Can I get into actuarial profession with a Music degree...

Did you start at the bank? I'm hoping to potentially move into risk management in banking but want to start out at an actuarial/investment consultancy for the client exposure.

Also did you ask to sit the CFA or was that part of the training contract?

Good luck, enthusiasm is important, try not to get distracted at uni like I did

How are your A-Levels going? I work as a Risk analyst for a mid-tier bank and study CFA and Actuarial exams (only sat one of each so far though ).

Good luck, enthusiasm is important, try not to get distracted at uni like I did

How are your A-Levels going? I work as a Risk analyst for a mid-tier bank and study CFA and Actuarial exams (only sat one of each so far though ).

Why are you doing CFA and actuarial? Never heard of anyone doing both before.

I've met a few people who have both, mainly within banking/investment/fund management though. Originally, I only wanted to do CFA I and II to get some exemptions from Actuarial exams, but realised doing both would probably help my career as I never planned on getting into insurance/reinsurance anyway.

Fair enough, just seems like a lot of effort! Is your employer paying for all your study and giving you study days for both?

I am awesome.

Oh ****, exams in a few weeks. Crapping myself.

I can now totally sympathise about CT2, it's such a drag! Do you have any tips? I feel like I don't remember anything on the course, which is not a great start. What makes me chuckle is how people at work were all, "Ah, you'll be good at CT2," their rationale being something along the lines of, "It has words, your degree had words." It basically has zero in common with English literature, which involved very little memorising and zero financial reporting! I prefer CT1 and CT3 as you can just do a ton of past papers and feel ready. I don't feel like that would help that much with CT2. Have you retaken it yet? EDIT: Yes you have, I just checked back and you did it ages ago. Hah.

What exams are you taking this time?

I'm retaking it this time. I don't know what I said before and when, but a resit never materialised in any case. It's a nasty exam and I'm in exactly the same boat. When it comes to the exam I think you'd be wise, if in doubt, to just write as much as you know about the subject in question. That's what others have said to me, anyway.

I'm also doing CT8 (which for me is one massive at the moment), and I've just gotten home from Kensington after two exhausting days of lovely CT9.

So hopefully I'll have a Diploma in Actuarial Techniques after this lot of exams. Seems highly unlikely atm, though. Sigh. The number of cocks I met who were saying things such as: "Oh, I'm doing my first exam this time, CA1" made me want to rip my throat out so I could throw it hyperhard at their groin region. **** exemptions. Gah.

Yeah, my colleague is taking CA1 and she was 21 when she started studying for it :-/ Then again, my friend who is taking CT8 and CT4 in his first sitting has told me he's worried he will become someone who is overqualified and under-experienced. From what he has said, CT8 sounds awful! He is not confident either.

You did pretty well in CT2 last time, right? FA IIRC? I'm sure you can pass. I totally agree on the "write everything you know" part - I swear, half the time the answers expect you to have written stuff they didn't ask in the question. So annoying! I just submitted the mock this evening, I seemed to spend ages on it. No idea how much to write for five-mark questions really, I suppose I'll wait to see how it's marked.

How was CT9?

I can't believe you got away with the word "cocks" :bhangra:

I take it you can go down the Actuarial route with an Economics degree?

Yeahhh an FA. Gutting, especially seeing as though it's SO BORING. I'm still not a big enough girl to resort to buying anything other than the CMP, though. Yet. A couple of people on my CT9 course seemed shocked I've never been to a tutorial. Odd.

I quite enjoyed CT9, actually. I was very pleasantly surprised! Whether any of it will stick I don't know. It was nice to actually feel like I'm part of the actuarial community, as my employer really doesn't seem to give a **** about the profession (and yes, we are one of the top GI companies).

So what have you managed to pass, then? And how's pensions generally? I was speaking to a Big4 pensions consultant who said that pensions theory in CT5 is plain wrong, and you just wouldn't do it like that in real life

Yes indeedio, dooderino. One of the most idealorooney degreenios, it is.

I'm quite surprised you've never been to a tutorial actually. I really like them! Also, they sort of forced me to read the notes more than I would have otherwise. I am a big girl. Or at least a girl.

Is CT9 as easy as everyone says?

I have passed nothing yet, so I am terrified of le fail. Mainly because of embarrassment. I looked at the pass marks for CT1 over the past 8 sittings and they go something like 65, 63, 71, 55, 70, 46, 68, 71. Guess which sitting I was? Hah. Anyway, I am taking 1, 2 and 3 this time. For a long time I thought 3 was the hardest, but then I realised that that was because I hadn't really spent any time on it. Now it's not so bad.

I really like pensions actually, find it really interesting. I've been trying to work out why so many people switch to insurance (if that many people actually do) ... the only thing I can think of is that insurance is more technical/statsy than pensions, which has fewer numbers in the day job (I think). I'm quite keen on consulting as well.

I'll let you know about CT5! Planning to do that one next time. I hear it has a lot of time pressure ...



I enjoyed this. About time I repped you again anyhowz, eternal gratitude and all that.

I don't see the point of them unless you've badly failed the exam already. I'm yet to get less than an FA myself. I suppose there could be an argument that you might end up remembering more of the content when you come to do later exams that rely on that material, but I'm not really convinced by that.

I have no idea about CT9 - I can't take he exam until the 20th! But one of the speaker guys there said something like 95% of people pass it after two attempts. It's practically impossible to fail though, given it's open book and you can reattempt the exam every four weeks.

You have pass marks!? I would LOVE to see those if you have them (I didn't think they were released to the public!) Or are they pass rates? I seem to do very well at picking exams with ~40% pass rates, and somehow passing them. I think CT4 and CT6 were both like that for me.

I thought people jumped ship because it was seen as a bit of a dead end for your career? As in, there's little in the way of evolution of the industry, and it's just a case of throwing the same old numbers into the same old equations and models; i.e. The need for actuaries as opposed to analysts might be diminishing. I could be wrong though, as I know naff-all about pensions! But I do like the statsy content of, say, CT6, which makes me think I was right to choose GI. I wouldn't be surprised if your logic was valid. I'd be interested to hear more, though.

CT5 is MENTAL for time pressure, it's the worse exam I've ever sat in that respect. I seem to remember that I hadn't attempted a third of the paper with only 15 minutes left, or something equally ridiculous. I'll never know how I passed that, and will deifnitely never know how the markers could read my handwriting!

Do you ever attend any of the SIAS meets, by the way? If so, how have you found them? I haven't gotten involved yet, but I'm considering attending one or two so I can get myself involved in the profession a bit more. My employer doesn't really seem to care too much about whether people sit the exams, so I feel a bit on the fringes of the profession. Attending CT9 made me think on in that regard, as it was really interesting to talk to other students - even if it did mean I ended up going to the pub after a 10 hour day with a bunch of complete (but very nice!) strangers.

Ahh there's nothing like a good exam session to get you procrastinating. I hadn't really been on TSR for months until a few days ago!

Oh wow, I moved from London to Dorset for work. I'll always be a Londoner at heart but this place is rather nice.

I don't know if I could handle being out of London, I get bored easily! I'm also sitting CT2 and finding it a pain

The SIAS events aren't that bad, i've been to 2 so far. It's alright just for chatting to people in the same situation as yourself and networking a little bit.

Do the tutorials really make that much of a difference? I'm paying for everything myself so being a bit tight with my money