Exemption City

I hear that a London Uni might be offering a part-time 2-year MSc to give exemptions from CT2, CT7, CT8, CA1-3 and two STs.

What do you think?
Sounds like a lot in two years with little more support that we get now.

 

or you could do a 1 year diploma at city for all the CT's followed by a 1 year MSc for all the ST's and CA1,2...

 

i think city do a 2 yr part-time diploma as well covering all ct series...

 

Sounds like a sensible way to combine work and study.

 

Lucky Londoners!!!



Wow... that sounds great. A part-time diploma. This would be a more fair measure of the knowledge gained without the pain [and biasness] of a 3 hour exam.

How I wish I were in London! Would take up the program in a jiffy man... It sounds interesting..

Sigh - too bad I am in Malaysia

)

 

don't think you'd get away without exams.

 

More reasonable???

Well, at least if the lecturers are the same ones that teach you and set the exams at the same time, you would know where to focus on.

Besides, face to face teaching & guidance on a part time basis sounds great esp. for those working full time and studying part time.

DOUBLE SIGH!!!!

 

Sounds like a backdoor to me. Pay £9k and for no more time than your employer gives you off usually in terms of study days, you get exempt from a ridiculous amount of exams. It’s belittling to those of us who work through the exams properly, and waters down the value of the actuarial exams. What next, a 3 year undergraduate degree from some tin pot ex-poly for qualification? It shouldn’t be allowed.

 

isn't city an ex-poly?

 

Why does institute allow this..............???

I totally agree with you KING. Its not ON. Institute should do something regarding these exemption courses!
Its not acceptable to get exemptions from the CA and ST courses. (I will agree with the CT courses - which are mainly mathemathical)
The University papers are much easier than what we face at the Institute so if these courses allows people with very little experience to qualify, i think we are going to have some Actuaries who are not quiet upto the standards!

 

Reality check?

Well I guess those of us taking the exams would feel it is unfair. But isn't it a bit unfair to discount the quality of teaching and the exams at these uni without experiencing it first?

Still, I do agree with Kanch that the anything beyond the CTs should not be exempted [the only exception being CA3]

 

Exemptions are cheating...

Firstly, they don't give you the discipline required to study and work.
Secondly, students will concentrate just on the examples given during the lectures, this makes the scope of the study much smaller, as they have a good idea what will come up in the exams.
Thirdly, I know people who have multiple exemptions, but when asked, had never seen a life table. It seems to me as though we get a bum deal on this.

 

Unfair exemptions????

I studied for my undergrad at City uni, and reading the comments made, i think that they are very unfair.

The quality of teaching is very good, and the approach used to deliver the material is, in my opinion, however biased it may be, better than the way people have to acquire it on their own. Besides, both the Institute and the Faculty are now encouraging people to take university degrees to get exempted from the CT exams.

From another point of view, I would like to know if King would have the same comments had he had the exemptions from the whole lot, ie CTs, CAs and STs...I bet his view would then be different!

 

You wonder if my opinion would change if I were exempt from most of the exams? I went down the actuarial route because the exams certify the quality of the profession – they represent a genuine achievement. These exemptions water that down and dilute the value of the hard work of others. My opinion stands.

 

A point missed

I agree with most of points made. However I have something else to add as well. These courses are useful for 2 grps of students.....

1. Overseas students - UK companies provide a very good study package overall. But in other countries this is not the case. Also you may all be surprised that pass rates in UK are pretty high compared to other countries. For eg. the pass rate for a CT exam in India is anywhere between 10% - 20%, which is very low indeed. It gets even worse for the later papers. Most of students doing these courses come from overseas countries such as India, