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Want to be an actuary? Odds are, you’ll fail the test

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Re: Want to be an actuary? Odds are, you’ll fail the test

#2
I feel very difficult exams should be commonplace. Everyone should be held to very high standards. It's surprising how many professions don't do this. For example, I've been to several physical therapists who barely seemed to understand what was wrong with me even after several visits. Each gave me what seemed like the same standard routine that they give everyone with problem.

Re: Want to be an actuary? Odds are, you’ll fail the test

#3
From experience from a few close friends: Actuarial science is always in the lists of top jobs but it's a terrible career. It's quite limiting and doesn't pay particularly well. The companies are all old and stagnant and the amount of time put in to studying for exams is taxing. It'd be much better ROI to put that time into studying for sw-eng roles. That is, unless you're particularly interested in memorizing math formulas for insurance calculations

Re: Want to be an actuary? Odds are, you’ll fail the test

#4
post #2

I feel very difficult exams should be commonplace. Everyone should be held to very high standards. It's surprising how many professions don't do this. For example, I've been to several physical therapists who barely seemed to understand what was wrong with me even after several visits. Each gave me what seemed like the same standard routine that they give everyone with problem.

I think this is a terrible idea. Exams are terrible proxies for ability to do the work. At best they seem like a measure of intelligence, conscientiousness and maybe memory.

What makes you think that a very difficult exam will improve the ability of your PT?

Re: Want to be an actuary? Odds are, you’ll fail the test

#5
post #2

I feel very difficult exams should be commonplace. Everyone should be held to very high standards. It's surprising how many professions don't do this. For example, I've been to several physical therapists who barely seemed to understand what was wrong with me even after several visits. Each gave me what seemed like the same standard routine that they give everyone with problem.

The body doesn’t have a diagnostic port or log file. Even top-tier doctors are wrong frequently.

Re: Want to be an actuary? Odds are, you’ll fail the test

#9
post #2

I feel very difficult exams should be commonplace. Everyone should be held to very high standards. It's surprising how many professions don't do this. For example, I've been to several physical therapists who barely seemed to understand what was wrong with me even after several visits. Each gave me what seemed like the same standard routine that they give everyone with problem.

Meanwhile, they often gate the requirements to even take the test. It would be chaos (and bad for the law schools) if someone were able to take the bar without a JD (some states have just as lengthy apprenticeship periods replace that) or otherwise prove professional ability acquired via non traditional means.

Re: Want to be an actuary? Odds are, you’ll fail the test

#10
post #2

I feel very difficult exams should be commonplace. Everyone should be held to very high standards. It's surprising how many professions don't do this. For example, I've been to several physical therapists who barely seemed to understand what was wrong with me even after several visits. Each gave me what seemed like the same standard routine that they give everyone with problem.

The over use of occupational licensing has some well documented negative effects, see https://www.econlib.org/library/Enc1/OccupationalLicensing.h... for some points about it.

However, physical therapists already have an occupational licensing exam. You could argue that it’s not hard enough, as it does have a high pass rate for those who have graduated from a PT university program, but then you start drifting into “no true Scotsman” territory.

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