Wow! It's hard to believe it's been about a year and a half since my last post. But sometimes life happens! I've had a lot of changes in my life over the last 18 months and I'm excited to share more info around one of the big ones - business travel!

Last August I started a project down in Tampa, requiring me to travel weekly from EWR - TPA. This was supposed to be a four month rotation ending in November, but... I'm still in Tampa! A year later! While I decided to make the temporary move down to Tampa at the end of May to reduce the amount of traveling, I still picked up tons of travel hacks I'd like to share with you!

Make sure to sign up for rewards and loyalty programs! This is especially important if you are going to be on a long-term project traveling each week for at least three months. 

If you don't already have some miles racked up for a specific airline, do some research and figure out which airline will have the best flights for you every week. In my case, since Newark is a United hub, United has been my go-to airline. I also like United because in my opinion, the United App is straightforward to understand, it's easy to see where I fall on the upgrade list and easy to use my points on future flights. 

A few reasons why it is important to stick to one airline:

• You get points (and status!) a lot quicker!
• You are able to cash in on bonus points when airlines offer special promotions - occasionally United will have promotions where if you fly roundtrip X times in Y months, you'll get bonus points. If you're already traveling anyway, this is pretty much like getting free money to use toward personal travel in the future! Make sure to opt in when you see these emails, even if you're not sure you'll hit the requirement - you never know!
• The sooner you get to a higher status (in this case for United, gold status), the more likely you'll get upgraded. 
• If you have a higher status on one airline, usually other airlines may match that status for a year - use this carefully - a lot of airlines will only match status for one year, then in that year you need to meet requirements to stay at that level.

Before you start traveling, check with your company to see if there are any partnerships with specific airlines or if there are any "challenge" promotions that can help you achieve a higher status quickly. Most large corporations have travel partnerships with airlines and hotels - so look into this and take advantage of it!

Similar to the frequent flyer program, I recommend finding one one main hotel rewards program you're interested in and also sign up for another hotel rewards program as a back up. I decided Marriott was the best option for me given the locations near the office and downtown Tampa, so I stuck with Marriott and now I'm Titanium status  - at this point it's a rare occurrence for me not to get an upgrade!

A few reasons why you should have a main hotel rewards program:

• Similar to the airlines, you'll get points and move up in status faster if you stick with one. If you look at the breakdown of different hotel statuses, some of the higher levels give you up to 75% bonus points - this definitely adds up when you're staying in a hotel every week!
• Hotels also offer opportunities for bonus points - I've gotten more of these offers it seems as my status has increased - make sure to opt in for these. A lot of the opportunities have been along the lines of receiving double bonus points for every night after the first night or an extra X points per stay longer than 1 night. Again, free money to use when you travel for leisure!

In order to move up quickly at Marriott, I did check my company's travel offers and they had a challenge program, allowing me to essentially jump a level if I stayed X number of nights in a certain period of time. Check with your travel center to see if there are any offers!

I've traveled to a lot of different offices over the last few years in the US and I've never had an issue with Uber. While grabbing a waiting taxi often seems a lot easier than requesting an uber, waiting for the uber and finding the uber, you're missing out on points and rewards by opting for a taxi instead of uber. And usually, taxis are a little more expensive than uber anyway, so you're saving your company money by taking an uber! Yay! Savings and free money all around!

A few reasons why you should join Uber rewards and take uber:

• You get $5 for every 500 points. If you take Uber on the weekends after a night out, you could have this paid for if you choose to take Uber to/from the airport every week!
• I personally like Uber better than a taxi because you can follow the route on your phone and see how long it's going to take, where you are along the route, etc. 
• Once you get to higher levels of status with Uber, it definitely seems like the quality of drivers increases, and I like that!

Most corporate cards will give you the option of paying a fee to start earning rewards. Of course, this fee would be coming out of your pocket, but in almost all cases, if you will be traveling each week for 3+ months, the $95 fee (or whatever the fee is) will be completely worth it! Plus, this fee will cover you for the year, so if you have any other sporadic travel or business expenses the rest of the year, that will just be an added benefit in terms of the rewards points!

TSA pre-check is an absolute MUST if you are going to be traveling every week, especially if you are flying out of a busy airport. It is $85 and will cover you for 5 years. Check with your company to see if they will pay for this given the number of weeks you will be traveling on your project. If they will not cover it, there are some credit cards out there that waive the fee as one of their benefits. 

P.S. - Even if my company wouldn't cover this, I probably would've caved and just bought it myself after a few weeks. It is a huge time saver and stress relief!

Important information about TSA-precheck:

• With TSA-precheck, you no longer have to take anything out of your bags and you don't have to take off your shoes - this means you're less likely to forget any of your items at the security checkpoint!
• If you are interested in enrolling in TSA-precheck - choose the airport that's less busy. I made my appointment at Tampa one of the mornings after flying in and there was no wait. I doubt the same would've happened at Newark!
• In larger airports, there may still be a long line, but this is generally much quicker than the regular security lines or even the premier access security lines for United passengers as people don't need to take belongings out of their bags or take their shoes off. 
• You can still get chosen to go through the special x-ray machine or have your electronics checked. This has happened to me more after getting pre-check, but it's typically quick!

Obviously when we go through security at the airport, our goal is to get through as quickly as possible, grab some food and find our gate. I've gotten stopped many, many times for different fitness related items I've brought with me (I don't ever check my bag - I prefer to have a carry-on) - here's some advice if you travel with similar items!


Liquids - I've never gotten stopped for any liquids and I've never pulled them out of my bags either. Just make sure every container you have is a small container if it's filled with anything. 

Powders - I've ALWAYS gotten stopped when I brought containers of pre-workout and BCAAs. One time, after they swabbed it at Newark, they told me I couldn't bring either container on board, so they would either throw them in the trash or I would have to go check my bag. It was close to boarding, but I still decided to check my bag and I still made my flight. My advice here is just bringing what you need for the week - four scoops max of each. Unless you are checking a bag, and then bring whatever you want! 

Recovery Equipment - I've gotten stopped a few times with some of my recovery equipment - EMS, BFF pro - I've just explained what it's for and they're okay with it. I've never been made to check a bag when bringing this type of stuff. 

Ninja Grips, Gymnastics Rings - Similar to the recovery equipment, I've gotten stopped for bringing some of my gym gear. As long as it's not sharp, they typically have no problem with it after they take it out and look at it. If you do bring this type of stuff, I recommend distributing it throughout your carry-on since sometimes the reason it causes an issue is everything is balled together and it's hard for them to see what it is on the x-ray machine.

This is specifically for Newark (EWR) airport Terminal C but can work for any airport that is busy and doesn't have a designated Uber pick-up area. When arriving at Newark, call/text your Uber driver and tell them to pick you up at Departures instead of Arrivals. Thursday nights at Terminal C arrivals were a nightmare with tons of people coming in from flights all over - it made both me and my uber driver happier when they were able to skip the traffic and pick me up at Departures instead. It was also nicer when it was cold in the winter where I could wait inside the doors and watch for the vehicle to pull up - at Departures, the street is far from the doors so you're forced to wait outside!

