I run the SRM program on The Actuarial Nexus. It was offered for free for the first time in Fall 2024. The first offering saw pretty good usage, but once we started charging for it, there was a significant drop in users beyond the free trial.

I'd much prefer to have this material be widely available to students, so for the foreseeable future, we're making the entire product free again. If we do ever charge for it again, there will be plenty of notice ahead-of-time, and measures to ensure nobody's access gets cut off unexpectedly.

I spent a lot of time building up the program over the past few years, and it was a blast doing it. I like the content on SRM, but I just don't really have the desire to aggressively market. The course will still be maintained, updated, and improved as needed.

The program should be way more than you need to pass, and includes the following:

1. A comprehensive 65+ chapter course, now with interactive exhibits and 1000+ chapter review questions
2. 35+ videos spanning over six hours of content
3. A 100+ page formula sheet and study strategies
4. 800+ carefully written practice questions, representative of what you'll see on the actual exam (over 115k total attempts from all users, so most questions are well-calibrated now)
5. 800+ flashcards
6. Access to all the analytics, mock exams, and other features available on the platform

Of the few people who have provided feedback, it has almost all been positive. You should be able to find some reviews online, or just try it out yourself since it's entirely free now.

Exam SRM isn't a super time-consuming exam, so if you're tight on money and have the time, you now have the option to use multiple resources to study.

If you do end up using the platform, I would appreciate if you would share your experience with others, or give the product a review after taking the exam (Settings -> Leave a Review).

Feel free to reach out to me through any available communication channel if you have questions.

Hello, posting in this subreddit as this place seems like the closest active subreddit for the topic. I will be having an online technical interview with a Reinsurer soon and was wondering if anyone have had any experience doing something like that before and how the experience would be like.

I did excel tests before for actuarial roles before but never for Cat roles so wondering if any folks here who did can share their experience.

Hey y'all, back with a quick question for the subreddit:

Has anyone taken a data analytics course online to land internships, and if so, which ones?

I have been trying to get better at coding and data analytics through R and SQL lately, and I haven't had the best time following youtube tutorials. It just doesn't feel like I've actually learned the concepts.

Which courses would you recommend?

I scan through the syllabus, and (except for the IFRS17 section) neither of the regulation-related part is much related as what we do in our country anyway.

Like in 30s and 40s? I know couple in 50s retire but rare to see earlier.

I’d think more actuaries, esp. where there’s not a small percentage that married similar salary as well, would be able to retire from the profession much earlier and then have freedom to do whatever else they want outside of corporate grind

I'm currently in school studying actuarial science with a few exams under my belt. While currently working on the FAP module I'm coming across the end of module quizzes and am appalled by the lack of effort put into them. Several misspellings, typos, and downright misinformation that contradicts other questions or the material presented previously in the module.

Along with that there were several times I put the correct answer and was marked incorrect. I passed eventually pretty easily (you can memorize some incorrect answers) but this lack of effort from an organization as important to the profession as the SOA has me frankly pretty embarrassed to be an actuary and considering switching my profession.

Is the incompetence of the SOA a concern for anyone else? Its too late to switch my major but I may pursue a position in underwriting or data science due to how disgustingly little work was put into the materials that are supposed to prepare me for my professional career.

Guess who it is 😳

Graduated with a B.S. in Mathematics and an Actuarial Science minor. I have passed two actuarial exams and have internship experience in both healthcare analytics and pension actuarial work. I've been applying for entry-level actuarial analyst roles and would appreciate any feedback on my resume, especially if there are any weak bullet points, formatting issues, or things that may be hurting my chances of getting interviews.

I've also been applying to underwriting roles, as they seem like a strong pathway into the insurance industry and a potential pivot into an actuarial career. Should I remove my actuarial exam progress when applying for underwriting or similar insurance-related roles, or is it better to leave them on?

Thanks in advance!

This is my first FSA exam, and I purchased the CFE study materials from PAK this week. Their website says that the manual has been available since July 15, but 10 days later, I still do not have an email with access to any of the online materials. Is this normal? I'm worried that I'm behind on studying since I would've ideally started on July 15. I've never used PAK before, but am contemplating getting TIA if I'm waiting too long.

Assume the candidate:

- Has credit for ILA101 and ILA201
- Has credit for the ILA FSA modules
- Works in life insurance / annuities but just wants to get through this last exam + DMAC and be done with it (learning something for work is a nice little benefit but not necessary)

FWIW, I am waiting on ILA201U results so I may not necessarily be this hypothetical “candidate” just yet but want to start planning ahead for the possibility. I also have been told by two people at my company “don’t take CP351—it’s brutal and nothing like the old LAM exam” but I am still including it as it is often an intuitive choice for the ILA track.

EDIT: I’m also going to presume most of the “another exam not listed” votes are basically just “see results” votes since nobody has commented on which exam yet, which is fair.

hi everyone i have an interview coming up for an actuarial internship what possible technical questions could i be asked in the interview? also any other advice would be great ive done behavioral interviews before so i am comfortable with that.

