I'm currently attending the University of Minnesota and planning to major in Mathematics with an Actuarial Science specilization.  I was just curious if there are any actuaries on arfcom/anyone that has knowledge about the field?  If you are an actuary are you CAS or SOA/why did you pick that route?  Just trying to get some information from people in the field.

A reply a few months late isn't too bad, right? I'm an ASA, so of course that means on the SOA side. I ended up SOA because that's where I found my first job, which is what I think most actuaries do. Try and target your search too much and you'll end up with nothing.

I found my way into the field after graduating with a math degree and then not knowing what the hell to do with it. I waltzed into the first exam with zero prep time and scored a big fat goose egg on it. It was after that that I discovered these exams are no joke.

Really, though, beyond the exams(which suck) it's a great field, but I know the entry levels are hard to break into these days. The best thing you can do is to excel in school and have above a 3.5 GPA, pass a few exams, and try to find an internship before graduation. You should be gold if you do that.

Health actuary here, working on the FSA exams.  I fell into the field after starting out an a health insurance company as a financial analyst.  

My only recommendation is make sure the AS specialization doesn't end up too narrow when you graduate.  Life has a funny knack for throwing you curve balls, keep all your options open.

AO screen name?

Same as here.  

Take more computer programming than the one course the UofM program requires of act-sci program majors. Maybe try to pick up enough computer science background to be able to take a serious databases course.

Be aware of the upcoming changes to the exam system on the SOA side and take some courses that will help you with the predictive analytics material. www.SOA.org/curriculumchanges

Try to graduate with something that makes you stand out from the cookie cutter actuarial science students who did all of the required courses and nothing more.

Pass exams as quickly as you can.

If you try a few times and fail, take a serious look at why.

If you put in the suggested amount of study time but still didn't cut it, maybe look to another career before you sink too much time.

If you failed because you didn't put in the time, decide whether you can be dedicated enough to do it, because the exams don't get any easier than those first few.

Agree with this.

Also, when hiring entry level people, I tend to discount act-sci majors a bit vs. pure math, stats, engineering, econ, computer science, etc when scanning resumes.

It's probably bad thinking on my part but it seems like the act-sci students get spoon fed the exam material via college courses tailored to the syllabus and I'm more impressed by those who figured it out on their own.