Depending on where your project is, there will be different times of the year that may be busier, making it harder to get a room at the hotel you want. Even if you don't know how long you have left on a project, book your hotel at least 1-2 months out to make sure you lock in the best rate and you have a room at the hotel you want. Most hotels allow cancellations a few days before the reservation, so if you find out you don't need the hotel, you can always cancel a few days before - at least you had it reserved in case you needed it!

If you are able to choose which hotel you would like to stay at, you may want to consider a few different things:

• How long will it take to get from the hotel to the office when there's traffic?
  • It started becoming too much of a hassle to commute from downtown to the office everyday, so about halfway through, I started staying a walking distance from the office - this worked out perfectly as I was able to get in a nice 15 minute walk each morning and after work!
• Are there any restaurants nearby? Will UberEats deliver?
  • Hotel room service actually does get old after a while, especially if you're staying in the same hotel every week! Consider other food options near your hotel!
• Is there a place to run or workout nearby?
  • If you are into running or working out, check to see if there is a running trail easily accessible from the hotel and whether it is safe to run early in the morning or at night. Usually if you are staying in a city and there's a path along the water, it's pretty safe most of the time. 
  • Some companies may help subsidize the cost of a gym membership while you're traveling for work. Crunch is a great option if you need a little more than just a hotel gym - it's around $26 per month and it gives you access to most Crunch gyms around the country!

Here are some other great sites to check out if you're about to start traveling more:

Business Travel Life

The Points Guy

Top 40 Business Travel Blogs
​

It's March already! Before we know it, a quarter of 2018 will be history. And it brings high school (and college!) seniors a little closer to graduation!

I've gotten a few emails over the last couple of weeks asking for advice on whether an actuarial career or career in data analytics would be a better career path/better course of study. My short answer, and probably an answer no one wants to hear - you can't go wrong with either. My detailed answer is below if you keep reading!

Before making this decision, it is so important to understand yourself. What is your passion as it relates to a future career? What type of projects do you enjoy working on? Are you a very disciplined person? What factors motivate and drive you?

Well, guess what? If you like problem solving and critical thinking - you can't go wrong with either! Similarly, if you like coding and learning how to develop solutions using code, again, either choice would be great! Problem solving and critical thinking is part of the day-to-day job responsibilities whether you are an analytics professional or actuarial professional and there is quite a bit of overlap in the technical skills you'll need to have.

If taking exams isn't your strong suit, it might be worth reconsidering the actuarial career path. Exams are a HUGE part of being an actuary. They say you have to study 100 hours for each hour of the exam. So that's easily at least 300 hours per exam minimum (more in my personal experience). Are you going to have the discipline to follow a rigid study schedule in order to get through 10 exams (assuming the FCAS track)? If you end up failing an exam, will you be able to continue to stay motivated in order to pass the next exams?

If having letters after your name from an established, world renowned organization is important to you, then following the actuarial career path may be a good fit for you. This also helps set you apart from many other non-credentialed professionals. I do have to say, the feeling of seeing that "PASS" message on my three CBT exams was probably one of the best feelings I've ever had. To work so hard to achieve something and get the results you're looking for is incredible. 

A career in analytics will allow you to do similar work as an actuary, without the added stress of all of the studying. Sure, you won't get nice bonuses and raises for each exam you pass, but if you start your career at a great company and do well, you should be just as fine. Following a career in analytics may also be good if you enjoy variety in the work you do and don't want to limit yourself to a specific industry. In many cases, as an actuary you will mainly be working in the insurance industry - there are some positions out there outside of insurance, but they aren't as common. If you want to be doing cool analytics or models for a big name, like Google, Coca Cola, Netflix, or NBC, analytics would be the way to go. 

(Shoutout to my favorite student loan paying app, Giving, use code SB346381 to join!)
​
Student loans won't pay themselves.. isn't that the truth?!? Between student loans and the cost of living in some major cities, it's understandable why salary would also be a key component of this decision. I just grabbed a quick comparison from glassdoor below, but I highly encourage you to do your own research based on some of the entry level positions you're seeing in your area. You may also want to throw data scientist into the mix if that's the path you're looking to pursue. 

In my opinion, I wouldn't be too concerned with the salaries (or job security for that matter) for either analytics or actuarial roles since they're pretty similar. I definitely wouldn't allow that to be a deciding factor in your career choice, but it is something to be aware of as you are choosing your line of work. Given the nature of actuarial and analytics work, there will continue to be a demand over the coming years. If you're worried about future job security, then I would be careful to choose a solid company and become an expert in your field sooner rather than later.

If you keep going back and forth between pursuing an actuarial career or a career in analytics, my advice would be to start with the actuarial career path for a couple of reasons. 

This may not be true for everyone, but the longer you are out of school/university, the more you lose in terms of your study habits and routines, making it more difficult to get back into the swing of things. If you start studying (and passing!) actuarial exams during college, you'll be off to a really great start and have a solid foundation as you continue through the exam track as you're working full-time.

I've always had so many positive things to say to career changers interested in pursuing an actuarial career later on in their life, but the truth is it is HARD. It's definitely possible and there are a lot of successful career changers who have gotten great jobs in the field, but it's much easier to secure a role earlier on in your career. 

To pursue a career in analytics after trying out the actuarial path will be a lot easier since there are so many analytics careers out there and a lot of the work you do as an actuary - especially coding in Python, SAS, R, etc. - will be 100% relevant to many analytics jobs out there. It will always be more challenging to flip from analytics to actuarial due to the large number of qualified actuarial candidates at the earlier stages of the career.  

The review process at my firm is currently wrapping up, but there are also a lot of performance reviews that are typically conducted at the end of the calendar year (and hopefully there is some type of feedback process in the interim!). If you're like me and just went through your year-end review process, you can use this article to help set up a game plan for the full year instead of just the second half!

Performance reviews can bring on a lot of emotions: excitement, anxiety, hope, dread, regret - the list goes on! In my opinion, the most important thing you can do to make your performance reviews a more pleasant experience is to stay ahead of the process and actively think about your performance throughout the year. You don't want to be blindsided at year-end with a subpar review, so it's important to start thinking about your performance NOW!

Read more for six ways to take advantage of the rest of the year in order to have a great year-end review!

If your company does not have a standardized process for mid-year feedback, make sure to set up a discussion with your manager or equivalent to figure out what areas you are performing strongly in and where you need to improve. If you don't receive feedback throughout the year, it might also be good for you to have a similar conversation once every quarter to make sure you are on the same page as your manager. If you are going to have a conversation like this with your manager, I suggest sending a quick email a couple days before letting them know so they can have time to put some thought into your performance. Don't just walk into their office and ask - it puts them on the spot and they might miss some valuable information that they would've thought of if they had time to prepare for the discussion. 

For the remainder of the year, focus on keeping up your strengths while putting additional energy into the areas you can improve. If there are more than three areas you should improve in, you may want to discuss with your manager if there are a few that you should really focus on in the immediate future. Improvements in some areas may also lead to improvements in others, so try to kill two birds with one stone if possible! For example, if your manager says you need to work on improving your communication skills and how you work with others on your team, improving the communication aspect may help improve how you work with others. 

In most cases, you don’t need to be an expert at all tools - be knowledgeable enough to use all, an expert in a few and focus the rest of your energy on improving soft skills to become better at your job and a better leader. These improvements will help you shine in your year-end review!

