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I honestly have a lime green 30X IIS.
I don't bring it to work because it's hard to get work done when all of the ladies keep finding excuses to come to my office.
It's like 15 bucks (unless you get this sick lime green version for $80), just do it, the QOL improvements are worth it.
Go over this podcast
https://castbox.fm/vb/239279493
It becomes quite apparent that health insurance has very little to do with the broken system. It all starts with with service providers and other Healthcare associations.
No one will respect you if you don’t get the 3 X Victor 12082
I read that they've been incorrect something like once out of 35,000 times and the preliminary results said the person had failed and they ended up passing (it's never been the other way around, I don't think).
Not sure if other actuarial types agree, but I am fascinated by social science and behavioral economics/finance. In that vein:
"Thinking, Fast and Slow" by Daniel Kahneman
"Nudge" by Thaler and Sunstein
The "Freakonomics" books by Levitt and Dubner
"A Random Walk Down Wall Street" by Burton Malkiel
"Superforecasting" by Philip Tetlock
"The Signal and the Noise" by Nate Silver
"Dataclysm" by Christian Rudder
Nassim Nicholas Taleb (if you can get over how in love with himself he is)
Malcolm Gladwell
- Yes, 3.5 months is enough. Be diligent, make a study schedule, and stick to it. I highly recommend making flashcards on Anki (you can even to LaTeX on the cards!) for long-term memorization, because you'll want to remember a lot of it for MAS-II, probably.
- I can't judge this accurately, because a lot of the material was on C as well, which I eventually got a 9 on (after an initial botched attempt at a 0) -- loss distributions, MLEs, goodness-of-fit statistics...that is like 20% of the exam. Depending on how good your Linear Algebra course was, it will help or hinder your understanding of Markov Chains and the various different aspects of Regression, which is probably 40-50% of the exam. I'd put my experience as just a bit harder than C and MFE, so it should be harder than that for you.
P/FM kind of boiled down to "can you solve one of these 5 topics?" and MFE was a bit harder but was just "variations of black-scholes" (except for the stochastic calc part which I still don't get), whereas here you have a ton of different concepts that are just different enough that you don't want to derive stuff from first principles. Make lots of flashcards.
Good luck!
You said money isn't an issue but FYI you really don't need to spend money to learn sql or vba. Good tutorials can be found on the web for both and for free. I'm good with sql and great with vba and I learned everything from google.
W3schools.com is a great place to start for SQL. You can likely find something similar for VBA as well.
Sorry if the link doesn't work I'm on mobile.
The surveys here have a lot of breakdowns; P/C reinsurance is one of the slides.
You mean a Prezi? It's a specific presentation style that's like an advanced powerpoint. I don't know of anyone using that presentation software outside of college kids though.
It's the I only thing I could think of when you said "pressies"
I learned from w3 schools and haven't run into anything that I'm unfamiliar with and use it almost daily at work.
If you want some "real world" practice, download the MusicBrainz VM here and fire it up. Then its (I believe) psql musicbrainz at the command prompt.
Think of challenges you want. Find all the albums by a particular artist. Find the average track length from another. Find the artist name, album name and medium type for each artist.
Their schema is usually out of date, so you'll be a while doing just those few things, but it will certainly teach you a lot about table joins and select statements. If you have any questions, let me know, I'll be happy to help when I have time
I like Against the Gods. Not technical at all but goes through how historically risk, uncertainty, and insurance have been thought about through time.
Are you talking about the fantasyfeast comment, because that is spot-on. Insurance companies do make more profit by denying care to a certain extent. Of course regular check-ups can prevent larger problems that would cost more, but this denial applies more to major claims.
