Alisa
Swann
Position:
Actuarial Student
Employer:
Security Benefit
Job description:
I work in a actuarial department
in valuation. Working in valuation involves working with accountants
and calculating the reserves that the company needs to set aside to
fulfill regulatory requirements for insurance companies andto make
certain that the company will be ale to fulfill its obligations to
our customers in future years. Security Benefit sells mostly annuities
and mutual funds, and a small amount of accident and sickness insurance,
vision insurance and dental insurance to cafeteria plans for public
school systems. For more information on Security Benefit, you can
check out our website.
Salary range:
40,000 - 50,000
Job satisfaction:
Overall I am happy with
my job. SBG is a small company and I enjoy the people that I work
with. At times my job can be tedious, however I like the mixture of
light programming, interaction with people from other departments
in the company (mostly explaining how or why things are calculated
in particular ways), and calculations. I spend a significant amount
of time studying for actuarial exams, and enjoy learning the material.
(Going into an actuarial career means taking an exam every six months
for between 5 and 10 years.) The exams cover material on finance,
investing, economics, risk theory, statistical analysis, and a variety
of other mathematical, statistical and business subjects. Unfortunately
the work load is highly cyclical (but very predictable). The largest
part of my job is financial reporting, and I spend the first week
of each month putting together the monthly corporate financial report
for the month that just ended. In January and February we are very
busy putting together an annual financial statement that has to be
filed in each of the 50 states, plus Puerto Rico and Guam.
Employment history:
I spent 6 years in graduate
school out in California after graduating from UGA. While in graduate
school, I studied applied mathematics and population biology, and
received an MS in both areas. I accepted my current position at Security
Benefit in the spring of 1999, and at the time I am writing this,
have been here for just over a year.
Suggestions for students:
[from 1998] First and foremost,
the more fluent you are with computers, the better. Now that I have
stated the obvious, I will go on to address students specifically
looking to go to grad school. I think that for students who have a
reasonable idea of what they want to study in graduate school, they
should focus most of their effort on finding an advisor, and applying
to the school he is at as opposed to first choosing a school and then
selecting an advisor at that school. After finding an advisor they
think they would like, I would recommend going to the library and
getting a few papers by that person and then finding out if he has
any students currently working with him that would be willing to comunicate
with you what he is like as an advisor. I think that finding the right
advisor is the most important key to success in graduate school.
Miscellaneous comments:
[from 1998, when in graduate
school] I have been very happy as a graduate student. I feel that
UGA prepared me very well for graduate school. The good parts about
graduate school are that you have a very flexible schedule, and a
lot of freedom to explore whatever subject areas interest you. The
bad points are that it requires a lot of self motivation and it really
makes you face how very little you actually know. Graduate school
can be an extremely humbling experience. ;)
E-mail Alisa: Home or
Work
Date of last update: May 14, 2000
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