And once again, not reading carefully trips me up on a quiz. Instead of finding Pr(X-Y=3) for a problem, I find Pr(X+Y=3). It was a simple problem; I don't know how much the error will cost me. It seems that the longer I'm in that class, the stupider I get.

As for Dr. S, we finally got our scores back from Exam II. The Exam was a total of 100 points; and as it turned out, 45 points was good enough for an "A". (0-17 was good enough for a "D".) He wrote the range of "A" scores as:

A -- 45 to 67 plus outlier

I got a 78, which made me the outlier score. Someone, of course, had to ask, "who's the outlier?" and a wiseacre student said, "I know who it is!", indicating me, which left me embarrassed -- I don't like to be singled out like that.

Dr. S then said, "Well, J has an unfair advantage. And he's taking the hard path." Which, translated, means (I guess), "J already has a degree in math and grad school experience, and he's going for the Ph. D." So I'm hoping that this hard path doesn't end up crashing me.

In Dr. Z's class we finished the last of the new material. Here are my final exams:

May 3rd: Dr Z, Intro Stat
May 5th: Dr N, Intro Prob
May 8th: Dr S, Foundations of Actuarial Science
May 12th: A trip with my wife to Lake Charles, LA, where I will attempt (futilely) to prove that for the variable X: casino winnings, E(X)<0 over the long run.
May 18th: Exam P test

Went to the AS meeting. I showed up at 2:45 p, but they wouldn't seat anyone until 3:30 p, which I found ridiculous as they were only serving the usual crunchy stuff served at college meetings -- you'd have thought it was catered by a Cordon Bleu chef, the way they went on.

So I sat around for 30 minutes -- I couldn't stay forever, as I had to be back home in time for din-din. I chatted with a guy named B (who has been in my classes forever but I've never really chatted with him). It wasn't a total lost. I just have to get better at networking. (As it turned out, one of the professors was sitting alone. I guess he hasn't gotten better at it, either.)

Time to Kill

2006-04-26T12:08:00.000-07:00

Right now, I'm waiting for the meeting of the Actuarial Science club. Showed up at 2:45 p, meeting isn't until 3:30 p. Seeing as how the officers are going to be appointed, and noting the ridiculous lack of direction of the club over 2006, this oughta be good for a laugh. I don't put much confidence in the current leadership, to put it that way.

I'll point readers to two interesting posts on Actuary.net . First, the fact that Carnegie Mellon has just formed an actuarial science club. Dammit, we're falling behind in the arms race of actuarial science clubs! I'll bet they're already more organized than our AS club.

Second, this post. An actuarial internship might have been available as of April 25th, but it might not be made available much longer! Funny, during my interval there was an emphasis on the proprietary nature of information at companies hiring actuaries, and now, someone's private e-mail is floating across the intenet. (Let's hope that the person who sent that mail doesn't decide to Google her name.)

On the other hand, she might be impressed with the person's enthusiasm. :)

More later.

Chapters 9 and 10

2006-04-24T15:18:00.000-07:00

Not too much to report on the actuarial front. Right now, we're in the final week of classes. Classes end next Monday and my exams are May 3rd, 5th, and 8th respectively, with Exam P scheduled for May 18th.

As it turns out, I'll have another exam scheduled -- the Basic Cardiac Life Support Exam -- cardiopulmonary resuscitation. Yes, I need to get my CPR card so I can go back into part-time nursing. Do I want to do nursing over the summer? Hell no. But I saw a film about what a UPS package loader has to do, and that scared me off.

My mother (who's a nurses' aide) says that it's a lot easier on her to work one day a week than it is to work full time. (Mom has retired.) So maybe it will be easier for me, but I don't look forward to it. I'll take an on-line exam tomorrow and a skills check possibly Saturday. After that, all I'll need is some white scrubs and I'll be ready to go.

Today's class sessions:

Dr. N: he returned the last quiz, and I tanked it. 9 out of 15 points, atypical for me. Oh well, he drops a couple of quizzes a year. The last quiz of the semester is tomorrow.

Dr. S: a long discussion about filtering. I only have the most tenuous of grasps on the material, but I know I'm going to need it if I want to study catastrophe bonds. My friend M suggests that Dr. S looks at our blank faces, knows there's no hope of illuminating us, and then he goes on with the lecture.

Dr. Z: Paired sample tests. Large samples, and small samples. And we can use a "cheat sheet" with formulas for the non-cumulative final. Now what am I going to do with all those notecards?

By the way, the title "Chapters 9 and 10" refer to the fact that I've finally reached Chapter 9 (of 10 total) of the ACTEX study manual for Exam P. Joint transformations and order statistics. This should be fun.

On Wednesday: the Actuarial Science club holds its elections for officers -- and they won't be elected! See who gets assigned as the Actuarial Science President! (It won't be me, by the way...I didn't know how much time I could contribute....)

Cultural Loneliness or "Affirmative Action"

2006-04-21T12:20:00.000-07:00

On the school's web site I found a list of Ph. D. students in Risk Management. Of course, you could expect that I would interested in the names of my future colleagues, how many there were, etc.

There were about 12-18 names there. About 12-14 were clearly Chinese names. I suspect two were Korean names and two were either Indian or European names.
Which leads me to think that I might be the only Ph. D. student in Risk Management at my university who was born in the United States.

Being the only person who is from a given culture in a large group doesn't bother me that much -- I've done it before. I was an exchange student at a German university for one year. I hung around with, you guessed it, other exchange students. The dorm I stayed at was all exchange students, from Poland, Egypt, Spain, and elsewhere. We had to speak German because it was the only language all of us had in common.
Although, if the majority of my colleagues are going to be Chinese, I certainly wish I could speak some Chinese...I want to be as friendly as possible, and I know of at least one student who is coming from Beijing.

I'm definitely sure it must be lonely to be a non-native. I was lonely in Germany.

I told my wife about this, and she said, "you must have been the affirmative action hire". I rolled my eyes, and, given my incredible amount of self-doubt, prayed that that was not true.

Pizza and UPS

2006-04-21T12:12:00.000-07:00

The last few days I can't say I've been more busy than lazy, but I've managed to study every day. Perhaps not as many hours as I'd like to, but I've never gone a day without study.

We are now down to the last four days of classes over 6 weekdays. Dr. N's quizzes are becoming tougher and tougher with a quiz today that, frankly, I thought I was going to fail. I solved the last problem literally as he said "time is up" and it was just like Indiana Jones sliding underneath a falling door. As it turned out, the only mistake I made was that (4-partition-2,1,1) <> C(4, 2). Which means my answer was off by a factor of 2.

In Dr. S's class, we reviewed the test. We finally found out how to come up with two random variables whose correlation is 0, but are not independent. As the class was leaving, one guy talked to me in class. He said, "I don't know what I've got in this class -- I've tried to find out and he won't tell us!!" My belief is that he wants to make the grading as subjective as he can -- Dr. S will look at the quality of the work, and decide who gets an A, B, C, etc. The bad part about this system is that students who might be on the edge of getting a D (or might be getting a D) are given no warning that they need to bring their scores up.

There was a meeting for doctoral students today, but since it was about graduation for Ph. D. students, I didn't have to attend -- although I missed out on free pizza. Usually, I'll drive for miles if the words "free pizza" are mentioned. But I needed to get home to interview for a summer job with UPS. I suspect my wife would rather have me do an office job, since they pay is better and the labor is lighter. (And both my wife and my mom want me to do PRN Nursing once a week. My thoughts on that are "fat chance" -- I'll do it only if it's a financial necessity.)

Linky! Linky!

2006-04-21T09:00:00.000-07:00

Two more blog links added to the left.

First, the blog of the actuaries from Carlos III University of Madrid . I hope they enjoy this blog and I wish them the best of luck in their exams.