The government even provides a page on what to do if a claim is denied, https://www.healthcare.gov/appeal-insurance-company-decision/appeals/
Yes, but largely because the old ones went bankrupt. The whole "ickiness" factor doesn't help, though. NPR recently did a podcast on them as well: https://www.npr.org/2017/10/26/560152250/a-case-for-tontines-a-morbid-mix-of-retirement-plan-and-lottery
You can look into SRS systems like Anki:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Spaced_repetition
It's a system for creating long-term memory retention through increasingly spaced out repetition, kind of like lifting weights. You do a problem, do it again 2 weeks later, then again a month later, then again 6 months later, then a year later, etc...
Basically I never stopped studying after passing an exam, so by the time I finished CAS 9 I was still cumulatively studying the material for all 10 exams, although with much less time spent on the older exams.
Even from ERM actuaries specifically, I've generally heard that the benefit of getting FSA, CERA over just FSA is pretty much nil. There are virtually no positions that specifically ask for the CERA designation, and at least at my company, the financial incentive isn't nearly enough to make it worthwhile.
Sorry, but I have deleted the latex file from this post. I don't have the time to reformat everything, but here is the source that I modified. It should be relatively easy from that link to create your own.
I'm teaching myself Python through a manual, and cutting my algorithmic chops at Project Euler. It's going pretty well so far. I hope to learn some visual basic next then perhaps some database management like SQL.
One of my favorite statements about math is that 'if you can't solve a problem, it's because there is a simpler problem you don't understand.'
One recommendation is to consult multiple sources. If you don't understand a section in your primary manual, consult a second source (google, Finan, youtube, etc.). If you have ADAPT, start out with level 1-2 problems - once you can grind those out without issue, increase the level (slowly). For problems you have missed, schedule a time to retry them in a day or two after reviewing the solution. For spaced repetition as a learning method, check out the topic on wikipedia and consider using the software Anki: https://apps.ankiweb.net/
As for focus, create an effective study environment (no noise or distractions), and avoid burnout by spacing out your study sessions and giving yourself enough lead time. Cramming leads to burnout and willpower is a finite resource. Schedule study times and keep to the schedule. If you are having problems focusing generally, maybe take a look at your sleep, exercise, and diet habits. Have some fun on a regular basis.
These things work for me. YMMV.
I learned SQL in a computer science class. Taking a class at college or junior college might be helpful. Also, If you want to setup a MySQL server, try xammp. http://www.apachefriends.org/en/xampp.html
I got a Logitech webcam 10 years ago and it’s still going strong.
I don’t know if this is the exact model but it looks very similar: https://www.amazon.com/Logitech-C920x-Pro-HD-Webcam/dp/B085TFF7M1
I highly recommend this book to start building your intuition on how to create models. Specifically, latent variable models. https://www.amazon.com/Statistical-Sports-Models-Excel-Andrew/dp/1079013458
My apologies, I don't know how to edit the post so I can add the rest of the cat! Help!
Also, I want to emphasize that this is a SOLUTIONS MANUAL. It pairs to this book: I am a link to the book.
My work computer is a laptop, so I just use that as another monitor. This is the monitor I use at home for my work setup: https://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B07MKT1W65/ref=ppx_yo_dt_b_search_asin_title?ie=UTF8&psc=1
I really enjoy this galton board as a desk toy. Doesn't every actuary just want a visual way to explain the normal distribution?
A little calculator keychain or something would be cute
A rubics cube or some sort of fidget toy
Sudoku puzzle book
Chocolate [even better if it's like truffles or bites so that you can reward yourself after each chapter completed etc]
Waterbottle [could have a funny actuarial saying on it, I'm sure there's something on RedBubble]
If he studies on paper, then a nice notebook/notepad or pens [these are my favourite: https://www.amazon.ca/Pilot-Retractable-Premium-Roller-12-31002/dp/B00006JNJ8?th=1]
[I am an actuary but broadened it to be a little more mathy, plus things I would have enjoyed while studying]
Borat's spandex swimsuit. I got mine from here
Mix some pleasure with business
Nonlife Actuarial Models: Theory, Methods and Evaluation (International Series on Actuarial Science) https://www.amazon.com/dp/0521764653/ref=cm_sw_r_apan_glt_i_CCCND2HV65525GK3MAXY
Introductory Time Series with R (Use R!) https://www.amazon.com/dp/0387886974/ref=cm_sw_r_apan_glt_i_QFT6AB1N2T4HPPGKEFXZ
I switched to using Anki. Even if you don’t want to use the spaced repetition algorithm you can create custom filters to cram etc. You can easily copy and paste screen shots of the cards.
