What being an actuarial student is really like

[Fluttershy]

So, I'm starting first year at the University of Melbourne doing a Bachelor of Commerce, majoring in Actuarial Studies, and I thought I'd try and paint a better picture of what it's actually like so far. I remember researching the course itself and what it was like when I was tossing up between a few courses, but I never really got a sense of what being an actuarial student entailed. So, here goes, I hope this helps someone I will definitely update this post as the year continues, I guess I want to talk about my first impressions to start off with. Oh, and one last thing: my views may be COMPLETELY biased, so take what I say with a grain of salt.

I'm currently taking four subjects at the moment: Introductory Microeconomics (compulsory for all BComm students), Accounting Reports and Analysis (compulsory for Actuarial students), Accelerated Maths 1 (compulsory for actuarial students with spesh score over 38), and a breadth subject, Logic: Language and Information, which I'm not going to waste time talking about.

I have absolutely no background in Economics, but from the first few chapters that I've read, and from the lectures, it seems quite straightforward and makes a lot of sense. My friend tells me it's harder than VCE Economics, but it seems a lot of it is wrapping your head around terms and making connections between real-life events and economic principles. I have very little to say right now about this subject, hopefully I'll be able to expand on it soon.

I did VCE Accounting in 2011, so I came into ARA with a little bit of knowledge beforehand, but it turns out that the subject has been revamped recently, and the topics covered now are not very closely related to high school Accounting. There's a larger emphasis on HOW accounting works and WHY financial statements and analysis are needed, rather than simply filling out tables and adding numbers together. There are online tests every week that seem to be almost completely theory-based rather than maths/number related. I hear that all the VCE stuff has been pushed to another Accounting subject, though, so not all hope is lost if you loved all the financial statements and tables in Year 12.

Now, Accelerated Maths 1. This is probably, for me anyway, the hardest out of the three subjects you do as an actuarial student in first year. But don't be daunted; it's actually not as hard as it may first seem. Our lecturer jumped straight into row echelon form pretty much from the first lecture, which was a bit of a shock as I had no idea what was going on. But after a couple of days, it started to get a lot more understandable, especially after trying some of the questions in the problem booklet we were given. I think the trick with this subject is to continue to stay on top of all the work (we cover topics amazingly fast) and do as many questions as possible to reinforce your knowledge. Oh, and by the way, you won't need your calculator, this is a technology-free subject

Overall, it seems so far that an actuarial major isn't quite as crazy and demanding as it's cracked up to be (from my first week impressions anyway). Hope I've managed to show you guys what your subjects will be like should you consider this course. I'll edit this post in a few weeks once I'm deeper into the term

[Jenny_2108]

Thanks a lot for your post, at least I can know how actuarial studies at other uni is like 

I just wanna add more info just in case anyone thinking about actuary at ANU

In semester 1, we study 4 units: microeconomics, accounting (which are the same with UoM I assume), statistics and finance. For statistics, we have online quizzes due every Frid. Finance has 10 mins quizz every week and we do it in the tute. We also have assignments (individual or group depending on subjects) and may be mid-semester exam (for some subject, we can choose to sit mid-semester exam or not)

In semester 2, we do maths for actuarial studies, macroeconomics, finance and one elective subject

Dunno about you guys but I never study accounting, business or economics before so quite struggle with some definitions and application exercises especially with finance and accounting.
Statistics Iam studying is pretty much related to probablity in methods so its good to learn deeply that area in methods unit 3/4 so that you dont need to go to the maths lecture for stats
Microeconomics is quite related to life and the lecturer always gives us interesting examples such as he talks about opportunity cost of consuming Tim Tams and we need to run half an hour to reduce the amount of calorie in Tim Tams. He brought 2 packs of Tim Tams to the lecture and gave us afterthat lol

I also heard from old students that this course is lots of workload and mostly statistics but anyway, if we chose it, we could do it 

[Fluttershy]

Update! I might write separate posts and keep a mini-blog going here instead of constantly updating the first post. Here goes:

First, Microeconomics. Still not too bad, it's one of the more straightforward and understandable subjects I take. Everything is presented well, the workload is manageable but still decent, and I'm really enjoying it overall. We've done the basic principles of economics, welfare economics, supply/demand models, elasticity and moved on to taxes, subsidies etc. The mid semester exam is quite straightforward, 10 multi-choice questions that seemed quite reasonable and the degree of difficulty wasn't too high. There's an assignment due after the Easter break, which is pretty much just a set of short-answer questions in assignment form.

