This fall, I’m starting a new organization for math-lovers that I’m calling the Calculus Wave Club. Click here to apply. What is the Calculus Wave Club? A club of math enthusiasts who want to learn and share interesting math ideas, with an emphasis on calculus. Why Calculus? Most students study calculus, but few get to enjoy it and see its ideas come alive. Calculus is everywhere and has a rich story of past and present that impacts how we view the world and deal with change. It’s also an essential topic to understand for the actuarial exams. Why have a club? The stories we all have about how ..read more

If you’re a college student pursuing actuarial science, you probably have two key goals: exams, and internships. Both are essential ways you can distinguish yourself from others when you’re pursuing your first job as an actuary. We asked our current roster of interns here at Coaching Actuaries what they learned about the exam process and the importance of their internship experience. Here’s what they had to say: Aim to Pass 2-3 Exams By the Time You Graduate Most actuarial science graduates enter the job market having passed at least one exam. But in order to stand out from the crowd, passing ..read more

If we as actuaries are blessed with the ability to understand and appreciate basic math skills, it is disheartening to see so many young students who don’t have that opportunity. The lack of math literacy or not understanding math is a big problem for the next generation, and while new initiatives are trying to address this issue, there are no easy solutions. Fortunately, there is an opportunity to make a huge difference to which we can lend our math expertise. Math Motivators is a program designed to educate high school students in basic math. The beauty of the program is it gets to the heart ..read more

This is the final part of a 4-part series where I share how math has changed my career and my life. I’m sharing 3 heroes of mine in this series that have impacted actuarial science, mathematics, and many parts of our lives. I discussed my first two heroes, Leonhard Euler and Carl Gauss, in the previous two blogs. Hero #3 is Bernhard Riemann, born in modern-day Germany September 17, 1826, and died July 20, 1866. For starters, when I studied for the actuarial exams, we used Riemann sums to approximate integrals by using a finite sum. This technique is still valid, though it’s not on the curren ..read more

This is part 3 of a 4-part series where I share how math has changed my career and my life. I’m sharing three heroes of mine that have impacted actuarial science, mathematics, and many parts of our lives. I discussed my first hero, Leonhard Euler, in my last blog. My second hero is Carl Friedrich Gauss, born in Germany on April 30, 1777, and died on February 23, 1855. To give you context, Gauss was born 70 years after Euler was born and 6 years before Euler died. Like Euler, Gauss had his challenges to overcome. Gauss was born to a poor family. Pursuing a career in math and science was not a ..read more

This is Blog 2 of a 4-part series where I share how math has changed my career and my life. My hope is that it will inspire you to see math in a new light and, perhaps, as a new friend. I’m going to share three heroes of mine that have impacted actuarial science, mathematics, and many parts of our lives. My first hero is Leonhard Euler, born in Switzerland on April 15, 1707, died in Russia on September 18, 1783. Euler had an interesting and full life. Euler was fortunate to be tutored at a young age by the great mathematician Johann Bernoulli. Euler took advantage of the opportunity, which is ..read more