The app can be found here: https://apps.ankiweb.net/
I'd recommend perusing the manual for how Anki works and suspending any cards you find are unecessary or repetitive. For example: Discrete and continuous moments are analogous and if you know one you basically know the other, and product moments are not so important for Exam P but are important for motivating covariance and related concepts.
This was my preferred source as a beginner. VBA for Modelers: Developing Decision Support Systems with Microsoft Office Excel https://www.amazon.com/dp/1285869613/ref=cm_sw_r_cp_api_glt_fabc_Z206FAW7BVTC3HC7MPPX
The actual intro that you need to get up and running is pretty succinct and written IMO. The rest of the book is examples you can reference as needed.
Dr. Grip Ballpoint. The larger grip helped whenever my hands cramped up from writing too much with a narrower writing utensil. Ink doesn't smear.
https://www.amazon.com/Pilot-FullBlack-Retractable-Medium-36193/dp/B005U99Z2K
I used this study guide that you can get on Amazon for $50. Much cheaper option, but you won't get the same amount of study questions or detailed explanations that you would with a more expensive option. So if you're looking to do it on a budget, it's something to consider.
u/rowactuary covered the main points.
> -What sort of personal projects would companies look for? I think my projects helped me land a job in engineering, so any ideas would be welcome.
Assuming you can talk intelligently about how awesome you are, focus on exams.
> -Outside of studying for exams and learning R, are there any books or resources that are worth going over before applying for jobs?
"Influence: The Psychology of Persuasion" by Robert B. Cialdini
I’ve always liked technology and programming. My spouse opened a preschool. I decided to install the cameras, NVR and VOIP phone system myself. I was also using Plex at home. I bought a couple used servers off eBay to do this. That started the homelab. Linux is used as the operating system for all server tasks. I started running Linux for my main PC too. That led me to /r/unixporn. And always had mechanical keyboards. Just recently decided to see what else was out there and there is quite a niche community around custom keyboards.
Basically, I’m just curious.
Spend time with wife and kids, learn python and machine learning, learn Linux and customize my window manager (/r/unixporn), maintain my servers (/r/homelab), (home automation, make custom keyboards (/r/MechanicalKeyboards), woodworking. There’s more I want to do.
All the other suggestions I’m seeing are great. One other thing I’ll throw out there is a portable monitor.
If you always want to work from one desk in your home office it won’t matter. But if you periodically work from other locations (other rooms, on a patio/balcony, coffee shop, traveling, whatever) it allows you to still live that dual monitor life.
https://www.amazon.com/dp/B07YX5NKK2?ref=ppx_pop_mob_ap_share
I'm at school ATM but I know of a book that is about actuarial science and R. I forget the name but they use it in a university in Amsterdam (I'll come back and edit this)
Edit:
Found it, I'm reading it ATM too(: https://images.google.com/imgres?imgurl=https%3A%2F%2Ff.hypotheses.org%2Fwp-content%2Fblogs.dir%2F253%2Ffiles%2F2013%2F01%2F2316710.jpg&imgrefurl=https%3A%2F%2Ffreakonometrics.hypotheses.org%2Ftag%2Factuarial&docid=9LnDpRpJp1uLDM&tbnid...
Sorry, but I have deleted the latex file from this post. I don't have the time to reformat everything, but here is the source that I modified. It should be relatively easy from that link to create your own.