Second, the Insurance Life Blog , brought to you by the Western and Southern Financial Group. I got the link from the Carlos III blog.

Pretty Much Wiped Out

2006-04-19T12:52:00.000-07:00

We are moving into the last part of the semester.

I have five days of classes left, spread out over the next 11 days or so.

In Intro Probability, we're just doing review. The review is really tough -- we have some old exams given by Professor T that involve some counting problems where you have to use permutations and know that P(1)P(2) is the same as P(2)P(1)...those old "how many ways can you arrange the letters in "HEIGHT" so that the two Hs are two spaces away?" kind of problems. Either I've forgotten everything I've learned since January (which might be possible, P=0.02) or I've just not been challenged enough.

Dr. S has returned from his day off -- a grad assistant gave us the test on Monday. We had eight problems. Solving five of them was considered to be a good grade. We haven't got the test back yet, so since he has five days of class, he's talking about...well, I don't know what he's talking about. Something about econometrics, the value of a claim Y at time t (Y-sub t) where Y-sub-t = Y-bar plus X_sub-(t-1) plus nu*N(t), where N(t) is standard normal. It turned into a big, normal p.d.f. mess. He said he'd write it up, and if he plans on testing us on this, he'd better. (Will I have to know this crap in grad school? Good grief!!)

I've already started studying for Dr. Z's Intro Stats class. It's going to involve a lot of memorization, knowing how to find z-sub(alpha/2), t-sub(alpha/2) with df=(n-1), one sample and two sample tests, and so on.

Other than that, no news. If something happens, I'll let you know.

Test Complete

2006-04-17T17:00:00.000-07:00

We are now in the last two weeks of classes, and we had the Math Foundations of Actuarial Science test today.

There were ten questions. Getting five right was considered a good score. There were questions on:

1) integration of p.d.f's of f(x,y) type
2) finding means, variance, covariance, correlation
3) finding two RVs whose covariance is 0, but are not independent (I couldn't think of any)
4) finding the CDF of a function whose moment generating function is Mx(t) = e^t. (Hint: Find the mean and the variance.)
5) a Central Limit Type function.
6) the Rao-Blackwell Theorem

I think I got five right, or at least, I demonstrated "non-trivial understanding" in my answers to get partial credit enough to get to five right answers.

So this leaves two homeworks, some quizzes in Dr. N's class...and that's it for the rest of the two weeks. Then, final exam week and one of the three exams -- the one in Intro Statistics -- is NOT cumulative.

Then Exam P on May 18th. Then...naught until August.

Went to the library to pick up two books recommended by Dr. S. The first is "Linear Algebra Done Right" by Axler and the other is "Standard Optimization by Vector Space Methods" by Luenberger. I could find the first one, but not the second one -- it was listed as "checked in" but not present. I'll check later.

Also talked to Dr. G, the Ph. D. program coordinator. I asked him about taking on a job as a tutor during the semester, six hours a week from now until October. He stated that he normally doesn't recommend it but that I might be able to handle it -- I would have classes and graduate assistant work but "they don't know what you can do yet" so I probably wouldn't be given much work. Hey, if I have to take that choice versus nursing, I'd gladly eat up my first semester time.

To all of you working hard out there, keep working hard.

The Elephant

2006-04-16T13:02:00.000-07:00

From the book Against the Gods: The Remarkable Story of Risk, by Peter L. Bernstein.

"One winter night during one of the many German air raids on Moscow in World War II, a distinguished Soviet professor of statistics showed up in his local air-raid shelter. He had never appeared there before. "There are seven million people in Moscow", he used to say, "Why should I expect them to hit me?"

His friends were astonished to see him, and asked what had happened to change his mind.

"Look," he explained, "there are seven million people in Moscow, and one elephant. Last night, they got the elephant."

A Conundrum

2006-04-16T12:58:00.000-07:00

Suppose a generous millionaire offers to play a game with you, at no charge. She will allow you to flip a coin, over and over, until you finally flip heads. (It is a fair coin.)

If you get heads on the first flip of the coin, you will get $1, and the game is over.
If you get heads on the second flip of the coin, you will get $2, and the game is over.
If you get heads on the third flip of the coin, you will get $4, and the game is over.

In general, if it takes n trials to get a head, you will receive 2^n dollars.

Now, suppose that another person taps you on the shoulder. "I would like to play in place of you, and will offer you a sum of money to change places with me."

How much should be offered before you decide to let the other person play in your place?

What does an entry level actuary do?

2006-04-15T22:10:00.000-07:00

Now you know.

I studied for 3 hours today. I consider that "goofing off", and I did not meet my goal. Then again, I got my problem set paper back -- it turns out the person I studied with actually lives nearby.

And my "time log" project is still going strong. I'll share the results with you after a week.

How to Become an Actuary

2006-04-15T13:40:00.000-07:00

One of the search hits on this blog was a search for "How to Become an Actuary".

Here's the answer:

a) Have a degree in math, economics, statistics or actuarial science.
b) Pass at least one of the exams offered by the SOA.

If you can do both, then "Ka-boom!!" You're an actuary!! Or at least, you can now get your foot in the door for actuary jobs.

Go to The Society of Actuaries website. See when Exam P is being given. Sign up. Buy an ACTEX manual. Study your buns off.

This conveniently-named site might help, too.

Gotta Have Your Patron

2006-04-14T14:23:00.000-07:00

Not much to blog about. Still looking for part-time work over the summer. I got a call from Kaplan, but they want people who can commit for six months, because most of the people who need tutoring help need it for the SATs, which take place in October...and can I really afford to take 10 hours a week from studies next year for tutoring? So I'll talk to a prof and get back to them on Tuesday.

Had an interesting discussion with Dr. S. It seems that Dr. S. has become a patron. Either that, or as my wife says, research professors are so desperate for human contact that they'll talk to anyone. I asked him if I could ask questions over the summer, and he agreed. He recommended two really cool books (whcih I can get from the academic library) and hopefully, they'll prepare me for the class he's teaching next year.

I told him about my fears of not being able to get a 3.2 average and keep my assistantship. He said, "Listen! Everyone gets As in grad school. If you get a lot of "B"s, that's a sign that this isn't for you." He also said that I should not be trying to learn the whole of finance and mathematics, which is an impossible task -- I just need to get the "gist" of the course, and not sweat the math so much. Who knows, I might go into his speciality and if he's agreeable, dissertation help? Although I don't know much about his research specialty.

Did about 2 hours of tutoring -- and left one of the class problems sets with the tutoree. Forget it, I'm not going to call her back and try to get that. That's one of the problems with agreeing to meet someone for tutoring -- you have to keep an eye on your stuff.

My "To-Do" List

2006-04-13T19:25:00.000-07:00

Today's big things:

1. Talked with Ph. D. director at school of business -- the administrative person -- made sure she knew that I had accepted the offer. She says that only two other Risk Management/AS Ph. D. students will be coming. There are about 16 or 18 Ph. D. students currently.

2. Will add two links. First, "So Long, and Thanks for the Ph. D!" -- the skills you need to survive a Ph. D. program.
Second, a talk on time management by Randy Pausch. His notes are here , even reading the notes is helpful.

3. Wrote my goals list down. I hadn't done it before, but someone reminded me to do it...now I feel better.

4. Haven't studied today. So there's a big failure of a goal right there. Still time left in the day.

5. Will get a time log and start filling it out.

Impromptu Public Speaking

2006-04-12T08:56:00.000-07:00

Not much to tell. Dr. N has officially run out of material in Intro Probability -- the rest of the year will be spent reviewing old material. Better make sure I have my caffeine ready.