Is there something you know how to do that others on your team may not know? Are you an expert at excel and want to share some time saving tips? Set up some time to teach others on your team when work is slow. Having a team who is knowledgeable on basic processes and some time saving tricks can save everyone time and reduce frustrations during busy periods.

Reach out to your manager and offer to lead a training session so your team can improve their skills. Even if you set up some quick 15-30min learning sessions to teach some lesser known tips and tricks to speed up day-to-day work, that could still have a huge impact! ​Your initiative and drive to improve the team will not go unnoticed.This could also help set you up for a promotion sooner than you would expect!

It's not uncommon to see trustworthiness listed as a category on performance reviews. In everyday situations, trustworthiness is telling the truth or being able to keep a secret or any other related action. In the business world, trustworthiness can mean consistently completing your work prior to deadlines with minimal errors. 

In order to become the go-to person for your manager, your manager needs to see you as trustworthy. Make sure you are completing your projects in a reasonable amount of time with no errors. Don't delay just because you're way ahead of deadlines - finish the project and find something else you can help with. And this should go without saying, but DO NOT sit on a completed project without notifying the reviewer or manager that it's done. No one likes getting an email to review something on a Wednesday when the timestamp on the file was for the prior Friday...

In addition to providing error-free deliverables on time, make sure you are also engaging with your manager. If your manager reaches out to the team asking for thoughts or help on something, make sure you reply! Even if you think other people will respond with the same thoughts, reply anyway! If you have a meeting with your manager, don't just respond with 'yes' or 'no'. Ask questions. Provide your thoughts (if you are in disagreement, let your manager know and provide your reasoning in a proactive way!). When a manager is looking for their right hand man or woman, they're looking for someone to count on across the board - especially someone they can rely on for their insights, whether they are in agreement or not (just don't be too negative!).

Summer is usually a slower time of year. Use this time to better understand processes and see how you can improve them to make them more efficient. A lot of times, if you ask why something is done the way it currently is, the response will be "it's always been done that way." Don't take that as an answer! Especially if your company has started using new technologies since the creation of the process that could potentially reduce processing time and increase efficiency. 

Focus on processes that take a lot of time. Is there a monthly or quarterly project that is really manual in nature, taking 10+ hours? Is there a way to automate the process to reduce the time to 5 hours? Even if you can't code, bring up your idea to your manager and see if you could team up with one of the experienced programmers on your team to implement your proposed solution. As long as your not busy with regular with, the manager will most likely be open to improving the process!

This is especially important if you are relatively new to the group - a benefit of coming in as an "outsider" is being able to bring in a different perspective. If others on the team have been working on a project for a while, they might not be able think of improvements as easily as a newcomer with outside experience.

Forward thinking plays a huge role in career advancement. Developing ideas to drive efficiencies and creating better processes is a step in the right direction!

If you're taking actuarial exams, chances are there will be an area on the performance review relating to exams and professional development. If for any reason, you don't think you will be able to sit for or pass an actuarial exam during your performance review period, check with your manager to see if your company will sponsor any other exams, such as CPCU or IDMA exams. 

I wouldn't recommend specifically skipping an actuarial exam to take a different type of exam, but if you have a month or two between studying for actuarial exams, you could easily take some of that time to study for a different exam. For example, CPCU exams can help you build on your insurance knowledge, provide a break from the intense studying for actuarial exams, and still allow you to continue your professional development. After studying for actuarial exams, a lot of the other insurance exams will be much easier and won’t require as much studying to pass. 

While it's ideal to pass actuarial exams in a timely manner, reaching out to your manager regarding alternative exams when you're stuck on an actuarial exam will show that you are proactive about your professional development. If another type of exam will count toward professional development, it can also help relieve some of the stress from failing the actuarial exam. It can also help boost your confidence so you'll be in a positive mindset for your next actuarial exam!

If your company’s review process requires a self evaluation or write up on what you’ve done the prior year, how do you remember it all? A year is a long time and it’s easy to forget some of the minor accomplishments you’ve had. Early last year, I stumbled across an article providing excellent advice for capturing your accomplishments - each Friday, take a few minutes at the end of the day and capture your biggest accomplishment for that week in a spreadsheet (at the end of the year you would have close to 52 accomplishments listed).

Sometimes, the accomplishments may be small, like learning how to create a macro in VBA. Other accomplishments may be a successful deployment of a tool/model you’ve been working on for months. No accomplishment is too small for this list and when it comes time for your self-evaluation at the end of the year, you will have a large list to choose from instead of trying to remember everything off the top of your head!

​If you are lucky enough to work for a company that doesn’t require self evaluations, this is still a good habit to have since it can provide perspective on your career and also give you some talking tips when you run into someone from senior management!

Have any questions on the topics in this article? Looking to get advice on your current situation? I'm always open to chatting - send me an email or message me on LinkedIn!

How do you plan to close out the year strong? Comment below!

If you're an actuary, you probably love data. Or studying. Or days off for studying. Or some of the above. And whether you love data or not, you work with it daily and most likely perform analyses or create models. As technology becomes smarter and faster, companies are finding more ways to track information and collect data. This influx of additional data is great for building models and testing assumptions, but can at times make other analyses more complex and complicated. 

Excel is an actuary's best friend, but sometimes even excel can't handle the data if there's too much of it (I used to get the "not enough memory" error way too many times)! There are also quite a few limitations if you are only using excel to review and analyze your data. Based on my experience:

• Pivot Tables and Conditional Formatting are okay for reviewing data, but you can't compare multiple dimensions at once. 
• Filtering and flagging data only goes so far - in many cases you are still scrolling through data reviewing other attributes. 
• You don't get a good overview of your data in excel - it's important to know your population and it's not easy to get an all encompassing overview.  

So let’s talk about data visualization. Sure, data visualization may not be necessary in some cases, but I hope by the end of this post, if you’re someone who thinks “why visualize data when I can easily perform my analysis in excel” that you may have more of an interest on how data visualization can enhance your work. Or better yet, maybe you'll get inspired and develop a proof of concept to show your boss in order to bring in a data visualization tool! Keep reading for five examples of how data visualization can enhance your work as an actuary!

No matter what type of work you do as an actuary, there may be times where you will need to review data quality to make sure the data is expected. Or maybe you need to check the outcome of a model to see what the data looks like. Typically, a lot of this review is done in excel and results in scrolling through rows and rows of data or analyzing pivot tables. There's only so much you can see in a table - this is why when you're reviewing loss development triangles, it's usually best to use the red/yellow/green conditional formatting. Using a visualization tool, such as Tableau or Power BI can help you quickly draw insights and identify the data points you should focus on.

Example: Suppose you need to review claim amounts and premium amounts for a specific period for personal auto policies. Maybe you also care about the deductible amount and age of the policyholders. You'd most likely use a pivot table to review this information, but you could miss the big picture. If you use a visualization tool, you'd be able to plot a scatterplot with claim amount and premium amount on the axis, with each point's size based on the deductible amount and color based on age or an age bucket.

One of the main reasons I love visualizing data is because of the versatility of reviewing multiple dimensions of data at once. It can save a lot of time and help you focus on the most important information!

