# Are there any actuaries here? **URL:** \ **Category:** In My Humble Opinion\ **Created:** [June 5, 2013, 9:21pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/are-there-any-actuaries-here/660241 "2013-06-05T21:21:06Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 8\ **Page:** 1
**Author:** ![ITR\_champion](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/i/c67d28/32.png) [@ITR\_champion](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/ITR_champion)\ **Post date:** [June 5, 2013, 9:21pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/are-there-any-actuaries-here/660241/1 "2013-06-05T21:21:06Z")
I’ve been working as a high school math teacher in Virginia for the past six years. This fall my wife-to-be and I will move to New Jersey, where’s she taking a job. It’s a bit late in the year to find a teaching job that starts in the fall, and frankly I’ve been contemplating a career change anyhow. I’ve been looking into actuarial work and I had a few questions I wanted to ask. Supposing that I have an M.S. in math from a good university and that I could pass one or two of the exams, would I have a likely chance of getting a job? Is it possible to get hired without having an internship first? If not, is it possible to get an internship if I’m not currently in school? Do any career-changers ever make it into the profession? Is the work really as soul-crushingly boring as they say? ---
**Author:** ![Princhester](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/p/3e96dc/32.png) [@Princhester](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Princhester)\ **Post date:** [June 5, 2013, 9:53pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/are-there-any-actuaries-here/660241/2 "2013-06-05T21:53:41Z")
Cunctator is an actuary I think. P ---
**Author:** ![ultrafilter](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/u/3d9bf3/32.png) [@ultrafilter](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/ultrafilter)\ **Post date:** [June 5, 2013, 11:54pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/are-there-any-actuaries-here/660241/3 "2013-06-05T23:54:30Z")
Go look around [here](http://www.actuarialoutpost.com/actuarial_discussion_forum/). Most of what you’ve asked is covered in the FAQs. Edit: Cunctator is an actuary, but he’s in Australia, and the system down there is pretty different. ---
**Author:** ![Pleonast](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/pleonast/32/1183_2.png) [@Pleonast](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Pleonast)\ **Post date:** [June 6, 2013, 12:15am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/are-there-any-actuaries-here/660241/4 "2013-06-06T00:15:59Z")
Are there any actuaries here? Well, according to Bureau of Labor Statistics there are [21,340 actuaries](http://www.bls.gov/oes/current/oes152011.htm) in the US (as of 2012). There were about [314,000,000 people](http://www.census.gov/popclock/) in the US that year. That gives about 68 actuaries per million people. I don’t have a good estimate of the number of active users on this website. Let’s be generous and say there’s 10,000. That means we can expect 0.68 actuaries here. Of course users on this board skew smarter, so that means we can expect more actuaries. But we also skew hipper here, so that means we can expect fewer. With some big error bars, I’d estimate we have between 0 and 10 working actuaries on the SDMB. ---
**Author:** ![gotpasswords](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/g/c57346/32.png) [@gotpasswords](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/gotpasswords)\ **Post date:** [June 6, 2013, 1:30am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/are-there-any-actuaries-here/660241/5 "2013-06-06T01:30:53Z")
With a detailed breakdown like that, I’m not convinced **Pleonast** isn’t an actuary. 😃 ---
**Author:** ![panache45](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/panache45/32/64_2.png) [@panache45](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/panache45)\ **Post date:** [June 6, 2013, 4:55am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/are-there-any-actuaries-here/660241/6 "2013-06-06T04:55:54Z")
> [@gotpasswords](#): > > With a detailed breakdown like that, I’m not convinced **Pleonast** isn’t an actuary. 😃 Unless he actuarily is. ---
**Author:** ![Fotheringay-Phipps](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/f/d9b06d/32.png) [@Fotheringay-Phipps](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Fotheringay-Phipps)\ **Post date:** [June 7, 2013, 5:09pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/are-there-any-actuaries-here/660241/7 "2013-06-07T17:09:44Z")
> [@ITR\_champion](#): > > Supposing that I have an M.S. in math from a good university and that I could pass one or two of the exams, would I have a likely chance of getting a job? Absent any other factors that you haven’t mentioned, your education alone is pretty typical. (The MS is overkill - most people have a BA.) As a career changer you might be better off with 3 exams, since one issue you will have is questions about your commitment to the field. > [@](#): > > Is it possible to get hired without having an internship first? Yes, but an internship helps. To be clear, I’m not talking about an internship at the specific place where you want to get hired. The vast majority of new hires do not have this. But having an internship on your resume gives you a leg up over others who do not have this. Note that my experience in this regard has been with consulting firms versus insurance companies. > [@](#): > > If not, is it possible to get an internship if I’m not currently in school? Technically it should be possible, although the firms tend to recruit interns at school career fair days. > [@](#): > > Do any career-changers ever make it into the profession? Quite a lot - it’s fairly common. The thing about the actuarial field is that it’s probably the best paid “professional” type field that does not require a postgraduate degree. What it requires instead is years of soul-crushing exams that you spend your evenings on after a full day’s work at the office. But that’s easier for a career-changer than spending a few years in law/medical school. > [@](#): > > Is the work really as soul-crushingly boring as they say? Depends on what you’re interested in. 🙂 The best MB for information about any and all actuarial matters is: [http://www.actuary.ca/actuarial\_discussion\_forum/index.php](http://www.actuary.ca/actuarial_discussion_forum/index.php)? ETA: I see that Ultrafilter already cited this. There is at least one other actuary on these boards (IIRC it was FreddythePig, but possibly I’m confusing him with someone else). ---
**Author:** ![Jackknifed\_Juggernaut](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/j/9de053/32.png) [@Jackknifed\_Juggernaut](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Jackknifed_Juggernaut)\ **Post date:** [June 7, 2013, 6:50pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/are-there-any-actuaries-here/660241/8 "2013-06-07T18:50:55Z")
My undergrad degree is a BS in Statistics and Actuarial Science. I passed the first 2 exams (back in 1993 - I know the exam process is a bit different now). As I began interviewing, I realized that I didn’t love math enough and didn’t want to spend the remainder of my young adult years studying. So I took the easy way out and got an MBA. These days, many of my consultants are actuaries for the work I do in the investments/pension/risk and insurance area. So while I’m educated as an actuary and know quite a bit about what they do, I’m not one. But I thought I’d share in case I’m the closest thing to one that we have here.