If there was one thing you wish someone could make right now in the actuary space to make your life easier/would be useful. What would it be?

How are we feeling right now? Late October likely means we still have at least a week before results are out. Is anyone ready to jump right into the Oct-Dec sitting if they don’t pass 😭

There was a long thread that someone posted here at some point about how they passed FAM, it was explicitly stating the hours they spent on each section etc. anyone who can point me to it?

Is there a way to determine which past exam questions are still relevant following the FSA structural changes introduced in Fall 2025? For example, I'm preparing for GH301 next month and would like to know which questions from previous exams are still applicable to the current sitting, given the syllabus changes. I'm aware that there’s a question bank for past exams on the SOA website covering the period before the recent FSA structural changes, but this would be a specific question bank for example after the FSA structural changes.

Taking exam 6 in a few days and can’t help but feel this exam is just way too long and could benefit from being split up between 2 exams (one on financial statements and one on regulation, that way they could each be covered by candidates more effectively). it got me wondering, does anyone else agree? What other exams could benefit from being split up or the merged? For example I think they should get rid of the PCPA exam portion. it’s mostly repetitive from MAS exams, and any new material could be tacked onto MAS-II and the prerequisite for the project could be changed from completing the PCPA exam to passing both MAS exams. Thoughts?

Is it worth going to ASNA for full-time if you’re out of school?

Hey everyone! I’m currently a senior in college graduating next sem, and I recently received an actuarial internship offer with a deadline for sometime next week

However, I’m also interviewing for full-time actuarial positions, which I would prefer since I’ll already have graduated. During one of my interviews, I was told that decisions typically take 2–3 weeks.

I’m wondering if I should reach out to the full-time recruiter and let them know about my upcoming deadline, or if that would come across as putting pressure on them to make a decision sooner, and potentially affecting my application status.

My other concern is that since my current offer is for an internship rather than a full-time role, I could potentially accept it and later receive a full-time offer. However, I’d prefer to avoid reneging if possible.

Would you recommend communicating my deadline to the recruiter, even though the competing offer is only an internship, and I am graduating soon?

I just took PA last week and am hoping to take FAM in February and also complete ATPA by the end of December.

Is this feasible? I know ATPA is a take home assessment, but is studying for ATPA and completing the assessment and studying for FAM at the same time biting off too much?

Since I just took PA, I feel like completing ATPA now makes sense. I’d also prefer taking FAM in Feb and not waiting til July. The holidays present an added variable as well as I will definitely be going home for Thanksgiving and potentially Christmas as well.

How much is my life gonna suck if I do this?

Applied for an entry-level actuarial role at a new york life. Had a 2-hour phone interview (the interviewer said it was the longest he'd had), and it felt like a good conversation. He said 1-2 weeks for next steps. It's been ~10 days, and I emailed the recruiter about the timeline a week ago with no reply. Is this normal, or should I be worried? How long did it take you to hear back after a first-round interview, and when did you follow up?

I’m a senior in college trying to get a fourth exam done before I start my full-time job for the salary boost. However, this means I do not have a company to spend $1,000+ on study materials for me.

Only using the textbooks was a perfectly sufficient strategy for SRM, but this is obviously a very different exam. Has anyone done this and been successful in passing for FAM? My plan was to spend the next 2 or so months grinding out the 3 textbooks, then practice using ACTEX Goal and the SOA Sample Questions. Will this be enough, or do the textbooks not adequately cover all materials?

I took ASTAM this morning, and didn’t realize until the last few minutes that the instructions said to write it in pen, so I did the whole thing in pencil. Does anyone have any experience with this, and if so, was your exam graded normally?

I felt pretty good about the exam, and I would hate to have my submission disqualified because of my writing utensil.

Anyone have a link or know how to access photos from the FAC? I want some of the professional photos they took, especially from the Banquet.

Hi all. Looking for feedback here. I started job hunting tepidly in March and more seriously in May after passing SRM. No leads until the start of August after I made some resume improvements, and I made more improvements at the start of October, and I'm sharing the current version. I've had 5 recruiter calls/interview since August, 2 of which were in October. This is with about 120 applications since August and 50 since October, and I didn't track carefully before that.

With only 1 of the 5 did I get to go a bit deeper in the process since they had me do some little reasoning/math/programming screening tests, which I did very well on, though it seemed they moved on with someone else who they had interviewed before on a previous hiring cycle.

Feels like I'm at least getting some traction, so this could work out any moment, but after the latest rejection, it felt like the right time to get some more opinions and guidance. Thanks everyone!

I'm open to SOA or CAS aligned positions. Went up to 4 exams just to try to distinguish myself more since I'm a career changer without an internship. When I sensed I was getting more opportunities from CAS aligned opportunities, I added new projects to try to show a good fit with that area, despite my extra exams being on the SOA side. Indeed, all 5 leads I've had have been in P&C areas.

Actually it was before the exam, I dreamt about being asked to calculate the reserve differential using Thiele’s differential equation during an interview and I somehow just couldn’t get the answer correct and I failed that interview and didn’t get internship offer.

Taking FAM tomorrow morning, I don’t think there’s anything I can do at this point except review the formula sheet. What do you do the day before an exam?

Hi Everyone,

As the title says, I am looking for free resources for studying. For exam P and FM, I used the SOA resources to learn the content and practice. However, there isn't a lot of resources that are free for FAM. Thank you in advance!

