August 30th, 2008, 3:17 pm
QuoteOriginally posted by: tibbarHaving gone through all the actuarial exams myself, I'd say that if I could turn back the clock I'd probably not have bothered (I'm currently doing a part-time finance PhD!). The exams are not exciting and you lose your social life for the best part of your 20's...That said, I work in an actuarial firm as an in-house "quant" and do the tricky maths / investment related work that more business focused actuaries find difficult. I think that both careers have their pros and cons, most actuaries get reasonable salaries (£100-200K) and can work a 40 hour week, enjoying a relaxed lifestyle.The other thing I've noticed is that as a technical actuary you can do all the interesting maths without spending most of the day coding c++. Coding seems to be impossible to escape as a quant and while it's fun for a while, do you really want to spend 70% of your time doing this? Actuaries will normally develop the models and then give a technical spec to pure coders to implement - I guess it's a matter of taste.I don't understand why there is so much hostility from quants to the actuarial profession - they are completely different career paths, both with advantages and drawbacks. It's also worth noting that a number of top IB's are now employing actuaries to setup reinsurance operations and insurance linked securities trading desks (also liability driven investment products for pension funds, life insurance securitisation etc). These are all growth areas which quants are not well equipped to work in, as quants are not trained in the classical areas of actuarial science. Equally, actuaries have limited training in quantative finance (recently qualified investment actuaries will know the material of Hull, Baxter & Rennie, but won't be able to price exotics or code finite difference pricing algorithms etc). But why would you expect them to? That's not their job - an investment actuary specialises in fund management and developing investment strategies to match insurance liabilities etc...Totally agree.Quants are proud of their mathematical & computational muscle.Thats perfectly OK.But viewing others profession with disdain is not a matured response IMO.What if some Traders come and say that quants are nothing but their support.What if a Banker makes fun of quants saying "You guys are computer monkeys".It appears that everybody in the world believes his profession is better than others.While its true that quants require greater analytical ability in an academic sense, than an actury.But some actuaries can be more successful than average quants and work far less hours and enjoying more job security. So it depends on a person as to what suits his personality.
Last edited by
AbhiJ on August 29th, 2008, 10:00 pm, edited 1 time in total.