We had an impromptu five-minute quiz and Dr. N asked someone in the class to present a solution. I decided to, since if I'm going to be doing this for a living, I'd better start feeling comfortable doing it. I'm really not that uncomfortable -- I taught in a classroom setting for three years at a major university during an aborted attempt at a post-grad mathematics degree -- but the hard part is explaining things clearly.

Here's the question:

"Assume you draw 13 cards out of a standard deck, without replacement. Given that you have drawn at least two kings, what is the probability that you have drawn at least three kings?"

As for Dr. S's class, all kinds of weird stuff involving the "Rao-Blackwell Theorem", which is

E(X) = E[E(X|Y)]

Var(X) = E[Var(X|Y)] + Var(E(X|Y))

I'm writing this entirely from memory, so if the theory I wrote is wrong, it's wrong. He derived it in class but it was a very confusing explanation. We did a few problems from his problem set due Friday, so it was just watching him talk.

After class, a student asked me for some study help. I'll be meeting with her Friday. I had met with her a couple of times in the summer to help with Multivariate Calculus, but she stopped showing up. So I have some misgivings, but, it looks I'm just a soft touch. (Insert laughter here.)

Real Brief

2006-04-11T18:17:00.000-07:00

Watching "House" right now. Things I have done and need to do:

1. Applied for summer jobs. Including, among them, package handling, tutoring, and working for Lutherans.

2. Need to make a list of goals. Am I going to post that list here? No. Not meeting one's publicly stated goals is a bit embarrassing.

3. Still need to study today. I'll probably give it an hour today, after "House" goes off.

How I Decided to Become an Actuary

2006-04-10T17:20:00.000-07:00

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.)

I Feel Good with p=0.25

2006-04-09T15:00:00.000-07:00

Not much to report. I've spent the weekend studying -- about seven hours in total. There's a midterm in Math Foundations of Actuarial Science next Monday and I want to be ready for it. Usually, seven hours assures me an "A" in whatever exam I study in.

But this class isn't like other classes. Other classes have chapters, and an outline, and a definite progression of knowledge. This is Dr. S's class, and I have the sneaking suspicion that he talks about whatever he wants to talk about. There's a p=0.1 chance that none of the stuff he's mentioned in the last two months will show up on the midterm. I wouldn't put it past him. Oh well, at least it's a great preparation for exam p.

So I'm dealing with all kinds of transformations of random variables. Transforming f(x,y) into f(u,v), when u=h(X,Y), v=k(X,Y). Transforming f(x) into f(y) when y=h(X). And now...transforming f(x,y) into f(u) when U=h(X,Y).

Egad. It's as confusing as hell.

Other than that, no news. I'm still thinking of doing a dissertation (it's not too early to think about such things) in Catastrophe Risk -- it seems to be the big thing at my university, and it's very interesting. I almost watched another documentary on Hurricane Katrina, but I think I've seen too many of them.

Support

2006-04-07T08:31:00.000-07:00

Came back to class on Wednesday to take an Intro Probability test, and got the
results from my Intro Stats classed. To avoid bragging, we'll say I passed and leave it at that. :)

Intro Probability is clear of tests until finals week, which is around the second week of May. I'm sure there will be another Intro Stats test in the interim, but those have not been very challenging.

There are two things I'm keeping my mind on: first, Dr S's Mathematical Foundations of Actuarial Science class Midterm II on April 17th. This is my toughest and most mathematically challenging class, and goodness knows what will be on the test. To paraphrase Bluto from Animal House: "My advice to you...is to start studying, heavily."

Second is the Ph. D. program in Fall 2006. My wife visit the website, and she said "those (first semester) classes look awful". Here's what's in store for me:

Probability Theory
Theory of Risk Sharing
Computational Risk Methods
Microeconomics -- it's a serious review of microeconomic theory with little mathematics

I might need to borrow some books for the summer: Real Analysis, Linear Algebra and Microeconomics. My wife is wanting me to work in the summer, and it doesn't look like companies are interested in me working an internship. My wife, therefore, asked that I renew my nursing license, which I did. Frankly, I'd rather eat a live snake than work as a nurse again, even in the summer.

The vice-president of the floundering Actuarial Science club met with both of my classes -- since it was the same speech, I got to leave earlier. Basically, the club faces two problems.

The first problem was mentioned in the speech...the disappearance of several AS club officers. The president got a job somewhere and just...abandoned his post. He disappeared, no contact at all. Furthermore, the club's offices were open to anyone, even beginning AS students. When these AS students decided AS was too tough, and changed majors, they dropped out, leaving a directionless skeleton crew.

The second problem was not mentioned...but I know about it. It was the fact that the faculty was not supporting the AS club. To them, it was an afterthought. The new AS chairman, a famous actuary, didn't want anything to do with it -- he spends a lot of his time traveling, it seems. None of the other faculty members wanted to take control, either. So it left the students to fend for themselves. Something tells me that the actuarial science department might find itself swallowed up by the risk management department if it doesn't set priorities, even minor ones.

Holy Crap!

2006-04-05T09:11:00.000-07:00

For anyone whose comments I didn't answer...I apologize!!

I always wondered why this blog was not getting any comments! As it turns out, they were in the "moderate comments" subheader of Blogger, waiting for me to moderate them!

So, they're now published. My apologies again.

--James

"No."

2006-04-05T08:41:00.000-07:00

When I last posted, I mentioned that I was traveling south for a job interview on Monday. Here is the story.

I woke up at 5:30 am to get ready for the subway trip to the local airport. After leaving home at 6:30 and arriving at the local airport -- it's always a good idea to plan your airport arrival for at least two hours before your scheduled departure -- My plane finally departed at 9:30 and arrived locally at my interview site at 11:15 am.

I was picked up by my interviewer. There were only about 9 people (in total) working for this consulting company and I met six of them for lunch. I made sure to remember not to order anything messy (you don't want anything to get on your clothes) or expensive. As it turned out, we arrived at a French/Vietnamese place. (I am reminded of the Right Minded Actuary who warns that you might face some challenges in cuisine. :)

However, oddly enough, the day before the flight I had my first visit to a Vietnamese restaurant. So the food wasn't foreign to me. I tried to be polite, but not too polite, made sure not to gobble my food, and ALWAYS thanked the waitress for whatever she did for me, even if it was just a simple refill.

After that, I went to visit the office. The interviewer warned that it wouldn't be marble floors and glass crystal windows. And indeed, it was not. It was a dump, to be frankly. However, this office did actuarial evaluations for pension plans from all across the state. I suppose the lesson should be "take no account of the surroundings".

First, I talked to the founder. He explained the work the company did in detail -- generally, he stated (and every other interviewer emphasized) that the very first work any consulting pension actuary does in in benefits calculation -- you have to know how to calculate benefits. You have to know how to do it without mistakes, as the firm can be held liable for a mistake you made. Generally, a beginner signs that (s)he did the calculation, and the result is reviewed by a senior actuary.

"But I don't know what they expect me to calculate!" you might say. No problem. You'll be brought along in increments, but you won't be given other responsibilities until you know how to do the benefit calculations, so it is both in your best interest and the company's to know how to do this.

Unfortunately...the company will not show you any benefits calculations being made during the interview. Benefits calculation is proprietary -- it's a trade secret.

After talking with the founder, I talked with the two other senior actuaries. I call this the "Come to Jesus" part of the interview, or the sermon. The actuaries emphasized not only the need for calculations to be error-free, but also the odd hours consulting actuaries work. You have to be ready (during some parts of the year) to work on Saturday, and if the work load is bad enough, even on Sunday.

The three major questions I was asked were:

"Tell me about yourself." (Remember...sell yourself, and don't give them your life story. Every part of your story you tell should sell your talent.)
"How have your past experiences prepared you for this job?" (In particular, did you have deadlines? Or major responsibilities)
"Have you ever given presentations, or directed a group?" (As a consulting actuary, you might have to present your results to a group of non-actuaries. How comfortable do you feel about speaking?)