Sorry, but I have deleted the latex file from this post. I don't have the time to reformat everything, but here is the source that I modified. It should be relatively easy from that link to create your own.
Hi u/dking1777,
Great question. You can use Excel to calculate results and translate GLMs into spreadsheets. For data manipulation, you need to use R. This is what the SOA's project statement says.
Join our online course! We have 11 practice exams that test your knowledge under exam conditions. Review 33 hours of tutorial videos. 📷 Follow on Instagram "passexampa"
Have a great day!
Sam from ExamPA.net
Hi /u/porkins,
Great question. Your intuition about it causing trouble later on down the line is spot on.
Using a character or a character factor creates an error in R. Here is a screencast along with reproducible example.
library(ExamPAData)
customer_value$value_flag_numeric <- ifelse(customer_value$value_flag == "High",1,0)
customer_value$value_flag_factor <- as.factor(customer_value$value_flag)
head(customer_value)
#character
m1 <- glm(value_flag ~ hours_per_week, data = customer_value)
#factor
m2 <- glm(value_flag_factor ~ hours_per_week, data = customer_value)
#numeric
m3 <- glm(value_flag_numeric ~ hours_per_week, data = customer_value)
summary(m3)
Enroll today! You can avoid technical difficulties by working through our 10 practice exams. With over 146 practice questions, you can test your knowledge to know which areas to focus on learning. Join us on June 19 and 20th for a final review webinar where we will review the entire syllabus.
Best regards,
Sam from ExamPA.net
To help you be as well-prepared as possible, here is a free video tutorial on how to use the Data Visualization Cheat Sheet.
Click here to download our simplified version. You can use this in your study to become familiar with how to find the R code quickly. This cheat sheet was designed by the RStudio team for everyone who uses R and not just those who are taking PA. You do not need to use everything there. For example, no one will be making new types of ggplot graphs under the "graphical primatives" section and so this has been blocked out.
Enroll today! Our 10 practice exams let you practice under realistic exam conditions. With over 135 practice questions, you can test your knowledge of predictive analytics concepts and get immediate feedback. Browse over 35 hours of tutorial videos, including the solution to the December 7th, 2020 exam shown in the above tutorial.
Best regards,
Sam Castillo
Course Instructor at exampa.net
It's always good to check our understanding of the math behind all of this. Your explanation is correct and here's a short proof. Many people use machine learning today without understanding these basic math concepts.
In Hospital Readmissions, scaling is performed as part of the kmeans algorithm. In R, this uses the Hartigan and Wong method that performs normalization by subtracting the mean and dividing by the standard deviation.
You'll find that the wording of questions on this exam is not always mathematically rigorous. This is mostly a communication exam, after all.
You can be ready to pass PA by enrolling in our online course which has 28 hours of tutorials. There are 9 practice exams so that you can test your knowleadge in a realistic exam setting. The 134 practice questions include concepts as well as real-life actuarial examples.
Best regards,
Sam from ExamPA.net
It's tough to put all of this info into a single chart. These exam questions like to test comprehensive understanding and so here's an explanation screencast. You want to consider two main criteria 1) What is the target distribution and 2) What are the requirements of the model such as interpretability, positive predictions, and so forth.
This is from Chapter 10 of our Fall 2020 Study Guide. Chapter 11.3 has the same descriptions for the categorical link functions. You can enroll in the online course to get access to 28 hours of tutorial videos and 9 practice exams. There are more than 134 practice questions - including online multiple choice questions regarding choosing link functions and response families for GLMs. There's a collection of GLM exercises which accompany this chapter from the Study Guide which you can test your knowledge with.
Best regards,
Sam from ExamPA.net
You ask a great question that requires several paragraphs to answer, so here's screencast explanation.
One big preface to this answer is that this practice exam was from 2018. Hospital Readmissions was never administered to candidates. The questions on these older exams often do not have realistic expectations with respect to the time required to answer them.