If you're exploring attributes affecting a pricing or reserving model or doing data quality on specific sets of data, it may be more efficient to use data visualizations to being your review process so you know which characteristics of the data to focus on. 

Example: You may be in a situation where you need to analyze claims for a specific line of business and find patterns for specific attributes of data. Are there specific zip codes that are typically reporting more damage on vehicles? Could the age or number of drivers on a policy be impacting this uptick? A visualization tool can help you explore multiple characteristics on one dashboard so you can see how they interact with one another. Once you know which characteristics you want to focus on, you can finalize your dashboard and any time you have new data you want to review, it's just a quick upload with minimal set-up. 

Data visualizations allow for a lot of versatility when it comes to comparing data, especially year over year comparisons. If you're doing data quality, you may have one set threshold for all of the data when it may make more sense looking at different thresholds for each state. This would add a lot more time to a review in excel, but using data visualization, these thresholds, when used with filters, would make the process more efficient and accurate.

It's also really easy to add in new calculations in Tableau or Power BI once the source data has been added - so if you're in the middle of creating a dashboard and want to see a new combination of data or bucket the data, you can easily do so in the visualization software.

Example: There may be a time where you need to compare data year over year to make sure different groupings of data remain consistent. Maybe you are looking at the loss ratio or a variety of other ratios. Depending on your dataset, there are a variety of ways you could visualize year over year data to compare, from bar charts to scatterplots to heatmaps. You could even use side by side box and whisker plots to see how the population of data has changed year over year.

​When using data visualizations to filter and compare data, the possibilities are endless, as well as the insights that can be drawn from the data. Data visualizations can also make your comparisons and data checks more effective! Just another reason I think data visualization is a great alternative!

There may be some situations where you want to see what your data looks like without certain subsets of data. There isn't an easy way to do this in excel. You could create a VBA macro that could exclude certain records with a click of a button, but why go through all of that trouble when you could do the same thing using visualization software and get a better overview of how different metrics change when excluding data?

Example: If you are interested in how specific lines of business are trending over time and you want to identify and exclude outliers causing large shifts, you could easily do this using visualization tools. With all of the additional features in tableau, you can also have visuals interact where you'd be able to hover over a bar in one chart which could highlight all of the data making up that specific bar in a different chart. 

Depending on the work you do, you may find a lot of relationships in your data which you must use to make assumptions, create models or test for data quality. There may also be processes in place for you to adequately review these relationships. However, when done the right way, data visualizations and interactions between visuals can show you additional information in seconds that may take hours to find in excel. Interactive dashboards can also help you get to the problem areas of your data and see the makeup of those problem areas with quick drill-down features. 

Example: When reviewing certain relationships, such as a loss ratio, you may see that a specific state stands out and you want to drill down to find the line of business causing the high loss ratio. You also want to see if it is one policy driving the loss ratio or many and if they have any other similar characteristics. In excel, you might be able to set specific thresholds and filter on these thresholds to find that data, but you could be missing some other important information. Maybe there is an issue with a specific product across the board, but you only found one point of data above the set threshold, so you let it go. Using a dashboard with multiple visualizations, allowing you to drill-down to the data could quickly alert you to these patterns without missing any specifics due to set thresholds.

I've found the drill-down capabilities of Tableau and Power BI to be very useful in identifying specific areas of data to focus on. It is a lot quicker to find these data points using a variety of visuals than it is to find these relationships in excel. 

I have experience using both Tableau and Microsoft Power BI, but there are also plenty of other data visualization tools out there, too. Check out the articles below for more information!

​If you are interested in applying data visualizations to your actuarial work, I'd be happy to speak more  - just send me a message on LinkedIn use the contact form on this site!

Related Articles:
The 38 Best Tools for Data Visualization 
Tableau vs Power BI: Comparing Pros and Cons

The last few months have been strange and refreshing at the same time. This is the first time in over two years that I wasn't sitting for a CAS exam during this time. I was able to spend some quality time binge watching a few shows on Netflix without worrying about whether or not I was on track for studying. I was able to randomly decide to go for a walk whenever the weather was nice without having a set time or destination. I've been able to go out to happy hours. The list goes on. 

At the same time, thinking back over the last few years, I can't remember anything I did that made me prouder or gave me the same satisfaction that passing an actuarial exam did. On more than one occasion, I remember holding back tears of joy as I was sitting at Prometric going through the check-out process after the exam. And I have to say that's the one thing I do miss about the exams - that rewarding feeling at the end, knowing that all of the hard work and sacrifices paid off.  

Regardless of how your next exam sitting goes, it should be a time of reflection. Actuarial exams are a process and sometimes it's so easy to get caught up in the process instead of taking on each exam individually. 

If you pass your last preliminary exam or pass an exam granting you the ACAS/ASA designation, consider taking an exam sitting off. Enjoy the years of hard work you've put in and allow yourself a chance to recharge. "Bottle up" that feeling you have when you find out you pass and use that to keep you moving forward. 

If you don't pass your next exam, take some time to reflect on it. Was it the first time you failed the exam? Have you sat for it multiple times without passing? There are different reasons for failing and it's important to figure out why you're failing. If it's your study habits, there are solutions for that (read below for more info!). If you aren't enjoying the material, making it hard for you to retain the information, you'll need to find a way to make it interesting. Or maybe you've reached the point that deep down you don't care anymore, but you don't want to quite because you're "too invested".

If you take on each exam individually, you're never too invested and there's always time to reflect and change your future path. Failing an exam isn't an end all be all - it's a chance to look inside yourself and potentially make a change that will lead to passing your next exam or finding new opportunities outside of actuarial work. It's a win-win!

Back when I was studying for exams, I spent way too much time googling effective ways to study for and pass actuarial exams. I never really found anything too useful. This May, Actuarial Exam Tactics: Learn More, Study Less is being released by two young actuaries from Drake University. Both Roy Ju, FSA and Mike Jennings, ASA are younger than 25 and have a lot of great tips to share. Roy became the youngest person to ever receive the FSA designation in 2015 at the age of 20, so he definitely has a lot to share on how to study efficiently to pass more and fail less!

If you're not interested in the book, you may want to take a study break to read some articles written by these guys and learn why Roy swears by a meal of pancakes and cereal the night before an exam!!

ENTER THE GIVEAWAY!

Whether you pass your upcoming exam or fall short, make sure to reserve a copy of their book - it's bound to give you some great advice for future exams! There is also a book giveaway and contest surrounding this book release! Enter for a chance to win a free copy of Actuarial Exam Tactics: Learn More, Study Less, an ACTEX Study Manual and Flashcards for an exam of your choice, or an ACTEXeLearning Webinar. The giveaway ends May 15th and winners will be announced May 16th. 

After putting hours of work into creating the "perfect" resume, you hear back from one of your potential employers - they want you to come in for an interview! Congrats! 

At this point, the potential employer likes what they see - if you had no shot, they wouldn't be calling you in for an interview! Now, it's up to you to make a great impression during the interview to land the job. 

While this post is focused on how to stand out in an actuarial interview, the same can go for many other types of interviews, too. Follow the tips in this post in order to go above and beyond so you can have a competitive edge in your interview!