The hours were stressed in particular. You might have to travel to give a presentation at some late hour, say, 8:30 pm, and not get back until 11pm. Furthermore, both actuaries emphasized the difficulty in studying for exams while working full time. (I got the impression that every actuary had failed at least one exam; this is almost a given in the field.)

Finally, I reviewed the day with the phone interview. We then talked benefits and numbers. (Note: NEVER ask about benefits during the phone interview -- you can find that out at the face-to-face interview.) He asked what kind of salary I considered reasonable. (Be sure you have a number. The best place to go is http://www.salary.com, where you can look up actuarial salaries by job title and geographic location. I put myself at the 40th percentile of salary for an Actuary I position, since I would be relocating. (If you really want the job, you could ask for the 25th percentile.)

And that was it. I was driven back to the airport, and they flew me back.

I will state that my interview was a bit different. First...I needed an offer right away. I've been accepted into my college's Ph. D. program in Risk Management. Obviously, the department needed to know my answer ASAP, as it was a competitive program. So if I got a good offer, I would choose the consulting actuary position; if not, I would accept the Ph. D. offer which comes with a $15,000/yr stipend.

I got the call back yesterday. Yes, they liked me, but they decided that since I was the first person they interviewed, they really weren't sure enough to give me an offer at present. To say it was a let down was an understatement. They were serious enough to fly me down and spend $600 + a lunch, but I must not have blown them away enough to forego them looking at other candidates. Oh well, as another actuarial blogger said, "it is THEIR LOSS". But I couldn't help but feel depressed over it.

So...I e-mailed my professor and accepted the Ph. D. stipend. I am now an official Ph. D. candidate in Mathematical Risk Management/Actuarial Science at my local university. I hope that my work is up to Ph. D. standards.

I just have to remind myself -- if I don't like this, I can depart after a year. After all, it's not forever, and after four years of sweat, it (theoretically) comes with a Ph. D. My only question is...should I change the title of the blog?

Checklist

2006-04-02T18:01:00.000-07:00

Okay, getting ready to fly out tomorrow for my interview. Here's what I've done:

* got hair cut
* shined shoes
* printed off five copies of my resume
* suit, tie, cufflinks all laid out
* remembering my eating etiquette: no burgers, no pasta
* messenger bag
* "tell me about yourself" answer already written out
* info about the company to review on plane trip
* Actuarial Valuation 101 , so I can be on top of what they do
* "What's It Like To Work as a Consulting Actuary?" , so I can handle "why" questions
* prayer cloth in wallet
* pray that they don't ask about my expertise in Excel

And now...I'm ready....

First On-Site Interview

2006-03-31T12:16:00.000-08:00

Today, I decided to solve the P-h-D vs. j-o-b quandary by taking matters into my own hands.

As you know, I had a telephone interview with a company in a southern state on Tuesday. I contacted that company by telephone and let them know that "someone I spoke with has made an offer". (I did not let them know that this was a university, not a company.) I asked them if they were willing to make an offer, and if so, how much.

They said that they would be unable to make an offer now. They wanted me to come down and see the company in person. This could be done either over two days (Monday-Tuesday) or one day (Monday). After I visited on Monday, they'd made an offer, if they were so inclined, on Tuesday.

So I said, "yes". The company offers health benefits, profit sharing, and something like a 401K where I can prepare for retirement.

Thus, on Monday, I'll fly down to see the company up close, and then fly back on the same day. If the offer is good enough in terms of salary -- then I'll become a working actuary. If it isn't, then I'll take the university path.

Hey, it's a solution, at least.

Decisions, Decisions

2006-03-29T21:04:00.000-08:00

Okay, huge supercalifragilistic news.

Remember my application to the Ph. D. program in Risk Management at my university.

I was accepted. It comes with a $15,000/yr stipend and waiver of tuition. Hopefully, I can grind out a Ph. D. in four years.

So I have three options:

1. Accept the offer.
2. Lean on the my interviewers and say that I need an answer now.
3. Reject both and hope for the best.

Talk about tough. I don't know what it says about fate, or human decision, but everything in the world involves risk. I might have to change the title of this blog.

Wrote my life a letter while she's in Pittsburgh. I'll let you know what the decision is.

Helpful Links

2006-03-29T13:42:00.000-08:00

I added a list of International Actuary Links to the list on the right. For those who don't want to move the mouse, the list is here . Have fun!

E(f(X))

2006-03-29T12:59:00.000-08:00

Whenever I get home, I look for the blinking light on the answering machine. That means messages, perhaps from employers! Unfortunately, today's message was a hang-up, so back to applying for jobs again.

In Dr. N's class, we did negative binomial problems. At the beginning of class, Dr. N asked me, "so have you been to another university?" Yep, I have a degree in math from 1987. Looks like he found the ringer in his classroom.

Dr. Z didn't return the Intro Stats test, but he covered some new material -- thank goodness, I was tired of listening to him go over elementary probability for the last month. The infamous "Student T" distribution was introduced. Why you would choose this distribution for samples where n < 30 isn't made clear, but at least it's new interesting material.

Dr. S talked about Moment Generating Functions. Yes, every actuary knows what they are, but as it turns out E(X^3), E(X^4) and all those other higher moments have a use. As it turns out, from Taylor's Theorem, any function has a polynomial expansion (plus remainer) for a certain interval about x, so you could estimate E(f(X)) by finding E(a-sub-n * X^N + a-sub-(n-1) * X^(N-1) + a-sub-1 * X + a-sub 0 + R(X)), and pray that R(X) doesn't blow up.

Other than that, time to rest, do some problems, prepare for the Intro Probability test next Wednesday.

I also notice that the blog gets a lot of hits regarding Exam P. If I knew what information people were looking for, I'd point them to it.

Another Interview Down

2006-03-28T13:48:00.000-08:00

Okay, that's another interview down.

All and all, I think it went very well. The interview was with a consulting actuary firm in a southern state that does actuarial valuations for about 160 clients or so. It's a small office of about 9 actuaries or so.

My interviewer did most of the talking. My wife said that's a good sign. I don't know why it's a good sign; probably, it means that he's not "tuned out" and just passing time letting you talk so that the interviewer can be over.

We talked about the work of consulting actuaries. Since the office is small, the job will call on a lot of responsibility -- I'll probably go to work immediately doing benefit calculations.

He asked, "what do you see the next step as being in the interview process?" I said that it would be meeting with them or considering an offer. So possibly, I (and my wife) might be asked to fly to the location to meet the actuaries who work there, undoubtedly to have dinner with them as well.

I'll know by Tuesday of next week. I wrote a "thank-you" note to the interviewer, and sent it on.

As for the interview I had last week? Still haven't heard from them. If I don't hear from them by Friday, I'll assume I'll hear nothing at all. In the meantime, I'll continue to apply for jobs and study.

For those few readers considering an interview, this article might be of interest. The article is here and discusses the most important question you'll ever be asked in an interview:

"Tell me about yourself....

I've been asked that question in almost every interview I've had with someone. I never realized how many candidates wipe out their chances with the way they answer. It was a good read; my interviewer today didn't ask it but both of the interviewers of my other two actuarial interviews asked it as Question #1.

Another Nibble

2006-03-27T13:43:00.000-08:00

A small consulting firm located in a Southern state just gave me a call. As it turns out, they found my resume through the university website.

So they'll call tomorrow, and I'll do a phone interview. I guess that prayer cloth has started to work.

P. S. No problem on the stat test. I tied for the first one finished.

Meet Mike the Actuary

2006-03-27T09:14:00.000-08:00

I added a link to Mike The Actuary's Musings . It's more a politics and industry blog, but I enjoy reading it and hope you will too.

A joke: "How many libertarians does it take to change a light bulb?"