Did you see the alternative answer at the end of the Rmd file? It doesn't use binarization. The only problem with this answer is that it would take up far too much time.
It's reasonable to have read this problem in this way and not performed binarization during the practice exam. One of the hints that they expected candidates to do this was because they provide template code to perform binaization.
In the Rmd template:
>This chunk performs binarization. Note that it is set to fullRank = FALSE. This creates binarized variables for each factor level. If set to TRUE it will leave one out. Note the new variables are placed in a new dataframe. It can attached to an existing dataframe via old.df <- cbind(old.df, binarized_vars)
Removing factor levels increases the AIC because this is penalized by the number of parameters. After running stepAIC with the binarized variables, the AIC is lower which is better. There isn't only one answer to these questions - the SOA's answer is just one.
> (Note to candidates: an alternative approach is provided at the end of the Rmd file
You can get access to three new practice exams that don't have these problems. We have 28 hours of tutorial videos and more than 130 practice questions. You can reduce your study time by reviewing in fast forward. Grab the free Fall 2020 Study Guide here.
Best regards,
Sam from ExamPA.net
Came across this website:
It allowed me to sign-up and request a copy from the authors. Thanks for the idea ;)
I'm going to have to try this. I'm not using CA, but I have a digital copy of my Bedford manual for Exam 5 (and the source material, of course) and I don't want to print all that out.
IDK what the use case for R is for Exam PA, but there are free online R interpreters at RDRR.io and Try It Online that I use sometimes when I just want to throw a little R code together. Or you can roll your own RStudio server, lol.
https://getcoldturkey.com/features/ I use Cold Turkey with pomodoro and website exceptions, the internet provides a nice dopamine boost. Pomodoro is also recommended by Barbara Oakley in a Mind for Numbers. it's been the most helpful thing for studying since graphite
Check out Tim Ferris’ book, “The Four Hour Work Week”
The 4-Hour Workweek: Escape 9-5, Live Anywhere, and Join the New Rich https://www.amazon.com/dp/0307465357/ref=cm_sw_r_cp_api_glt_fabc_XY0Q2AVCCY1R3B31CFR2
It might not be for everyone, but he’s got some really wild ideas on how to take over more and more of your time, while even having a salary job depending on the situation. He talks about everything from hiring virtual assistants for anyyyy simple task in the world, to taking month (or longer) vacations regularly. Also talks about leveraging the ability to work from home more, and compounding that time.
Are you looking for a job? There is a free app that helps you find a right job with your skill set. Just search with skill, location or company names and find thousands of jobs.
https://play.google.com/store/apps/details?id=io.ctapal.globaljobs
https://smile.amazon.co.uk/Natural-Catastrophe-Risk-Management-Modelling/dp/1118906047/ This is an excellent book not tied to a vendor. Some of the very best in the field came together to write it a few years ago. Wish I could say I was one of the authors but alas no.
The less intense but still prescribed sleep med is Trazodone, but I also found these melatonin tablets that you chew and they work MAGIC. I never thought I could sleep without a prescription medication but these melatonin tablets work great. here they are!
The exam is kinda its own thing, just because you need lots of practice problems. For that, I think everyone will agree CA is worth it. That being said, learning probability is a great thing, and I recommend this textbook, which my actuary-turned-prob phd professor said was the best textbook. Plus you learn R which is relevant for the job :)
Anyone interested in getting a fund going in the subreddit to help pay for people's first CA subscription? Christmas Coaching Actuaries?
First I should emphasize this is a SOLUTIONS manual that pairs with this book: I am a link to the book. I thought that both were helpful. I prefer books over electronic sources though.
I have one from like 10 years ago oddly enough. I think my company paid for it which is why I bought it...