Accounting Reports and Analysis, again, isn't too bad; there is quite a bit of overlap in the first few weeks with VCE accounting with regards to definitions, concepts and other things. We're starting to move out into new areas though, so that'll be an interesting experience. Weekly tests are quite easy, most of the answers can be found using a text search on the ebook, or by reading the appropriate section. So far, I've only dropped one mark out of 3 tests, because of a stupid mistake/computer error (according to the solutions, stationery isn't an asset...), and even if you mess up your first attempt, you have the opportunity to redo it.

Accelerated Maths is quite easily the hardest subject, in terms of workload and concepts. The amount we've covered is extraordinary, I've just finished my second assignment and I'm struggling to keep up with the stuff covered in lectures. Paul Norbury (thanks dcc!) is a really engaging lecturer, it's just the sheer volume of new material covered every lesson is a real challenge. I recommend reading through the first chapter of the textbook at least, a week or two before the course starts, in order to stay ahead (or at least marginally understand what's going on in lectures).

I'll try to update every few weeks, just so you guys can get a sense of how hard/interesting actuarial studies seems throughout first year. Hope I helped anyone reading out there

[abcdqd]

thanks heaps for this

[Deleted User]

First two weeks of Accelerated Maths I managed to cope with, but when induction came around, I was like WTF. It's like I don't even understand what Paul is talking about anymore. He goes waaaaay too quickly and his proofs seem dodgy to me.

[dcc]

Paul Norbury

[nubs]

Paul was a great lecturer, out of the 4 or 5 maths lectures I've encountered he is easily the best.

There's a lot of content that's covered in AM1, and a lot of the concepts can be hard to wrap your head around initially- especially in the small amount of time you're given to understand them in. For me, it wasn't really the induction stuff or any of the proofs, it was stuff like finding the rules of the line(s) of intersection between two or more planes or anything similar that took me a while to really understand.

But yeah, a lot of people will find it quite overwhelming at first, but as with all maths subjects, if you spend enough time on the topic there's a point of enlightenment where it all just clicks and it becomes quite manageable, if not easy.

[Limista]

Someone should keep a record of their first/second years at Uni for other courses too - like medicine or law or commerce or engineering etc..? It would be mighty helpful!! 

[nubs]

I'm pretty sure there is a lot of stuff online (blogs etc) that are basically online diaries written by medicine students during and after medical school
I wouldn't be surprised if there was stuff like that for law as well
Otherwise we have a thread on here that gives reviews and ratings for a bunch of undergraduate subjects taught at UoM

[Jeggz]

Thanks a heap for this post Fluttershy!
You've cleared my doubts regarding this course 

[Kennybhoy]

You'll be right mate. Just learn your maths. Your actuarial quest doesn't begin until 2nd year.

Also, if you want to know what Actuarial studies life is like, I suggest you go through last year's thread by Acinod. It sort of is an exact replica.

[Gloamglozer]

Paul Norbury

HAHA.  Just love how to you left it at that.

But when you do AM2, Barry Hughes is somewhat entertaining.

[Fluttershy]

Man I almost forgot about updating this thread. So much work over the last couple of weeks! Hope anyone following this thread doesn't mind too much (if anyone's interested at all any more )

OK. Generally, things are starting to fall into routine now. I guess it's true that university is different to high school in so many different ways, especially the self-motivation part. I've found that it can get really difficult to get out of bed on weekends and start the new maths assignment, or do economics homework, or even to do a small reading. But I suppose that at the same time, if you're able to keep yourself from losing focus, and you establish some sort of loose timetable, it becomes a lot more manageable.

Introductory Microeconomics: I have to say, Gareth James is boring as hell. I can never listen to him for more than 5 minutes at a time; I always find myself zoning out, then losing track of what's being said and having to catch up by myself later. Perhaps it's just the content- we're going through externalities, production functions, and now market types. The assignments we're given are pretty straightforward, although as I've found, it's quite easy to lose marks here and there for little things that add up to a pretty average mark (I barely passed my first assignment). Our second assignment is much more interesting, though; it goes down the path of case studies and analysing economics principles applied to real life situations- I'm just glad we don't have to draw too many graphs this time. Drawing graphs on Microsoft Word with Autoshapes is quite possibly the most irritating thing I've done this year.