Answer: "None. The free market will take care of it."

Big Monday

2006-03-27T09:04:00.000-08:00

I've returned after a weekend home. Went to Kentucky to see my mom. We attended my aunt's 60th wedding anniversary.

This left me with a lot of things due on Monday. Here's how I handled them.

1) An elementary probability quiz in Dr. N's class. It was easy, but I blew the last problem by failing to realize that 5X + 2(3-X) = 3X + 6. I had a 2-X term for the 3-X term. And of course, when you're calculating E(Y) = E(3X + 6) = 3E(X) + 6, that bad algebra makes all the difference.

2) A ton of homework due in Dr. S's class. His lecture today was regarding the transformation of (X,Y) (ordered pair of random variables, X, Y) into (R, theta), i.e., polar coordinate form. This involved Riemann sums, determinants, and a discussion that wandered all over the place. What anyone got out of that lecture is
beyond me.

As for the difficulty of the homework, some people in the class got only 2 or 3 problems out of about 20. I got about 10 or 12. Everyone moaned about the difficulty. I had my work 90% done before my trip; I'm tired of looking at those problems now. Maybe he'll discuss them in class; most likely, he won't.

3) Exam today in Elementary Statistics. A rehash of elementary probability, plus the Central Limit Theorem added on. There's no point in studying at the problems are so easy. Usually, I study obsessively even on minor tests, but I had to go see Mom and it didn't seem worthwhile. He gave a practice test in class which I aced. We'll see how I do in the real thing.

Still applying for jobs. It looks like the summer internships are filled up -- I got two e-mails saying "sorry, full up for summer". I'll keep putting my resume out for full-time work. I drastically cut down the size of my resume -- why put all of my nursing jobs down if I'm not applying for a nursing position? That cut my resume from 2 pages to 1 page.

Mom gave me an invaluable tool -- a prayer cloth. In the Pentecostal religion, church members annoint a square of cloth with oil and pray over it. I'm not a Pentecostal, but I'll take the prayer cloth if it will help me.

The Actuarial Interview

2006-03-22T12:47:00.000-08:00

My wife found the newest link at the right hand side of the page. The link title is self-explanatory: "The Actuarial Interview: What to Expect" . I'm adding it so I don't forget where it is.

I hope I might have need of it.

A Passion for "EXCEL"-lence

2006-03-21T11:19:00.000-08:00

I just finished my phone interview for the internship. Boy, what a megillah. It was one hour long, and you can't imagine how exhausting these interviews are.

They really put you on the spot in a lot of things. A lot of questions about your past, about projects you were on (whether in class or in the working world) and your role in those projects. I had a lot of questions about a Macroeconomics project that I frankly barely remembered, and my only hope was that I remembered it accurately and didn't come off looking like an idiot for being unneccessarily vague.

At the end, the interviewer asked questions about my computer knowledge. She stated various computer programs, and asked me to rate my expertise from "1" to "10" on them.

As for Excel, I could only rate it a "4" -- and that's being generous. I play around with spreadsheets for games, but I've never had a class in Excel. The interviewer stated that that would be the biggest concern. The internship would involve loading massive amounts of data into an Excel spreadsheet, and this would obviously require an easy familiarity with Excel. So that didn't leave me feeling good.

However, the interviewer will (supposedly) get back with me by either the end of the week or by next week. If the interview moves up to the next step, then I'd have another interview, this time with a working actuary. The interview would be more technically grounded. Goodness knows what it would entail.

So my plans are:
1. By an Excel computer manual from Barnes and Noble or somewhere. Learn Excel thoroughly, so that when that question is asked again, I answer with a "10".

2. Continue looking for work.

I haven't even been able to think or do much, I've been dwelling so much on this interview. It's over. It's time to move on, look for other jobs...although after my second phone interview, if this one doesn't lead anywhere either, I'll have to put the feeling of discouragement behind me and soldier on.

As for buying that Excel manual, I just got off the phone with my wife. She suggests that I try the tutorial that supposedly comes with the program. So I'll try that before I purchase an expensive manual.

And now, it's back to doing one of the hardest jobs of an actuary -- keeping hope alive.

Joint Distribution of U=aX+b, V=cY+d

2006-03-19T15:22:00.000-08:00

So my wife and I have talked quite a bit about my "interview" on Tuesday. It's just an interview for an internship, but internships are very important.

If I were chosen, I'd have a tough decision to make -- first, if I am also accepted for the Ph. D. program, do I abandon that? Face it, as a Ph. D. student, I'd be working for four years at a pittance with no guarantee of a Ph. D. Second, if I take the internship, and are offered a job, then if I have to work in California, do we move there?

A few things have already been decided. If I am offered the internship, I'll go to an Extended Stay Hotel to live. It's basically a room with a bed, a TV, a shower and a sink. I'll live there for 10-12 weeks. We figure that I'll break even, but the advantage is that I'll make connections in the industry. I'll probably use my wife's car while I'm there.

Right now, I have a quiz in Intro Statistics do tomorrow -- the quiz is about the binomial and normal distributions, which we've discussed ad nauseam in all of my probability classes. I'm not too worried about the quiz, although you never know.

On Monday, we have not only an exam in Intro Stats, but we also have a problem set to turn in to Math Foundations (run by Dr. S). Those are some of the hardest programs I've ever seen. I doubt that any of them would show up on Exam P. For example, there are a lot of problems of the type U=X+Y and V=X/Y where X and Y are random variables and you are to find g(U, V). The ACTEX manual explains the solution nicely -- it depends on a Jacobian, the difference of individual products of partial differentials -- but we've never been taught the method in any classes and certainly, not in this one.

Dr. S says "I don't expect you to get all of these problems." Once again, he leaves his expectations unnamed. I wonder if he's a fan of Robert Pirsig, who wrote "Zen and the Art of Motorcycle Maintainence" who did not believe in grading, because he wanted his students to become knowledge-motivated and not grade-motivated.

In actuarial science, this might be impossible. Everyone in that room is grade-obsessed, even me. I'd like to be knowledge-obsessed, but it can be hard. Haven't done as much as I'd like to this weekend. We'll see how tomorrow goes.

An Offer of an Internship

2006-03-15T14:16:00.000-08:00

After applying for every job under the sun, I was contacted by phone and offered an interview for an internship for an insurance company in California.

Ain't that the way life goes? Very funny, actually...here I am, I jump through hoops to apply for the Ph. D. program and BOOM!, I get a nibble.

My wife is familiar with California and she knew the location of the town. There is a potential for full time employment out here...and the internship is 10-12 weeks long...just long enough to fill up the summer.

I could just put off applying for the Ph. D. until 2007, and take the internship. The prospect of a job offer comes after the internship.

All I have to say is...wow. Then again, this is only an interview. It is not a tendered offer. So we'll see where we go from here. But still, after beating my head against a wall, it's good to see a crack in the wall after all the cracks in my head.

"But I Have to Eat Lunch!"

2006-03-14T04:44:00.000-08:00

Spring break is over, and my wife and I are back home.

Right now, I'm "diversifying my portfolio", so to speak. I continue to apply for actuary positions while working on getting my application for the Ph. D. in Risk Management together. I have two of the three necessary transcripts and today at 10 am I'll be taking the GRE. I've taken the GRE before, but that was a looooong time ago, and the committee (which I suspect consists entirely of Dr. G) requires that one's GRE scores be no more than five years old.

My task for yesterday was a conversation with Dr. S, and the discussion was "why do you want a degree in risk management?" You can't say that the reason is "to hedge my bets", but I've always wanted to be an academic. And we had a looooooong discussion, about his work, and the work of economists, and the work of others in the department. It was more like a long extended chat from a person not known as being particularly chatty.

