<p>What are possible career options for a person with a degree in actuarial mathematics?</p>
<p>Actuary, finance, graduate school, anything? The math/quant skills would be highly employable in a number of fields and would be applicable in graduate school.</p>
<p>I’m an actuary. You get accredited as an actuary by passing a series of exams, most of which you would take while employed as an acturail “student”. It’s easier for you to break into the field if you take the first couple of acturial exams while you are in college. </p>
<p>For more details contact either the Casualty Acturial Society in VA (for information on property-casualty actuaries) or the Soceity of Actuaries in IL (for all other types: life, health and employee benefits). Both societies have recently changed their exam structure, so you want to make sure you have the striaght scoop before investing a lot of yourself in it. Check out their websites.</p>
<p>Dadguy, how do you like being an actuary? How is it as a career? Good pay? good opportunities for growth/career development? I’m just curious because I’ve heard some good things about it.</p>
<p>Pay for college grads new to the profession are about average, but as the career advances, the pay becomes further above average as you go along.</p>
<p>Advancement during the first few years of your career depends mostly on your progress through the exams. So a lot depends on if you are a good test-taker or not. On the other hand, your advancement at this stage depends on something that can measured, which is great.</p>
<p>The advancement after that depends on your ability to manage projects and other people. The more responibility you can take on, the more you are going to get rewarded.</p>
<p>Actuaries are employed by insurance companies, insurance brokers, consultants and the US and state governments. With the exception of the large insurance companies, most employers have just a few acturies employed at one location. So in order to maximize your career potential, you should look not only to be the best acturay your employer has but also develop skils that would make you a candidate for a management postion, like CFO or what not, which is certainly possible for an actuary.</p>
<p>On the other hand, you could make a decent living at being just a technical person, but these are not among the better paid of our profession.</p>
<p>Of all employers, consutlants who manage a local practice are probably the best paid if they are able to bring in new clients. On the other hand, consulting work requires a lot of flexibility which is hard on new employees who are looking to squeeze time in to study for exams. The conventional wisdom is that if you are starting out in the profession, seek out insurance company jobs becasue the rountine there is much more predictable and so lends itself better for all the studying you’ll have to do.</p>
<p>The job market has almost always been very fluid for acturial talent at all levels, so there is no reason to stay put in a situation that makes you frustrated due to the lack of advancement opportunties.</p>
<p>Did I get to all your questions?</p>
<p>Actually starting pay for new grads is at the top of the range for most graduates. The average base for a Wisconsin undergrad this year is over $58,000 with a bonus averageing over $6000 plus relocation.</p>
<p>Is that for a U of W undegrad starting in the acturial profession, barrons?</p>
<p>Yes, with a business degree. </p>
<p><a href=“http://www.bus.wisc.edu/career/resources/articles/other/salarystatistics/U_Accepts.asp[/url]”>http://www.bus.wisc.edu/career/resources/articles/other/salarystatistics/U_Accepts.asp</a></p>
<p>Thanks for the link. I suspect becuase U of W has such a well developed Acturial Science Program, that its graduates get offers that are better than average for typical entry level positions. </p>
<p>Many actuaries have started their careers with some other degree other than Acturial Science.</p>
<p>Yes, I’m sure some come from math or stats major backgrounds. I don’t have any data on them from UW.</p>
<p>Anyway, it’s a good major in the Business School–highest pay starting on average. That assumes you want to do that work.</p>
<p>Two things to keep in mind, too.</p>
<p>Good News: Compared to the other fields, the pay differential will only increase as you advance.</p>
<p>Bad News: The acturial exams are a huge time commitment and finding the time to study and prepare is usually not very easy.</p>
<p>Here’s a link to a broader salary survey which covers not only entry-level positions. I meant to say that pay for entry level was similar to other positions someone with a math degree would get into, becasue this is higher than for the average college grad overall.</p>
<p>The $58 K shown in the U of W survey is at the high end of entry level pay, still nothing to sneeze at. Notice how wide the range becomes for the more experience people. This has to do with the amount of management responibility you’ve taken on at that point.</p>
<p><a href=“http://www.actuaryjobs.com/salary.html[/url]”>http://www.actuaryjobs.com/salary.html</a></p>