Accounting Reports and Analysis: I have mixed feelings about this subject. Some of it is very very straightforward and/or very closely linked to VCE Accounting (income statements, balance sheets, ratio analysis to a certain extent), while other parts are completely new and a little bit difficult to get your head around (net present value, shareholders as opposed to single small business owners). The weekly online tests are easy, but filling in figures is a real pain- I scored 70% on my final attempt at a test simply because I'd put my expenses in my income statement in brackets. The textbook is riddled with errors, too, especially the ratios chapter, which is probably the most important one for our big assignment. Speaking of which, this big (group) assignment is pretty much a business report comparing two companies and determining which one is better to invest in. This is probably my favourite assignment at the moment, as it gives you a better idea of what real life accounting/commerce work is like. Accounting tutes get a special mention because of the awkwardness in mine (if anyone from my tute is reading this, hi! And remember if we don't contribute he's threatened us with the 2% deduction ).

Accelerated Maths: my lecture attendance for maths is pretty poor, to be honest. I'm just that kind of person who learns better with a textbook at home, plus I'm always too tired to go to lectures at 3 in the afternoon. But surprisingly, I've found that the concepts are actually quite straightforward, and the proofs are quite elegant, once you take a good look at them. Paul tends to rush through proofs in the lectures, but while a couple of people I know aren't too fond of those proofs, I think they're great for understanding why things work the way they do (especially with subspaces and vector spaces, which we're doing now). Assignments aren't bad, they're mostly questions from the exercise booklet with a few extra problems thrown in. Be warned, though; you learn to be very thorough in the way you lay out your steps, because you can lose half marks for not including a single phrase in your proof, or by taking shortcuts. The computer lab classes with MATLAB are also amusing, if only because half of us have no idea what's happening, while the other half are on top of it all!

So yeah, overall: pretty busy, but also really enjoyable! And don't forget, there's a social aspect, too- I really enjoyed the Actuarial Students' Society's Poker Night last week, although sadly I didn't win anything not to mention all the barbecues and free beer! I'm still not having (many) regrets about choosing this course: I honestly feel like this is the best thing I could be doing right now. Hope this was at least a little bit informative to someone

[Fluttershy]

Hi guys! I know it's been a very long time since I posted in this thread, but I am still getting a bunch of private messages about actuarial and why I've discontinued the course. So I thought I might let you guys know what happened and why I swapped out (as dramatic as this might seem).

So I got through Semester 1 fairly okay, not overly difficult in terms of assignments/tests/whatnot. Exams rolled around and I probably should have concentrated on Maths because that was obviously my weakest subject, but I ended up focusing more on accounting and economics, which was a bad idea in hindsight. I barely passed maths, but did reasonably in the others. At this stage I was considering swapping majors, or at least doing some extra stuff for maths.

Semester Two started and I found that the maths subject was a lot more difficult for me to follow than before, while I just lost interest in Economics for some reason. A couple of weeks in, I got really sick and missed two weeks of class, and I guess I realised that with how far behind I was, I wasn't going to make it through the rest of the year even if I tried to catch up. I suppose it was then that I decided to withdraw and figure out what I wanted to do, which in the end was to swap fields and universities altogether.

Don't get me wrong, actuarial is a great course and if you're keen on maths and business, I'd definitely recommend it. In the end, though, I think it just wasn't right for me, and I didn't have enough interest/commitment to see it through. So to sum up, it was more my motivation and my misjudgment that was the major factor in my withdrawal, rather than any aspect of the course being way too hard. I think that given more interest and maybe more time, I'd have really enjoyed what the course had to offer further in. So yeah, I guess that's it, I hope I covered everything I wanted to say, feel free to ask questions/call me out on whatever if I missed stuff/was contradictory/was confusing etc. Enjoy your day <3

[notveryasian]

I just completed my first year at the University of Melbourne, following the actuarial program. If anyone is hoping to pursue Actuarial Studies at Melbourne, I would gladly answer any questions/give advice/help you out with first year Actuarial Studies.

(Sorry OP for hijacking your thread)