He wanted to know if I had any ideas regarding what kinds of questions I was interested in: actually, I had three:

1. My wife's "sales quota" problem, which I stated as a completely different problem. Given that sales representatives are assigned to clients (which they cannot easily switch, since building a relationship with a client is important), how does one tell whether a salesperson is exceptional vs. one that just has "good leads"?

2. The "hedge fund" for baseball players: can one diversify risk to the market when those risk involve individuals. Say, could one set up a Johnny Damon hedge fund, taking insurance on Damon against the adverse event that Damon's statistics go south?

3. The "rank and yank problem" -- does Jack Welsh's "Rank and Yank" philosophy really work?

Dr. S stated that those were more management problems, and less risk management problems. He gave a good example on research that no one, apparently, has done: decision making for transplants. You're on a waiting list for a new heart, you get the call at 3 am in the morning -- be at the hospital in one hour for a new heart. The operation has a 30 percent chance of killing you. What kinds of decisions do people make, and what does this say about similar market decisions? (Dr. S added that a company's decision maker -- faced with a similar looking "30 percent chance of going bankrupt" decision -- doesn't face the same risks. He might get fired, but he won't lose his life.)

I was very surprised that no one had done work on any of this yet. It was a fascinating type of problem. Can one generalize a solution?

Anyway, we talked for an hour and forty-five minutes. I finally had to beg off for lunch, as I had a class and had not eaten yet. Dr. S will talk to Dr. G, so it all looks promising. But my wife had me applying for new actuary positions the same day.

So how do I spend my days off? Taking four-hour exams. Now you know why I'm so crazy.

Pittsburgh Pee Ay

2006-03-09T07:49:00.000-08:00

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.

Of the Hundreds and Hundreds of Problems....

2006-03-04T14:31:00.000-08:00

...not much to report. Still applying for jobs. And now...it's Spring Break! Woo-hoo!!

Well...if you're an actuary reading this, you know there's no such thing as "woo-hoo" when you have exams to pass. All this Spring Break time means is more time to study for Exam P.

And don't let it be said that I don't have a lot of problems to run through. About 120 problems Dr. S gave us, a whole lot of problems from Prob II that Professor T gave us, the May 2003 exam, the ACTEX manual -- all of which should keep me busy in Pittsburgh for the next week while my wife's working.

My wife goes to Pittsburgh for about 2 or 3 days a week on business, so this week, I'll go up with her. We'll hang out with her cousin and her cousin's husband, N and D. And of course, see the sites of Pittsburgh (I've already been to the Andy Warhol Museum, but I would love to see a game at PNC Park.)

And of course, moving to Pittsburgh as an actuary isn't out of the question, either. That is, if I get an actuary job. Job. JOB! Did I mention JOB?

Connecticut, Pennsylvania and New Jersey

2006-03-01T14:59:00.000-08:00

Back home. Took two quizzes today, one in Dr. N's class and one with Dr. S, and I think I punched through both of them. A feel good feeling. I hope I can punch through the ACTEX manual tonight as well, because I'm exhausted. Just worked out for 30 minutes, showered, ready for dinner.

Applied to some new jobs. From ACS in Stamford, CT; Philadelphia, PA and Secaucus, NJ. In my opinion, that counts as three jobs, and one job from NY. Four jobs total!

Here are some places I didn't apply:

* Jacksonville, FL -- wife can't stand Jacksonville, FL
* Keene, NH -- does my wife want to move that far north?
* Cleveland, OH -- does my wife want to move to Cleveland? Too cold?
* Minneapolis, MN -- 1) only an internship, and 2) snow and more snow

Busy going to Actuary.net and reading articles of interest. Found this article very interesting. It's about the calculation of the force of mortality, mu-sub-x, which is (mu-sub-x) = B*(c^x). Supposedly, this works for people ages 30 to 55, although the article never bothered to mention what B and c are.

Aside from that, you have to go to the Lee-Carter method for a more complex estimate of mortality, and there they lost me because I don't know stochastic processes. Anyone want to hire an actuary that doesn't know stochastic processes? I can learn!

And I did learn hedging today. Hedging kicks ass.

11 of 14

2006-02-28T18:47:00.000-08:00

Not much done today. Attempted the "Hot Yoga" again that killed my wife and I on Sunday. I did better, but I seemed to have gained weight. This entire weight issue perplexes me.

Have been working Exam P problems for at least a couple of hours today. Today, I gave myself a "mini-Exam P" -- 14 problems in one hour. (Exam P is 40 problems in 3 hours). My final score was 11 of 14, or about 78 percent, which (hopefully) would be a pass. I'll look over what I did wrong in the near future.

As it turns out, the most recent Exam P available from SOA is from 2003. I wonder why they keep those old Exam P copies hidden -- no copies of Exam P for at least 2 years.
Maybe Exam P is just so powerful, so deadly, that if multiple copies of Exam P were available, its awesome power could rule the world! Or maybe, they're just in cahoots to sell more ACTEX manuals....

Reinsurance and Modeling

2006-02-27T09:02:00.000-08:00

Right now, I'm currently typing between classes. Finished with Dr. N's Probability I class and Dr. S's class.

As for Dr. N., I get the suspicion that a lot of people are floundering in that class. Unless he talked about variance a lot on Monday (the day I wasn't in class), a lot of people are going to be completely lost if he gives a variance question.

However, he did give an interesting lecture on how a lot of elementary probability problems can be solved by multiple methods: it almost implies that there's a way to do each problem by either a) combinations, b) permutations, or c) the multiplication principle. One of the few lectures where I felt I learned something new.

Dr. S's class was interesting. First, a quiz on how to transform random numbers (or "random variables of U(0,1) distribution") into random variables of other types, say, X=Binomial(3,0.5) or Z=N(0,1). I felt like I nailed the quiz.

Second: the beginnings of hedging and mathematical modeling. FINALLY!! I've been waiting for this part of the course like a starving man waits for a steak dinner.

But third was very interesting: Dr. S. and I chatted for about ten minutes or so. I had a question about bird flu, believe it or not. It seems that SOA is going to call for research regarding a bird flu pandemic. Dr. S. talked in class about how for catastrophic events -- say, terrorist attack, lightning strike, and other "acts of God" -- insurers build clauses in insurance contracts, stating basically "this is not covered".

I asked him about how insurance companies typically handle things like bird flu.
His answer: they don't, for the most part. Premiums go up to cover the costs of the catastrophe in the following year and take decades to come back down to something approaching expected loss. We then discussed things like reinsurance, where insurance companies purchase insurance (!!) to move the risk of such catastrophes off onto someone else. We also talked about the mortgage and bond markets, and I listened with particular interest to Dr. S.'s comments about mortgage insurance ("there should be no way they make money, but they do...the numbers don't add up") and bond markets.

There was also a bit of a discussion about the role of the free market versus the role of the state insurance commissioner. For example, they say that in New Jersey you can't get auto theft insurance -- insurance fraud is so prevalent that a true premium for auto theft would be sky high. But in cases like that, state insurance commissions sign a law saying "no insurance premium can be above x dollars", obstensibly in order to keep the little guy from getting screwed.

What happens then is that an insurer sets up a LLC -- a limited liability corporation. If Joe's Insurance is forbidden to charge above x for auto theft, then Joe's Insurance sets up a "Joe's Insurance of New Jersey" as a LLC. Now, JINJ can only charge x dollars, and by the theory of pricing by expected loss, the probability of JINJ going bankrupt approaches 1.0. When that happens, the federal government steps in and covers the cash. So we all end up paying for the auto theft in NJ sooner or later, and Joe's Insurance isn't stuck with a ton of liability.

Very interesting stuff. This "reinsurance" business intrigues me. I also got to hear Dr. S. do his Arnold Schwarzenegger impersonation, which was definitely worth the trouble of coming to class today.