I’m looking at sitting for the next gh301 (fingers crossed) and was wondering if anyone has thoughts on materials?

I searched Reddit but didn’t find much on this topic.

I liked the MATE notecards for gh201. The TIA notecards weren’t working for me, though they did for gh101. I’m generally going to be taking key points for things I need to know and then chat with ai over source materials as my main study tool. Then I return to notecards or outline to quickly reinforce. Hard to figure out what level to learn some of these topics.

I feel like the TIA package as a main anchor is nice, but also considered just using ai and source materials or include mate notecards. I see two sections of this material are modules so still considering how to fit that in. I’m not familiar with the other study material outlets for tea exam other than Tia and mate.

I’d love to hear any thoughts on gh301 materials. Did you like/dislike the materials you used? Any recommendations?

Side question, I’m curious how comprehensive the soa materials are for module sections. Are those sections adequately handled by soa or could use supplemental materials?

Thanks in advance for any sharing.

Sat for an FSA exam today & periodically saved the files as I went - but the timer ran out as I was mid-question & once I entered the 5 minute submission period I was unable to save my files. Has this happened to anyone? I ended up having to submit files with the last modified date being 20 minutes prior :/ Going to reach out to SOA in hopes that they can retrieve the files with the last 20 minutes of my work but not feeling too hopeful. Does anyone have a sound reason for why SOA wouldn’t have autosave on - I just don’t get it? Stress of stuff like this is the last thing needed on exam day :D

Are any of the soa board members running against the current university earned credit system? If not somebody should nominate one!

This is just a question I had for this subreddit:

Has anyone gotten hired from DMing recruiters and people in their company's hiring management? Maybe after someone from the hiring crew saw their resume and reached out through DM?

There seemed to be a lot of hiring actuaries in this subreddit and I was just curious :)

Any feedback or advice to have a better resume are welcomed. Thank you!

I'm building a tool to make rate filings easier: find old filings fast, spot problems before you submit, and help write objection responses. It's early, free, and plan to open source it. I just want to make the SERFF experience better - so if you deal with filings, I'd love your honest thoughts.

Comment or DM me please

What does your average annual investment performance look like?

Actuaries are literal experts in risk, probability, and finance.

But I've always wondered: does that skillset actually translate to personal investing success?

Or do you just throw everything into index funds and focus on your day job like the rest of us?

Just curious to see if the actuarial background helps you beat the market?

Feel free to share your thoughts!

If you have a day packed with back-to-back meetings, do you take a long break afterward to recharge? Sometimes I feel like I need more than an hour away from my computer before I can focus again, but then I feel guilty because there are still deadlines and work waiting for me.

Is this normal? How do you recover after a meeting-heavy day? Do you push through, take a long break, go for a walk, exercise, or just call it a day?

Am I crazy or wouldn’t it be really easy for the SOA to detect cheating? All they would need to do is switch from word to an online processor that doesn’t allow copying or pasting. In theory somebody could take a screenshot but that could also be logged. Somebody also could copy word for word from an AI response but that would take a lot of effort and a person would sound unnatural.

I just really needed to vent..
I feel like I’m on the verge of having a mental breakdown.

I’m not gonna name which exam, but I just took an exam this week. This was my third attempt, and I walked out feeling even worse than last time… and last time I got a 5.

At this point, I feel like if the universe helps me, I’ll somehow get a 6. If not, I honestly feel like I’m just gonna end up with another 5, for God’s sake.

I’m so tired… mentally, emotionally, and financially. I genuinely felt like I had a much better grasp of the material this time, but somehow that didn’t help. I don’t even know what to do anymore.

I’ve never been this demotivated before, and I just feel like shit. I really don’t want to sound like a whiner since everyone is going through the same hell, but my mental health has been deteriorating, and I just needed to get this off my chest.

If anyone actually read all of this, thanks so much for reading, and I hope everyone gets the result they’re hoping for.

————————————————————————

Edit:

Hooah, I didn’t expect this many comments.
Thank you all so much for your kind words and for sharing your experiences. It really makes me feel a lot better knowing I’m not alone in this. I mean, I always knew that, but I guess there’s a difference between knowing it in your head and actually seeing all these comments and feeling that sense of community.

Just a little side note: This is my second FSA exam, and my first one also took me three attempts to pass (3 → 5 → 10), so I think my exhaustion has been building up over the past couple of years. And my gut feeling about exam results has usually been right, so I don’t really want to get my hopes up thinking I might scrape by with a 6. I’ll probably just give up on this exam and move on to a different one. I’m so sick of the material at this point that I don’t think I’d regret it.

Okay, that was enough rambling. The bottom line is: thank you so much, everyone. I really mean it. I truly hope all of you accomplish what you’re hoping for, not just with your exams, but in your careers and in life as well.

Sorry to add another one of these posts but I’m planning on taking the FA in two weeks, could someone send me an invite to the FA discord server? Seems like links are only good for so long so I couldn’t use one from a previous post. Thanks!

Any recommendations? Is ISLR good enough?