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RET79
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Joined: May 27th, 2002, 9:37 pm

Changing from actuary to quant

May 27th, 2002, 9:52 pm

Hi everyone.I have been working at a big insurer in the UK for almost a year now just after I attained my MSc in Financial Maths.I am not impressed with the work they are doing, it is mainly procedural and not innovative, they just churn out the numbers to satisfy regulators and I see very little mathematics in action.Therefore I want to move to do more quantitative work. I have sat actuarial exams 101 (stats) 102 (financial maths) and 103 (stochastic modelling) and have found them interesting and wish to take them further. The work I am doing now relates very little to these subjects sadly.Now, how would I become a quant from where I am now? My IT skills are limited - have good Excel VBA skills but no other skills and no formal IT quals. But I have MSc Financial Maths and A1 academic record.I am looking for that job to 'link' between where I am now and where I want to be - which is a quant.Any advice appreciated, thankyou.RET79
Last edited by RET79 on May 26th, 2002, 10:00 pm, edited 1 time in total.
 
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gjlipman
Posts: 5
Joined: May 20th, 2002, 9:13 pm

Changing from actuary to quant

May 27th, 2002, 10:22 pm

Have you considered getting into the more quant side of acturial studies? Despite 90% of the work that actuaries do not being really that complex mathematically, a lot of the research that is being done is pretty mathematical. (The reason I am saying this is because I am currently toying with the idea of doing a PhD in an actuarial group, and until a week ago hadn't realised that this whole area was out there). If you check out the website of any actuarial group at any university, you will get a feel for the sort of research that is done. This may be easier than leaving the actuarial side of things completely.
 
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RET79
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Joined: May 27th, 2002, 9:37 pm

Changing from actuary to quant

May 27th, 2002, 10:30 pm

I have considered this and a part of me strongly agrees with you that this would be a good intermediate step - going away from the regulatory side of actuarial work into the research side, opening the quant door slowly while still retaining a foot in the actuarial profession. Yes, I think this could well be a good idea.Oh and another thing, I am worried that as I am doing so much mind numbing work at the office for almost a year that I am starting to lose my MSc financial maths skills. Tonight is the first night I have come on this forum and it has shocked me how much you have to know to get these quant jobs, gosh.So should I learn C++ in my spare time, how would people recommend I go about that? Is there any point doing it in spare time if they are looking for C++ exp on the job? Also, how can I keep my brain up to date with financial engineering issues and theories? Do you know of any good websites with those sort of resources?Many thanks,RET79
 
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mj
Posts: 12
Joined: December 20th, 2001, 12:32 pm

Changing from actuary to quant

May 28th, 2002, 9:10 am

it's hard to get a quant job without a PhD. Yes you must learn C++ .
 
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skyrats
Posts: 1
Joined: December 4th, 2001, 3:07 pm

Changing from actuary to quant

May 28th, 2002, 9:45 am

RET79,If you dont me asking where did you get your MSc Fin Math from??Rgds,Skyrats
 
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Agfox
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Joined: October 10th, 2001, 1:32 am

Changing from actuary to quant

May 28th, 2002, 11:12 am

same boat as u. However, i'm a final year actuarial science student. yeh, all that number crunching sucks.. I wanna get into modelling and all... there's operations research in the R&D part of actuarial... however the northern america just revised their syllabus and cut that chuck outta it.. not sure about UKs though....
 
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RET79
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Joined: May 27th, 2002, 9:37 pm

Changing from actuary to quant

May 28th, 2002, 6:16 pm

Skyrats,Edinburgh.What about yourself?RET79
 
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RET79
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Joined: May 27th, 2002, 9:37 pm

Changing from actuary to quant

May 29th, 2002, 3:52 am

This is my current thinking about actuaries & quants.A good metaphor would be that I am currently working on second hand / used car engines, when in fact I want to be working on ferrari engines. I would imagine that there are a lot of common themes to success as a quant and an actuary. The big difference as far as I see is that the products actuaries are dealing with have been around for a long time, so less scope for serious innovation and that the maths underpinning these products in most cases are straight forward. But still, it takes skill to gain an understanding of these products even though they are not as flashy and sophisticated as derivative products that quants would be dealing with.So basically I am thinking of hanging around in Actuary for a while (a year or two), to demonstrate competency in dealing with insurance products first and then move on when I feel the time is right to deal with the more complex derivative products.I welcome your thoughts on these issues.RET79