Do not EVER go into an interview without researching the position and company further! Most importantly, you do not want to talk about passing SOA exams when the company you are interviewing with is a property & casualty insurance company! This happens! Don't let it happen to you - make sure you know before going into the interview. 

You should at least know the basics - know what industry the company operates in, lines of business, and other basics. The company website, job posting and a basic google search can give you the information you need about the company.

Do some digging! Can you find any recent news articles featuring the company or the business unit with the job posting? The company website and social media for the company can help you find this relevant information. In both of my full-time positions since graduating, I brought up news articles in the interviews. It's important to do your due diligence and to make sure you can show what you know at the appropriate times.

​For example, if you find an article saying the business unit recently won an award for innovation, don't just blurt it out! Find a way to naturally bring it up in conversation or create a question based around it - "I saw this business unit won an award this last year for innovation regarding XYZ - I would love to hear more on how your team is able to continue innovating and staying competitive in the market." You may also find a new product or service the hiring business unit is offering - leverage that information in your interview to show you are interested in the work the group is currently doing and show you are aware of at least one of the things they are working on. 

Anything on your resume is fair game. Make sure you can speak to anything listed on your resume - you don't want to be caught off guard by a question. At this point, once you're called in for an interview - it's not in your best interest to send a revised resume with information omitted. If it's been a while since submitting your resume and the interview, feel free to send a revised resume with more recent information, but still be prepared to answer to any of the information from the original resume you submitted.

If you have a few years of experience, it's possible you may not remember a lot from something you listed on your resume from your first year. Make sure you are able to put together a few sentences to discuss those points since they won't be as fresh in your mind. 

For your technical skills, take quick crash courses on the basics and applications for the skills. For example, if you list SAS, SQL and R on your resume and you are most familiar with R but have basic experience using SAS and SQL, spend a few hours learning about the basics of SAS and SQL and how they are applied. Find out what the necessary building blocks are to create code and try to find some examples of applications in the insurance industry.

This could be useful for some potential questions you may be asked in an interview and some of your answers. Instead of just saying you know the basics of SQL, you could say you know how to use joins to combine data or pull from multiple databases using the same criteria. Make sure you are familiar with the different types of joins and can elaborate on any of your answers if necessary. If you are familiar with the concepts and can walk through your reasoning on how you would perform a process in any of the programs (VBA, R, SAS, SQL, etc.), this is gold for the interview!

Make sure you know what the job posting is asking for in terms of requirements and the job description. If you are applying to multiple jobs at once, it helps to keep a spreadsheet or another method to keep track of job postings you are applying for. The last thing you want to do is ask the person who called or emailed you to remind you of what position you applied for! 

Going into the interview, you should have an understanding of the skills or experience the hiring manager is looking for, so make sure you know the areas of your resume to highlight to show that you are a qualified candidate.

Perform a full integration between the job posting and your resume. Create a table in Excel or Word and add each point from the job posting on the left and anything that is relevant from your resume on the right. If you do not have an experience that fully correlates with one of the points, find a skill you have that could help you perform that duty. 

Once you've done this, you know what you should focus on from your resume when you are preparing for the interview. You don't want to sound too rehearsed, but there's nothing wrong with saying something along the lines of, "When I saw this job posting, I was really excited to see XYZ in the job description. In my current role, I've not only had the opportunity to work on a similar project/process, but I've been able to refine the process through my knowledge of ABC. I'd be really excited to work through this process on this team and see if there are ways to make it more efficient!". You wouldn't want to do this for every point in the job description, but doing this for a couple of points can show you are really interested in the position and have ideas you can bring to the team to improve workflows.

Don't ever go into an interview without any questions! You also don't want to go in with a limited set of questions that are answered throughout the interview. The questions you ask at the end of an interview are 100% in your control - don't be the person who answers, "No, I think you answered all of the questions I have at the moment." You also don't want to be put on the spot scrambling for questions to ask. 

If you have at least five questions to ask going into an interview, you should be set. There are also tons of articles out there that can help you out if you're stuck. This Actuarial Outpost thread has a couple of good ideas... but there are a few horrible ones mixed in, so just don't be that guy/girl that tries to fit "body bag" into the interview somewhere. This is another good AO thread with slightly less sarcasm (I mean, the second comment in the first thread listed was already sarcastic, so I guess can't get much more sarcastic than that) and more comments. 

For bigger companies, it's pretty easy to find information on company culture from sites like Glassdoor. You can also find one or two people to reach out to on Linkedin to get a more candid view on the company, work, etc. Typically, if you are pleasant when you are reaching out and mindful of their time, people who work at the company will get back to you and be happy to answer your questions and tell you more about the company culture. In some cases, this may be the better route to really find out about the company culture instead of asking your interviewer.

Since you can find out about the company culture elsewhere, use the time for questions to ask thoughtful questions about the department and position. Don't be boring and ask the standard "what does the career path look like for someone who starts in this position" or "what type of skills would make a future candidate successful". Instead, set yourself apart by asking thoughtful questions such as "what are some of the metrics used to evaluate the results of this team in terms of annual and longterm goals" or "how does the work of this team affect the bottom line". Don't be afraid to ask follow up questions, too. You may want to follow up one of the questions by asking whether or not the team is on track to meet their goals and the impact someone coming in to fill this position could have on meeting these goals. If you are confident enough to run with it and the conversation is going well, you may even be able to tie in some of your skills to show you are quick on your feet and you'd be able to work through problems and develop solutions on the job.

This shouldn't come as a surprise - practice is essential to acing an interview! If you are still in university, check to see if you can sign up for a mock interview at your career services center. If you aren't able to practice interviewing with another person, at least make sure you are speaking out loud. You could even record yourself answering questions and see if what you are saying is making sense or if you unknowingly use filler words to break a silence or end a statement. This is even more important if English isn't your first language.

You want to make sure you are getting your points across in a concise manner. Don't ramble, but at the same time, you don't want to leave out important information. You also don't want to practice in a way that will make you sound too rehearsed in an interview. The point of practicing is making sure you are able to speak on all of the points you need to cover without rambling or using filler words.

It's the easiest to ramble when an interview asks the "tell me about yourself question" or "why are you here". The Muse has a short video to help you answer this question in a clear and concise manner. This is a gimme question - I've been asked this question on almost all of my interviews, so make sure you have a solid answer!

This list of actuarial interview questions is a pretty comprehensive list and a great start to practicing potential interview questions. Using these questions, along with the list you made based on the job description and resume, practice answering these questions using the experience and skills that will clearly display the traits the interviewer is looking for. Try to keep each answer to only a few sentences. So for example, if the interviewer were to ask you for a time you went above and beyond, you would want to make sure to use an example that is relatable to a point in the job description. 

With some creativity, you should be able to tie back a lot of your experiences and skills to what the interviewer is looking for in a candidate based on the job description. Practicing out loud will help you refine your answers and help you work through how to display your answers in a way that will make you irresistible to your potential employer!

If you have any experiences you are really passionate about, volunteer work for example, practice how you would broach that subject and how you can relate that to the skills the interviewer is looking for. This is important because in most cases, these extracurriculars are experiences you are passionate about and the passion can come off as enthusiasm while also making you (and even the interviewer) more comfortable. 

Once you land an actuarial role, you're typically set for life, especially if you keep passing exams to become an ASA/ACAS/FSA/FCAS and continue learning and developing your actuarial skills. The actuarial designation, along with a few years of actuarial experience, makes a huge difference - every day, I see multiple roles pop up in my LinkedIn feed looking for actuaries with 5+ years of experience and at least ASA/ACAS.

All you have to do to one day land that coveted role is pass a few exams (I may have a pretty loose definition of 'few') and land an entry-level actuarial role to begin your journey. Easy right?! Not in an oversaturated entry-level actuarial job market! Many recruiters won't work with entry-level candidates for this reason, so it's even more important to make sure you are doing everything you can to stand out from other actuarial candidates. 

The first step toward standing out is having a great resume that is able to showcase your qualifications while also being easy to follow and aesthetically pleasing (if you haven't yet, check out my blog post with some great tips for actuarial resumes!).The second step toward standing out is using your resume to differentiate yourself from other candidates. This is really important since a lot of candidates have similar qualifications!

If you have at least one exam passed, a couple of solid technical skills (definitely excel and then some experience using SAS, SQL, R, or VBA), a decent GPA (3.0+), a well-formatted resume with some work experience (doesn't need to be actuarial) and differentiating experiences, you can get an entry-level actuarial interview. 

Your resume does not need to scream 'MATH' in order to get you an entry-level actuarial interview. In fact, I advise against everything on your resume being math/stats/actuarial related - it may be impressive, but it's boring! Make sure your qualifications are on your resume and then include some of your unique experiences to help showcase other important skills such as communication skills, critical thinking, passion, leadership and teamwork. I'll provide some example experiences that can showcase these skills, but of course, this is not an exhaustive list! 

For education related experiences, it's probably best to keep those under 'Education'. Extracurriculars can probably go into a 'Leadership Experience' section or 'Volunteer Experience' section. If you did an independent project, you might want to add it under 'Education' or 'Skills & Interests'. For some differentiating experiences, try to come up with 2-3 bullets that show how the experience demonstrates that you possess some of the five skills below. There are some interests/hobbies that may be better being grouped with a couple of other interests on one line. For example, Mountain Climbing is an experience that could either be two bullets showing important qualities or part of a list. If you are in a mountain climbing club and travel regularly with others to certain areas for intense climbs, you could incorporate that into two bullets to show a variety of skills:

• Train with team members weekly for bi-monthly rock climbing trips of varying difficulty. (Passion)
• Strategically climb peaks while quickly evaluating the safest path to the top, assisting team members as necessary. (Critical Thinking, Teamwork)

If you enjoy mountain climbing but don't do it often, it should go on an interest line with 3-4 other interests (Interests: Mountain Climbing, Traveling, Photography, Blogging). For the record, I know nothing about mountain climbing. 

If you had two identical resumes, with the only difference being Mountain Climbing Club on one versus Math Club on the other, and could only interview one person, who would you choose? Interviewers are in this position all the time - make it an easy choice for them to choose your resume! 

Having the right communication skills are SO important in an entry-level position, especially if you are applying for a role in a division that works closely with clients or employees in different divisions, such as underwriting or claims. It's important to make sure someone looking at your resume can clearly see you have the communication skills they are looking for. Here are some ways you can differentiate yourself while showing you have this important skill:

• Volunteer for community outreach at your favorite non-profit organization
• Become an events coordinator/secretary for a college organization you are passionate about
• Cold-call to raise money for your college/non-profit organization (this helped my verbal communication skills tremendously!)
• Participate in college case competitions (these will be helpful if you want to go into actuarial consulting) 
• Enroll in a writing/communication elective course or major in a communications-related field
• Start your own blog about something you are passionate about (keep it professional, though!)
• Start your own business (be careful with this, you want to make sure it's not seen as a conflict of interest!)

As an actuary, you will need to be a good problem solver and able to quickly think through solutions or other work-related tasks. It's important to show you are able to think quickly on your feet and pick things up on the fly - there is a lot of on the job learning as an actuary! There are a lot of ways you can show your critical thinking skills outside of the math bubble:

• Study abroad or volunteer abroad (bonus points if you learn a foreign language)
• Play a musical instrument
• Attend Improv/theatre classes
• Blog (specifically if your are blogging about different technical skills)
• Play sports or other physical activities that require you to think on your feet
• Develop your own model to predict game outcomes for fantasy sports (or regular sports)

Leadership comes in all different forms - you can show leadership through a variety of different experiences. Sometimes, leadership can be shown just by pursuing a hobby or activity you are interested in. For example, if you are really passionate about animals and begin volunteering at an animal shelter and then pick up a role where you are posting on social media to help get animals adopted or community outreach, that definitely shows leadership. Here are some other examples:

• You can mentor underclassmen or high school students
• Join the board of a college organization or get involved in committees
• Take on and lead an independent project (kaggle competitions are pretty cool and a good way to gain a better understanding of data science)
• Become a captain of an intramural sports team 
• Lead a volunteer project 

Being able to work well with others on a team is an important skill to have as you enter the job force. Employers want a team player - someone who can work on projects with others and help  out when necessary without any issue. A lot of the activities listed above can also show you are able to work well with others on a team. Here are a few more:

• ​Join a team to compete in a college competition - many colleges have competitions throughout the year across a variety of interests
• If you loved playing a sport in high school, continue playing in college - you could play for the college, intramural or join a local recreational sports team
• If you are part of a board or committee, you can also show you work well on a team, especially if you are working with others to put processes together or create events

A lot of students make the mistake of thinking that everything they do in college should reflect that they want to be an actuary - math related major, math related clubs, math related work experience, etc. That's not true at all! Remember, there's more to work than just work - there are going to be happy hours where you need to interact with other human beings, so if you have interests you pursue outside of the realm of math, it will make you much more interesting to your fellow coworkers and make for great relationships with those you work with. This list is truly endless, but here are some ideas to consider:

• Don't be afraid to pursue a major outside of math/actuarial science if you have another subject you are passionate about (passing the first couple of actuarial exams will prove you are good at math) or double major in a math related course and a non-math related course
• Volunteer/fundraise for a cause you are passionate about
• Become involved and active in an organization regularly

Anything you do outside of studying for exams and math-related classes/organizations/work can show you have passions and interests outside of your career which will help differentiate you from other candidates. This will also have a great impact during your interview since you will be able to spend a few minutes talking about something you do that you are really passionate about!

I recently came across John Rohn's quote, "You are the average of the five people you spend the most time with.” It's an interesting quote, bound to make you think about your closest friends or colleagues, and many people seem to have their thoughts on whether or not that quote is actually true.

How does this quote relate to success and mentoring? What if the quote was changed to "Your success is the average of the success of your five most valuable mentors." Alright, you're probably rolling your eyes at this revised quote. But what if this new quote was true? Do you have five mentors? Do you think your success can be tied to them? Or do you think your success is completely independent of others?

Success can be defined differently for everyone and each individual has their own path to success. Very few paths are the same. Based on personal experience, I believe every aspiring actuary should have at least five mentors with the traits below. If you're scoffing at five, here's my definition of mentorship (thanks wikipedia!):  

​Surround yourself with the five ideal mentors below and you will be well on your way toward a successful (actuarial) career!