Its also on Amazon:
https://www.amazon.com/Solutions-Manual-Actuarial-Mathematics-Bowers/dp/1566986478
Since it's so old and I guess practically out of print, I wonder if it's worth reaching out to Ostaszewski directly. I'm curious, why are you interested in it? The gigantic textbook is considered classic literature/collector's item these days.
I haven’t yet studied for CS2 so I’m not completely aware of the material but based on those topics I’d recommend An Introduction to Stochastic Modelling, by Taylor & Karlin. It was recommended for my University course on Stochastic Processes and Markov Chains and there’s a free Kindle sample available on Amazon.
I actually picked this up for the same purpose. Has really made a difference as far as "lapability" with my MS Surface.
If you have an android phone, I made a free app for exam P. Feel free to take a look if you're interested!
here's the link:
https://play.google.com/store/apps/details?id=com.bignerdranch.android.exampapp
That settles it, I now know what I must get for myself if I ever make it to being a fellow.
You should be able to find something interesting in complexity theory. It skews more towards computer science/experimental math, and some of the suggested reading (The Origin of Wealth, Predictably Irrational) is good fun.
"A Random Walk Down Wall Street" it has been in print for 30 some years and is constantly being updated. It is not directed towards insurance or actuaries, but covers finance in general. I think it is a must read for anyone who will one day be involved with the markets.
This is all purely anecdotal, so I'm certainly not bashing anyone with praise for Actex. I can't find the exact manual I bought, but it looked exactly like this with an orange cover. I bought it at the beginning of 2014.
I barely even opened it while studying. I had taken a probability course right before really studying for P, so this could be why. But, in my experience, it was much quicker and convenient to use Google/Wikipedia for any questions I had. They were very reliable, too.
This is where I got a lot of progress done. I took a peek, and it looks like his exams and video solutions are all still free. I would highly recommend taking these exams and watching the video solutions. I felt like I learned a lot about both the content and formatting of the exam.
Best of luck!
Excel VBA Programming for Dummies is where I started, and it covered everything I ended up needing. It's only $10 bucks, so there's minimal risk if you think it sucks ;)
There's a great book which answers questions like this and many others about how different activities change your expected lifespan.
There isn't going to be a canonical list. Basically anything in a year and half college level Calc classes except div/grad/curl and epsilon/delta crap.
If you are a person that has never taken calculus or needs a review. Acetex made an actuary focused calc review. https://www.actexmadriver.com/OrderSelection.aspx
EDIT I Just looked over the table of context of a popular calc text. http://www.amazon.com/Calculus-Ron-Larson/dp/1285057090 I would do at least Chapters 1 to 9 Chapter 10 the part with polar coordinates. I remember at least one problem that could be solved easy with finding the area with polar coordinates. Chapters 13 and 14
so basically everything but vectors and some conics. But you don't know what weird area's they could throw at you so I would cover all of 10 just in case.
I don't recommend a manual for P, but a good textbook, as the material with P you should really learn very well, since you will see it come up in every preliminary exam afterward. (Exam C, for example, assumes that you essentially remember everything from P, no joke.)
As to what I recommend, I suggest Probability and Statistics with Applications: A Problem-Solving Text.
I really wouldn't worry about it. They hired you, so it's more than likely that they're going to teach you this stuff on the job (unless you somehow got yourself hired into a VP position or something).
That said, for a basic intro to financial topics, I'd pick up Investments by Bodie Kane and Marcus. It's used in a lot of business school finance classes, and doesn't really assume any significant financial background.
To take up space, add a summary at the top, and slightly customize it for each application with keywords from the job description. I'd also suggest learning SQL (pretty quick to learn) and VBA (I highly recommend this book) by recruiting season. If you're planning to take a third exam this fall, I'd add that at that time too, though it'd be a bit early to list it now if you're currently applying.
Formatting-wise, right-tab the exam dates to match the rest, replace the hyphens in date ranges with en dashes, and add in the missing space before "Passed" in the line for P. I also don't like the header, though I don't know what the best way to improve it would be.