BTW, our good friend Ben didn't show up for class today. We'll see if he shows up for Intro Stats.

Haven't Done Richard

2006-02-25T19:32:00.000-08:00

Yep, haven't even touched any of the probability problems. With Exam P coming up in 2 months, I'm going to be heading for disaster if I don't get down to it.

Registration deadline for Exam P is March 15th, if you didn't know that. It's going to be a computer given class.

Other than that...no news. We renewed our lease, so I guess we'll be looking for actuary jobs in Atlanta.

If you need an actuary, please call me now. All phone lines are open.

Testing Something, But I Don't Know What

2006-02-23T16:45:00.000-08:00

Have returned from New York. The trip was good, definitely good. Didn't do much studying at all. Got back, studied about four hours total for an Intro Statistics test which was almost exactly like the review test the professor gave. Got a 98 as a score. Would have aced it, but I assumed the last problem was a "with replacement" and not a "without replacement" problem, which is a very important distinction in probability.

So, went back to class. Took a new quiz in the Intro Probability class taught by Mr. N. He's still quizzing over the same two chapters that he poorly taught before, and that quiz that he gave was a constipator. I can give you an example:

Suppose you purchase light bulbs from a factory. Your consignment of 50 light bulbus contains 2 defective light bulbs. Exactly how many light bulbs would you have to test before the probability of finding a defective light bulb exceeded 1/2?

This isn't a hard problem, really...but most of the class had probably never been given a problem like that one before. So I'm sure they were scratching their heads.

Ben, the guy who sits behind me, got a 3/15 on his last quiz. And I got a 14/15! I feel bad for Ben, who is certainly trying his best. Whereas there's a guy who just shows up on quiz days, who is doing just as badly, and I don't feel sorry for him.

Got the results back from Dr. S's test...which were weird. This was that weird test that was graded

total score = (number right) - 0.1*SQR(number wrong)

One person got seven right out of ten, and five got six right out of ten. I was one of the few who got six right. However, there was only one person who got a total score between six and seven, and only two getting between five and six. I got 6 right and one wrong, for a grand total score of 5.9.

As for grading: he doesn't know what he's going to do. His estimation was that anyone who got five problems right has a good chance at getting through Exam P. Myself, the score was a bit of a letdown because I'm such a competitive grade-grubber that I want to be the best student in the class, at all times. This is good, because it will teach me some humility.

We did learn some interesting information: how to stimulate a distruction with the RANDOM number generator that comes with Excel or some other programming language. It's just a question of using the inverse function of the CDF you want to simulate. This is the kind of information I'm looking for; something that will help me with math modeling.

Right now, I'm finding out that passing exams and getting good grades is not all that employers want to see. They want to make sure you know the computing languages: Microsoft Excel and Database, SAS, maybe some Virtual Basic. How I'm going to learn all of this stuff is beyond me. Of course, I could just lie to my employers and say I know it.

One of the persons in my stats class wondered what the ratio of males to females was in the actuary field. A UK Survey had the percentage of female actuaries to be about 24 percent of the total field, which I would say is fairly accurate...one out of every four actuaries is female, and that ratio is moving slowly towards 50-50.

Adversarial Relationship

2006-02-22T04:09:00.000-08:00

Got back home from New York. The trip was wonderful, but I was looking forward to checking phone messages and mail -- when you're on a trip with two other people, you're limited to what they want to do.

So no e-mails from companies beating my doors down, but I got a call back from the actuarial recruiter.

Who is this actuarial recruiter, you might ask? Well, a couple of months ago, I sent an e-mail to a major actuarial recruiter. I'm not going to give you their names, but if you visit one of the major actuarial message boards, you can figure it out.

The first time, I was sent an e-mail where I was told, "Look, we're only looking for people who can work full time. And the fact that you're in school indicates the opposite. Call us in May."

So my wife suggested, "e-mail them again." Which I did, and I finally got the call back.

I got asked a few questions, sort of in an accusatory tone. Namely, "why did you stop being a nurse and start being an actuary?" ("Because I had only first heard of actuarial science a year ago.") "What's this about going to school full time?" ("Because it's a lot easier to pass exams if you have some math background, not to mention that @#$@#$ VEE requirement.")

It took about ten minutes to convince her my intentions were honest. Then the questions went to "where do you want to work?"

My answers: 1) Atlanta, 2) Pittsburgh (my wife visits Pittsburgh every week due to her job), 3) New York (outside). And the recruiter wanted me to expand that. So we went through a list of cities and finally expanded it to "everywhere in the Southeast US that has an airline hub. Oh, and Pittsburgh. And New York."

I'm pessimistic now about getting a callback. But hey, as a beginning actuary, pessimism is the default mode.

On to New York

2006-02-17T12:56:00.000-08:00

Went to Friday classes. Friday is my shortest class day; I only have two classes on Friday as opposed to three on Monday and Wednesday.

In Dr. N's class, he was busy introducing the probability mass function and cumulative distribution function. This is old hat for me; my other classes reinforce these concepts. However, I could see the rest of the class scratching their heads.

Indeed, I feel sorry for any young junior or sophomore introduced to the concepts of probability for the first time -- Dr. N's English skills just aren't good enough to get him through the class. Oh, he can speak English. And he can understand it. He just can't figure out the best, most clear English explanations for hard to understand topics. Most of his lecture was very theoretical (including a proof of E(aX + b) = aE(X) + b).

As it turns out, the median score of his quiz on Wednesday was a 7 out of 15 points. I got a 12 out of it, two points loss for carelessness and one point lost for not understanding a crucial concept. (It should have been the other way around). The "crucial" concept was that in a case where you have three different colored balls, having "all balls of different colors" is NOT the compliment of "all balls of the same color". I just feel sorry for all of those sophomores and juniors -- Multivariable Calculus ain't gonna help them now.

As for Dr. S's class -- well, he hasn't graded the tests. What the point of that class was, I don't know. We talked about test taking strategies, and I only learned one thing I didn't know already -- it would be a good idea in Exam P to RANK questions you skip for difficulty, so that when you return after answering all the easy ones, you don't assume that all (temporarily) unanswered questions are created equal.

And...get this...Dr. S. admitted that he hadn't taken Exam FM. I think there were a few people who might have gasped. You would think that someone teaching an actuarial science course -- even someone whose college major was not actuarial science -- would have at least taken the first three exams. As far as the students were concerned, if you hadn't taken the actuarial exams as an instructor, you literally did not know what you were talking about in class.

I'm not going to worry about this class much anymore, and instead focus on solving example questions from the Exam P manual by ACTEX.

There was a study group meeting today at 1pm, but I will no longer attend. Not only were the bastards not there when I showed up last Friday, but I don't think there's much to be gained about discussing problems when I can do most of them on my own. So that should free up some time for me; now all I need is the sticktoitiveness to use that time wisely.

BTW, there will probably not be any entries until Tuesday or Wednesday. Off to New York to attend plays, museums, and "Letterman" on Monday in the audience. My wife and I were rather disappointed, however, to find that Monday's Letterman guests would be Marcia Cross of Desperate Housewives, which neither of us have watched, and "NASCAR winner" (the Daytona 500 is being held this weekend -- I think). Our only hope for entertainment from Dave's guests is if the winner of the Daytona is Jeff Gordon or Dale Earnhardt Jr. or some suitably colorful personality. With our luck, "NASCAR winner" will be some first-time winner with the charisma of a flat tire.

Snow Crash

2006-02-16T10:02:00.000-08:00

I woke up at 12:30 PM today.

Now how did this happen? I'll explain a bit about yesterday. First, I woke up, got dressed, surfed the web a bit and then straight to school. For breakfast, I had the impossible combination of a Dunkin' Donuts sausage croissant, and Mountain Dew. This sort of "non-food" breakfast would keep me going through the test.