By committing yourself to an actuarial career, you are sentencing yourself to years of studying. Sure, you can go at it alone (I struggled with Exam P/1 because I didn't bother reaching out to anyone for advice), but why choose to do that when there are so many people who have gotten through these exams? Find someone who is a couple of exams ahead of you and passing them at a quick pace. Ask them how they are doing it. Do they have a specific study schedule they stick to? Do they have a specific order of studying? Do they have any tips and tricks for the exam you're about to start studying for? 

Build connections with those ahead of you in the exams and reach out to them every so often. Congratulate them when they pass an exam. Ask them what the exam was like and their recommendations. Usually, people are so happy when they pass exams that they would love to share any information they can. 

Having this type of mentor throughout your exam progress is important - especially when you feel like you are up against a roadblock. If you've failed an exam multiple times, reach out to your mentor and let them know. Let them know how you are studying and if they have any suggestions. If they do provide advice or thoughts, make sure you thank them once you pass the exam. It's a great feeling on both sides - especially when someone knows their advice helped someone else through a problem!

Starting a new job is overwhelming. You're trying to get used to a new environment and new people while also juggling your work. It is so important to develop a good relationship with someone more senior on the team, especially if they are known for their good work, early on. Chances are, you are going to have someone walking you through certain projects or reviewing your work. Don't be afraid to let that relationship morph into something more than just project walk-throughs or reviews. 

Ask that person if they want to grab coffee. Show your interest in their work and what they've accomplished. Find out what they enjoy most about the work they do and ask how they got to where they are. Do they have any tools they can provide you to get you up to speed with some work? Do they have any time-saving tips or tricks?

When I first started working, I thought I was pretty good at excel. When I would go over to a co-worker's desk, I was amazed at how fast he was able to navigate through excel workbooks and his use of quick formulas and shortcuts to speed up processes. I would make him slow down and walk me through the steps he would go through so I could use those same shortcuts. I was able to save hours of work just based on this new knowledge. 

So many times, people are too afraid or unwilling to reach out and ask others how to do things if they are not directly working with that person on a project. This is why it's important to develop relationships with senior staff early on so these conversations can occur naturally as you take on more projects. In turn, you will become more knowledgeable and more efficient, leading to success!

The best managers are those who can be both a manager and a mentor. Your manager has the ability to distribute and assign projects - both the good projects and not so good projects. Having an open channel of communication with your manager can help you better understand your strengths and areas for improvement and in turn give your manager an idea of the types of projects you enjoy. 

If you're unhappy with the majority of the work you are doing and wish you were working on more of the projects others on your team are working on, you need to be able to have that conversation with your manager. If you are afraid or feel that you may not be able to have that discussion, this should be a red flag. Your manager is vital to your success and if you are not happy with most of the work you are doing, it could quickly lead to burnout and detract from your success. 

There are a lot of great managers that can quickly assess your strengths after working on a few projects and continue to give you increasingly difficult projects that will be both challenging and rewarding, helping you continue to grow and be successful. These managers can pinpoint your strengths and the work you enjoy doing without even having a discussion about it. You'll find throughout your career, you will experience different types of managers - all of which could be valuable mentors - but some may need more guidance on your strengths and what you enjoy. 

In many cases, your manager will not be a mindreader. If you want feedback on your work and areas needing improvement, you will need to ask. If you want to be successful, this shouldn't wait until your annual performance review - this discussion should happen on a regular basis. If you don't like the projects you are currently working on, ask your manager what areas you need to improve on in order to be staffed on the projects that interest you. 

These discussions may feel unnatural and uncomfortable at first, but having them can make a huge difference in both your relationship with your manager and your work performance - in some cases, bringing your performance from meets expectations to exceeds expectations!

There are so many great companies for actuaries out there - both insurance companies and non-insurance companies. In college, you may have your heart set on getting a job at a specific company, but fall short of receiving an offer. You get an offer at another company, but you would still love to work at your dream company. 

Linkedin connections are overlooked mentors. The majority of messages I've received on Linkedin have mainly revolved around an open position at my company or asking if there is an open position. A lot of times, I will end up ignoring these messages because I'm busy or I don't feel comfortable referring someone I don't know. However, the messages I do reply to are those asking for advice or asking about my past experiences. 

If you find a couple of connections at your dream company whose backgrounds you are genuinely interested in, reach out to them. They might be a level ahead of you with a couple more exams passed. Maybe they also went to your alma mater and were a couple of years ahead. Find some common ground and introduce yourself.

Form a relationship where you are connecting to chat or message every month or every other month. Make sure to have a few questions to create a dialogue each time you reach out. Find out about the types of projects they are working on, the types of skills they need to complete the projects, or any growth areas in their division. Let them know a little about yourself and what you are working on. You can say you would love to work at their company, but don't flat out ask them to refer you or direct your to an HR contact until you've developed a solid relationship.

Over time, as your relationship grows, this informal mentor would be able to submit you as a quality referral to their company without feeling like they know nothing about you. This is way better than cold emailing someone about a job because not only could regular contact with this person lead to a referral, but they could also give you solid advice that could help you advance your career in other ways, too. 

Some colleges may have actuarial organizations with mentorship opportunities . If you're part of an actuarial organization without a mentorship program - create one! College is the best time to start having these meaningful connections to get ahead of the game and become more informed on the exam process and career in general. Mentoring doesn't have to stop at graduation!

Stay connected with some of the top performers from your actuarial program after graduating - they can give you a lot of great work tips and give you an idea of what to expect as you start your career. If you are still in the same city after graduation, keep in contact with them and try to meet up a couple times a year. Share your experiences with each other. Ask them if they have any advice on passing exams. Ask them about the work they do. 

In some cases, you may feel more comfortable reaching out to someone who you knew in college when you have any serious issues or self doubts. Those you graduated with most likely know how hard you worked to get where you are and could be the best at providing the most relevant wisdom or guidance at a personal level.
​

​For the last two and a half years, I thought I had my career mapped out - keep passing actuarial exams and keep moving up toward senior management. An actuarial career is a perfect example of 'climbing the ladder' in multiple ways, from passing the exams to the career path. Once you're on the path toward becoming an actuary, it's a relatively safe, known path. I decided to major in actuarial science five years ago, so it was a difficult decision veering off course.

Prior to reading Lean In, there were very few instances where I've seen people reference a career path as a jungle gym. After reading the chapter where Sheryl Sandberg compared her career path to a jungle gym, I felt a lot better about my decision to take my career in a different direction - I'm excited to climb the jungle gym! 

There were three driving factors in my decision to leave an actuarial career - actuarial exams, passion, and professional development. If you feel like you're in a similar situation where you aren't 100% committed to an actuarial career, I hope this post can provide some inspiration!  

After close to two years, I was still at 3/10 CAS exams passed. It would most likely be another 7-10 years until Fellow. After passing MFE, I fell into an exam rut. I tried everything - I found a nice study space outside of my apartment, I set daily phone alerts, I changed the background of my phone to 'keep calm and study hard' and I tried using snacks to reward my studying. After sitting for Exam S twice, I gave myself an ultimatum - if I didn't pass in October 2016, I would start looking at non-actuarial opportunities. I gave it my all - easily studying around 300 hours and I still couldn't pass. 