P.S. I am a college student which why my funds are a little tight.

Hey everyone,
I wanted to practice bridging actuarial math with modern software engineering, so I built a valuation and Asset-Liability Management (ALM) engine in C# / .NET and deployed it as a live web app on Azure.

What it does:

Seriatim Projections: Runs month-by-month multi-state Markov chain transitions on in-force policy data using O(1) dictionary lookups.

Statutory Reserving: Calculates Disabled Life Reserves (backward recursion) and Terminal Active Life Reserves.

Live ALM Shocks: Matches 360-month liability cash flows against a fixed-rate bond portfolio to test Modified Duration and Duration Gap under parallel interest rate shocks.

I also wrote up a full breakdown of the math and system architecture on the site. Feel free to run some basis-point shocks on the portfolio and see how it handles the calculations:
https://financialmodels-fnhybtd9a2frexh9.centralus-01.azurewebsites.net/

(Note: It’s hosted on Azure's free tier, so if the server has gone idle, the very first page load might take 10–15 seconds to wake up. Once it's up, the calculations are instant!)

I should add: I was applying to only Entry-level (EL) Actuarial Assistant/Analyst/Specialist/Student positions. Basically if anything had 0-1 YOE & 1-2 exams required I applied to it. I was open to all pathways so I applied everywhere and I had 3 tailored resumes - Life, Health, and P&C.

First off quick statistics about me:

• I have 2 Exams (FM & P)
• 2 Actuarial Internships
• 3.93 GPA

Summary statistics:

Cold Applications (online)

• 0 offers out of 35 applications
  • Started applying very late August of this year
  • Should add, out of the 4 hirevues/first rounds, I was only ghosted by 1 recruiter, which felt pretty bad but I know it could had been worse.

Actuarial Job Fair (in-person at university/college)

• 2 offers out of 2 applications / interviews
  • Not that many companies were hiring full-time at the job fair. Legit these were the only companies not exclusively looking for interns only. Fortunately was pre-selected for interviews for both and got pushed to a final round

Just wanted to post some data for everyone, I hope the journey for others trying to enter at the EL goes great as well!

If anyone has questions please ask I'd be more than willing to answer!

Hii, I am Nik from india. I am planning to take exam p and fm this jan and feb. As i study it gets lonely sometimes as i wish i could have people that shares the same studies soo we can kinda not feel like we r studying alone in this. I feel lonely studying for actuarial science. Thought some people may also feel like that.

Text me if u r also preparing for the exams so we can help each other outt. Being a Indian will be good so we can relate our struggles. haha

Hi everyone,

I’m currently based in Mumbai, India, and exploring opportunities to relocate to the UAE, preferably Dubai.

A little about my profile:

- Qualified Actuary and Chartered Accountant (CA).

- Around 10 years of experience in the insurance industry.

- Currently working at the AVP level in the Life Actuarial function of a life insurance company.

- Experience in actuarial valuation, shareholder reporting, business planning, and IFRS 17.

I’m looking to explore suitable opportunities in the UAE and would appreciate advice from people who have made a similar move or are currently working in the region.

A few questions:

1. Which recruiters or recruitment agencies specialise in actuarial and insurance roles in Dubai/UAE?

2. Which job portals are most effective for senior actuarial positions?

3. Is it better to apply directly to insurance companies or approach specialist recruiters?

4. How is the demand for experienced life actuaries in the UAE, particularly for valuation, financial reporting, and IFRS 17 roles?

Any recommendations, personal experiences, or leads would be greatly appreciated. If you know of any relevant recruiters or hiring managers, I’d be grateful for a referral.

Thanks in advance!

I went to upload my excel file today(that I saved at least 20 times) and it wasn’t in the folder and the prometric people reset the computer and told me that I had the 6 minutes to submit to redo it. I called SOA support and they were helpful. I submitted a form that sounded promising. Has anyone had this happen before? What was the resolution? I feel like this could be the difference between passing and failing.

I have FAM, P, and FM passed. Yet I can’t land a first round interview. My resume has been reviewed by actuaries and they’ve told me that it looks good. I have no relevant experience. I majored in Finance.

I think I’m going to go back to school to get my masters. I really don’t know what to do next. I’ve submitted over 200 applications and have maybe had 3 actuarial interviews. It may be impossible for someone like me to break into this career.

Does anyone think that UW-Madison’s capstone program is worth it? Can I get an internship from doing that? Should I just study for SRM? Or should I get a full on masters? Thanks 😊

I’ve just gotten an invite to a phone interview from a (not sure if i can/should say the firm so:) decent sized Life and Health company. I got said interview from a connection at a career fair. I was curious what to potentially expect in the interview in terms of balance between behavioral/technical questions. For background I’m a Finance Student in my 3rd year, no exams passed yet (studying for FM now), and most of the self modeling work that I have done has been centered around P&C. Any advice would be very helpful. Thanks.

Hello, I’m a senior in college graduating in December and I don’t have a job lined up. I think it’s due to my lack of internship experience which is totally my fault. I’ve been applying to a lot of jobs which have led nowhere, the one recruiter that reached out to me asked for my transcript and well my transcript isn’t pretty and I explained why to him in my response and he never got back to me and I finally got rejected today. I’m thinking of taking a power bi or tableau certification or just learn it to make me stand out a little better but any tips?