Took the exam. To say that the format of the exam was weird is almost a misnomer. Dr. S. tried to make this exam as much like exam P as possible. For example, you have an average of 4 1/2 minutes to complete each exam P question -- therefore the test had 10 questions in 45 minutes.

But he just---couldn't stop---tinkering with things. First, he decided he would penalize people for guessing on answers, which they don't do on Exam P. Your final score was:

(number of questions right) - 0.1*(number of questions wrong)^2

That ^2 means "squared". So if you got say, three questions wrong, that took almost a full point away from the questions you got right.

Then his instructions stated that all students must answer Questions 1 through 4, opening one's self wide open to that wrong question penalty. Which is not what they do on Exam P, not at all. During Exam P, you not only have the liberty to answer (or not answer) whatever of the 30 or so questions you get in 3 hours time, you have the liberty to guess answers as well.

Finally, you don't have to show your work on Exam P. On this exam...you did. Why, I have no idea, since in his system, a page with work shown and missed by a digit scores exactly the same as a blank page where one just guessed the wrong answer -- a penalty against the number of answers right.

So I did six out of the ten questions. One was a question on those first four that I couldn't get and just had to guess. I feel like I got two others. My time management wasn't that great -- Question 10 I might have had a stab at but I never got to it, obsessing over Question #2 which I was forced to answer. But the other five, I feel very good about. I also could have just guessed at another question, since two wrong squared times 0.1 would just be 0.4 taken off.

From gossip, one person answered seven questions and another answered eight. I don't know if they got those questions right, however -- if they did, I can rest assured that I'm not top student in the class.

I suspect that Dr. S's finally test distribution will be nothing approaching a normal distribution. It will probably be more like a uniform distribution.

For those non-actuaries reading, a "normal" distribution is the classic bell curve. There would be a lot of scores clustered around a certain number, and a few outliers on the high side and the low side. I don't know if a normal distribution of answers implies that the test is an appropriate tool, but the classic "A-B-C" distribution is basically a normal curve skewed to the right, with mostly A, B, and C grades an a few D and Fs on the left end.

A "uniform" distribution is essentially a distribution where any outcome is exactly as likely as another. The scores are all over the place, a "dartboard" distribution. If you divided the distribution into five equal pieces, you'd find the same amount of scores in each piece.

With those "crappy" test distributions, a bad teacher can just choose some arbitrary point, and claim that the people scoring above that point passed and those who didn't reach it failed.

So after that, more soda and Stats class.

Then home. We ate out. Lots more soda. Then some more soda before bed.

Then insomnia until 3:30.

The a carbohydrate/sugar/caffeine induced crash, which is why I'm writing to you at 1:15 PM having been up for only about an hour. I gotta stop doing this to myself.

Wednesday Test

2006-02-14T07:24:00.000-08:00

Received my Intro Probability test. Got a 37 out of 40, the highest grade in the class, which shouldn't be a surprise, since everything I've done in three other classes I've taken just reinforces the basic probability material. Still, it is something to feel good about, since my friend M only pulled a 32.

Test is tomorrow. I'll probably study about 4 hours or so for it today, and then wrap it up. This is one of those tests that it's hard to prepare for, because the professor hasn't given you any guidelines as to what you're supposed to be knowing.

Anyway, a few words about grade-grubbing. "Grade-grubbing" is the pursuit of the ever-elusive "A" on the transcript. Which, in actuarial science, doesn't mean much -- you can have a transcript full of "A"s and not pass any of the exams.

The thing is that a test -- any test -- is simply a measurement tool: "how much has the student mastered the material?" I need some assurance that I'm really mastering the material needed to pass Exam P in May 2006. I'm not interested in having to take Exam P multiple times.

The funny thing is I went to a seminar held by Dr. W., the chairman of the department, last Friday. It was funny for two reasons:

a) I believe I was one of only two Americans in a room out of 20 people. This is not a racist comment; rather, it's a comment about how fields like statistics and actuarial science are dominated by foreign students.

b) There was some discussion about the future of the actuarial science program at our school. Dr. W. wanted to work more cloasely with the stats department in redesigning the AS (actuarial science) curriculum. Apparently, our elite school
has had some complaints. Companies are claiming that the AS graduates are great at
passing tests, but they are lousy at the original thinking required for mathematical modeling.

Well, as an AS beginner student, let me say...duh. You can't bitch about original thinking when you say "you have to have x number of exams passed before we'll consider you for employment". If you make passed exams from CAS and SOA a hurdle to be jumped, then people are going to spend the bulk of their time jumping that hurdle.

Furthermore, from what I understand, companies look at transcripts, too. I once heard a rumor than anyone with a GPA below 3.00 would not be considered, because it indicated a lack of overall effort.

The result is that the good students, rather than say taking a computer class or a good risk management class (beyond the VEE requirements of say, corporate finance), will be grubbing for grades and passing those P and FM exams and not give so much as a thought to the necessities of actuarial modeling until they're forced to take Exam M.

I'm doing that. You probably would, too.

You Goof Off!

2006-02-12T21:16:00.000-08:00

Goofed off. Didn't spend much time studying. Finally got down to it tonight, studied 2 1/2 hours. The midterm is on Wednesday, and I have no classed on Tuesday, so I have one day to get it right.

It looks like I'm having to relearn everything about calculating E(Y), when Y is something like:

Y = 0 if X<200
= X if X>200

And I thought I knew that, and knew it sold.

You'd integrate xf(x) from 200 to infinity, and that would be your answer. I suspect that the reason Dr. S. has me confused is because he's, well...sloppy.

The more I look at the problems that represent Exam P, the more P looks insurmountable. I bumped into some problem that required some bizarre negative binomial distribution to solve it. Egad.

Applied for a job online and wrote the nice people at D. W. Simpson that I'm considering full-time work. Other than that, hope and prayer. Get the results back from the Intro Probability exam tomorrow. Wish me luck!

The Incomprehensible Dr. S

2006-02-11T21:22:00.000-08:00

Have already started studying for an exam on Wednesday in Dr. S's class.

The course is supposed to bring calculus, probability and risk management together. I put about 3 hours of study in for it today, remembering definitions and basically solving problems like the ones found on Exam P.

Boy, am I rusty. It's like I'm forgetting the most basic stuff, like calculating E(x) for a random variable, simple math errors. And Dr. S hasn't really given any direction to his course at all. I've seen a lot of probability, and a tad of risk management and calculus. I don't know what the point of his course is, and no one else seems to know what it is either.

Got some input back on Dr. N's Intro Probability course. (I actually took the sequel to Intro Probability before taking Intro Probability, but that's another story.) Eight problems, 45 minutes. No one got #7 right, which is this:

You have five boxes and five marbles. Each of the five marbles is assigned to a box. Assume that the chances that a marble is assigned to a particular box are equal (i. e., if the boxes are A, B, C, D, and E, then P(marble assigned to A) = ... =P(marble assigned to E)) and each marble MUST be assigned to one box.)

What is the probability that exactly one box will remain empty after all the marbles are assigned?

Can you figure it out? If you can, put the solution in the comments and I'll read it sometime in 2010.

An Actuary's Progress Begins

2006-02-11T11:17:00.000-08:00

Hi.

This blog is titled "An Actuary's Progress". It deals with the real-life activities of a 40-year old married man, who had been a registered nurse for ten years, and suddenly, deciding to make that ol' Mathematics degree worth something again, began pursuing an actuarial career.

Hopefully, this blog will be exactly what it say it will be -- an beginning actuarial student's successes, failures, triumphs, and tragedies, from his second semester at a college in the South and all through his career as an actuary (hopefully, if he ever gets hired). It's a no-holds-barred look at a career that makes most people scratch their heads and say, "huh?"

I'll catch you later, definitely.