I can name around ten factors (some may call them excuses) that probably prevented me from passing. At the end of the day though, it came down to this - I would rather work all of those extra hours than study. That's huge - the whole point of passing these exams is to make the big bucks (I must've spent hours memorizing the D.W. Simpson salary charts a couple years ago) and still work 40-50 hours a week down the road. This is the selling point of an actuarial career - stable job, relatively low stress, forty hour work weeks and great money. All for the low price of 3000+ hours of studying!

For me, the major selling point of the actuarial career was the money - NYU wasn't cheap and student loans don't pay for themselves! It took me two and a half years, however, to realize I was paying for something I didn't need - the job market is booming and I don't mind stress or working long hours. I would rather work long, stressful hours than study for a significant portion of my life.

This brings me to my favorite internal struggles - "but you've already put in so much time and you've made so many sacrifices!" and "now people are going to think you're a quitter!"

I learned about Sunk Cost Fallacy in college - but in practice it's not an easy concept. It's taken me some time, but I finally decided even though I've spent hundreds of hours studying over the last few years for these exams, it's not worth the continued struggle. If I feel this way now, I can't imagine how I would feel five years down the road if I continued on the same path. I'm doing my 30-year-old self a favor right now! This is proof!

I also realized - no surprise here - actuarial exams are HARD! Lots of people stop taking these exams. It's not because they are quitters - it's because they are actively making a choice to pursue other interests! Also, for what it's worth, according to google, a quitter is a person who gives up easily or does not have the courage or determination to finish a task. So basically a quitter is someone who studied for Exam P for one day, took the exam, failed, then gave up on an actuarial career. If you've passed at least one actuarial exam, you've done something a vast majority of people in this world could not do - there's no way you could call yourself a quitter!

I also found myself considering whether I could be happier working in a different field or if I could have a larger impact in a different industry or role. I'm really passionate about data analytics - I'm constantly finding ways to analyze and improve the web traffic to this blog and run marketing campaigns for my resume review business. I like working with data visualizations and figuring out the meaning behind the data. While there are some actuarial positions that focus on data analytics, I decided I didn't want to fully limit myself to insurance.

If you're going to climb a jungle gym, you need to know when it's time to grab the next rung. It's important to let your passions help shape your career. If you're not feeling fulfilled in your line of work, it may be an important time to reevaluate your career and consider a change. If you are currently an actuarial analyst looking for a change, the opportunities outside an actuarial career are endless. Many roles require a lot of the same technical skills you've developed as an actuary and would provide new ways to apply your skills and give you an opportunity to learn more outside of the insurance industry. 

Professional development is key to having a successful career. If you are looking to move up into senior management, you have to have a lot of different skills across the board including negotiation skills, communication skills, an understanding of business programs and processes, and leadership skills, among many others. It's important to take a look at your long-term career goals and determine whether your current career path will provide you with the skills to meet your goals. If not, consider a change that will help you develop those skills.

If you find yourself working by yourself on many projects, you may want to find a role where you will be able to work closely with others to improve your communication skills. If you have only worked on one type of project, you may want to branch out to find opportunities where you are learning other business processes. 

When deciding to pursue new opportunities, I had to take into account my current skillset and strengths. Would becoming an actuary play to my strengths? Would I develop the business acumen and leadership skills necessary to one day lead an organization? It's definitely possible - there are actuarial positions out there that can develop these skills, especially for those working in consulting. However, for me personally, I determined there were other career opportunities available that better align with my strengths and skills.  

Insurance companies have a lot of data. Depending on the company and position, you may be working with millions of rows of data. When you're working with a lot of data, knowing how to program is key to speeding up processes. It's just not practical manipulating a million rows in excel - you'll end up waiting all day for excel to perform functions on millions of rows, especially if your computer isn't equipped with adequate computing power. As an entry-level actuarial analyst, your focus may be on how to manipulate the data to quickly get only the information useful to you. Going one step further, you may need to analyze a dataset based on multiple characteristics and find anomolies. You may find that some data is inconsistent and may require data cleansing. In some cases, a lot of behind the scenes data preparation will be necessary prior to creating a model or forecast. 

With that in mind, you can't go wrong in learning intermediate/advanced excel features, VBA, SQL or R during your winter break (or any break!). Below is a list of great resources to help you get started!

If you're a full-time student, you really can't go wrong spending $72.50 on this course. This course covers all of the technical skills actuaries should have including basic/intermediate excel, VBA, Access, SQL, and SAS. It also includes actuarial projects, too, so you are able to apply what you learn in each module. Access to this course is 12 months, so this is great if you're midway through senior year and want to get a jump start on your technical skills prior to starting full-time. After completing this course, you'll have all of the technical skills employers are looking for in their actuaries!

Chances are, you've had to use excel at one point or another for certain college courses. Even if you think you are already pretty good at excel, chances are there are some really great tips and features you're missing - especially tips and tricks that can save you a lot of time!

222 Excel Keyboard Shortcuts - This is definitely worthy of a hard copy - tons of time saving shortcuts, especially when it comes to selecting and making changes to data. 

20 Useful Excel Tricks - There's some overlap from the link above, but these excel tricks can also save a lot of time!

Excel Trick - Really great site with lots of excel advice and step-by-step guides on how to use different features, such as named ranges and other popular features. 

VBA (Visual Basic for Applications) is very useful, especially if the majority of your work is in excel. From the automation of pivot tables to using ActiveX scrolls, learning VBA can really help make your life easier and reduce the amount of manual work necessary to perform repetitive tasks. The following sites and courses are all free and allow you to learn at your own pace. 

Youtube Videos - If you learn better through visuals, I recommend checking out the following two Youtube channels - YourProgrammingNetwork and ExcelVbaIsFun. Both channels have a lot of positive reviews and comments and serve as great resources for learning how to program in VBA. 

Guide - If you prefer learning through written guides, this Excel VBA Programming site is a great resource with a lot of different sections to teach you VBA basics. 

Course - This free blackboard course is the perfect resource for anyone looking for a more structured course to learn VBA. 

SQL (Structured Query Language) is also an important programming language and many actuaries use this in their day-to-day roles. Some insurers may keep all of their premium and losses in separate tables for separate lines of business and may require analyses on specific types of policies based on a handful of fields.  
Knowing how to code in SQL can definitely help you pick up other programming languages, such as SAS. Unlike VBA, some SQL servers have slightly different syntax (i.e. MySQL vs PostgreSQL), so this is something to keep in mind when you're learning SQL. However, a strong foundation in any given syntax can be easily leveraged across the board. 

Guide - W3schools is hands down the best resource for learning SQL. There are a lot of paid courses out there, but this free guide covers everything you need to know to use SQL. 

Youtube Video - This hour long video is also a great resource for learning the basics and has a lot of positive feedback. 

R is becoming increasingly more common to find in actuarial work, mainly for its versatility and its open source nature. If you have a statistical analysis you need to perform, chances are you will find the right add-on you need in R. There are also other tools, such as Power BI, where you can actually code in R to create visuals. The possibilities truly are endless, making R a great addition to your technical skills! 

Guide - This guide can help answer any quick questions you have as you begin coding in R. 

Course - This free four-hour course is meant to give you a solid foundation in understanding the basics of R.