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Actuarial science ranked as most valuable college major

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Re: Actuarial science ranked as most valuable college major

#61

Post by leetcrew »

grouseway wrote: post #24
aphextron wrote: post #10

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It's the number one undergrad degree for veterinarians. Private vet practices in upscale areas are insanely profitable.

And for some it is a very stressful job. They have a very high suicide rate: https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC4266064/ "The rate of suicide in the veterinary profession has been pegged as close to twice that of the dental profession, more than twice that of the medical profession (2), and 4 times the rate in the general population (3)."

I can see how being a vet could be a sad job, but my real question is why dentists are more suicidal than doctors. I would imagine the latter to be exposed to a lot more stressful/tragic situations.

Re: Actuarial science ranked as most valuable college major

#62

Post by Retric »

wcfields wrote: post #43
pkaye wrote: post #13

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I also heard vet school is pretty expensive.

I've also heard that it's even more competitive than human medical schools.

I hear a lot of failed vets become doctors.

Veterinary school is harder to get into and their is a lot of overlap in background materials. Med school has a lot of overlap so if somone desideds to swap carriers it’s an easy transition into a high paying job.

Re: Actuarial science ranked as most valuable college major

#63

Post by TylerE »

randomstring wrote: post #32

Having done my BS in Match and CS at a school with a parallel Actuarial program, I got a good look at what being an actuary is about. If you're good at math, and really good at standardized math exams you can advance through the various levels and work your way up the pay-scale ladder. I think this really appeals to people who are good at math, but maybe don't want to go into academia. That said of all the actuaries…

Isn't it sort of a truism that high-paying jobs are not fun?

Know who gets paid a lot (relative to education)? Sanitation workers.

You know who doesn't? Pilots

Re: Actuarial science ranked as most valuable college major

#64

Post by tfehring »

dlevine wrote: post #26

I had a friend from college who became an actuary (he was a business major in college). It sounds like, once you finish the first several actuarial exams, you are pretty much set. You don't even need a degree in actuarial science, but it probably makes the exams easier. His job was pretty easy, and since he knew some basic programming, was able to build some Excel macros and wow the people he worked with. The work so…

>It sounds like, once you finish the first several actuarial exams, you are pretty much set.

Typically you need ~3 exams to get a job in the field. Then it's a total of 7 exams for associateship and 10 for fellowship (for candidates starting today - it used to be fewer), plus various online courses throughout the process. You can stop at the associate level, but it limits your advancement opportunities at most companies.

If you're reasonably good at both math and memorization, the exams range from ~50-100 hours of studying each for the first few to ~300-400 each for the later ones. Usually about half of those hours are on company time once you're working in the field, though exam season is still pretty miserable.

>His job was pretty easy, and since he knew some basic programming, was able to build some Excel macros and wow the people he worked with.

This is still common, but it's getting rarer every year. At a minimum, every entry-level candidate my company hires nowadays has taken a couple of intro programming courses (usually in Python or Java) and knows a bit of VBA, SQL, and/or R on top of that. The field has been attracting lots of young people who might have otherwise become programmers, myself included.

>The work sounded less exciting than being a programmer working at a startup

Probably true in general, but some actuarial roles are more exciting than others. I was bored to death in my first actuarial job (financial reporting) but transitioned pretty early to a much more interesting role. It helps that I'm doing some ML-heavy modeling, meaning that I get to learn new frameworks in addition to the standard Excel + RDBMS stuff. Working half the hours of a programmer at a startup for the same pay and better benefits is also a plus.

With all of that being said, I'm still semi-actively looking to leave the field. While I love what I'm working on right now, I'm concerned about getting pidgenholed into the field (and into insurance more generally) in the long term, especially since I'd likely end up in a much less interesting role at some point.

Re: Actuarial science ranked as most valuable college major

#65

Post by vostok »

rm999 wrote: post #5

Full dataset is here: https://www.scribd.com/document/388081338/BANKRATE-Most-Valu... For those of you who are wondering, Computer Engineering is 14th, "Mathematics and Computer Science" is 23rd and Computer Science is 30th. If I had to guess, CS has a wider income distribution than many of the higher ranking degrees, which are dominated by engineering degrees (many of which have lower unemployment rates too). The no…

I'm very surprised that economics and finance are higher than computer science. I would have expected that corporate finance jobs would have brought the average below that of CS.

Re: Actuarial science ranked as most valuable college major

#66

Post by Spooky23 »

leetcrew wrote: post #61
grouseway wrote: post #24

Earlier quoted context omitted.

And for some it is a very stressful job. They have a very high suicide rate: https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC4266064/ "The rate of suicide in the veterinary profession has been pegged as close to twice that of the dental profession, more than twice that of the medical profession (2), and 4 times the rate in the general population (3)."

I can see how being a vet could be a sad job, but my real question is why dentists are more suicidal than doctors. I would imagine the latter to be exposed to a lot more stressful/tragic situations.

Some of the agricultural vets have a stressful gig.

Re: Actuarial science ranked as most valuable college major

#67

Post by s0rce »

dekhn wrote: post #31
s0rce wrote: post #15

The average income for biochemists and molecular biologists is >$100k? Is this heavily skewed by doctors who did biology as a pre-med degree?

long ago when I was considering majors (1991) molecular biologists made $70K. This makes sense to me- a scientist at a major pharma is going to make over $100K if they are an expert in their field and have 5-10 years experience ($100K in the bay area is a starting salary for many software engineers). Mol Bio has several job outcomes- the worst is lab tech, which alone in the bay area can be $60K, the best is CEO/Foun…

Most numbers I've seen put the average salary for a biology professor around $95k, $150 would be on the higher end.

Re: Actuarial science ranked as most valuable college major

#68

Post by GlenTheMachine »

wcfields wrote: post #43
pkaye wrote: post #13

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I also heard vet school is pretty expensive.

I've also heard that it's even more competitive than human medical schools.

This may well be true. While there are hundreds of medical schools in the United States, there is only one vet school per state. And some, like Virginia and Maryland, combine - so there are in fact only about 30.

Re: Actuarial science ranked as most valuable college major

#69

Post by p33p »

madeuptempacct wrote: post #58
p33p wrote: post #57

As an actuary, I can not recommend it to anyone with a technical background. I have degrees in mathematics and actuarial science, and I consider my actuarial science degree completely worthless. A mathematics and/or computer science degree will teach you more in terms of how to think than anyone with an actuarial science degree. If you’d like to take a major where your professors literally teach to the exam/test, the…

I am guessing it's easy to transition to machine learning / data analysis and make 20-40% over what senior devs make. At least that's what I see in my area.

I would be really impressed if someone with an actuarial science degree has any experience with machine learning. That is not a skill that is taught outside of self learning or an absolute need. It may be more applicable in a property casualty company where there are things like telematics.

Re: Actuarial science ranked as most valuable college major

#70

Post by IncRnd »

alouisos wrote: post #60

Beware, actuarial science will be replaced by AI and the incentives of insurance is high to replace this workforce with AI. Believe me, I have been doing an AI startup in exactly this space

You'll be hard-pressed to get business people to use AI for actuarial work.

If the intent is to codify rules in an AI that performs actuarial work, then it is far less error-prone to simply write a program that uses the rules directly. AI is not the proper solution, if I understand from your post what you are trying to solve.

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