The Hindu : New Delhi News : A new career for the New Age

Online edition of India's National Newspaper
Saturday, Jul 28, 2007
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New Delhi

New Delhi

A new career for the New Age

Kunal Diwan

NEW DELHI: The matter of choosing a career often crops up at a time when a child is barely out of school. Nowadays, when young people are spoilt for choice in what to do to make a living, their focus has shifted beyond traditional age-old professional avenues like medicine, engineering and the Civil Service.

Of the several exciting new career options available today, a career in actuarial science stands apart in many aspects. The actuarial profession can be rewarding in terms of being intellectually challenging, well paid, and professionally satisfying.

What is actuarial science, and what is an actuary, really?

Well, broadly speaking, this is the science of insurance and an actuary is a business professional who analyses the financial consequences of risk. A multi-disciplinary field, it involves the use of mathematics, statistics, and financial theory to study uncertain future events, especially those of concern to insurance and pension programmes.

Once qualified, an actuary has several options to exercise his skills. He may work for insurance companies, consulting firms, the government, employee benefits departments of large corporations, hospitals, banks and investment firms or, more generally, for businesses that need to manage financial risk.

A career as an actuary is better described as a “business” career with a mathematical basis than as a technical mathematical career.

Actuaries have come to be key players in the management teams of companies that employ them. In a fast-changing world, with ever new risks and the increasing need for novel, creative ways to tackle them, there are constant opportunities for personal and professional growth. In fact, the actuarial profession has consistently been rated as one of the top five jobs in the United States according to Jobs Rated Almanac. With the intention of creating awareness about this profession, Trump and Gates, an institute managed by a team of professionals, conducts regular seminars titled “Actuarial Science -- A Great Career Option” at their corporate office in Connaught Place here in the Capital. These professionals have been teaching actuarial science for the past two decades.

The participants at the seminar are exposed to the actuarial profession with the aim of educating them about the virtues of this career, job prospects and remuneration. There are no visa hurdles and there is no requirement of GRE, GMAT, SAT or any other entrance examinations. The course consists of 15 papers and can be completed in four to five years depending on the time devoted by the student for preparation in the run-up to the examinations.

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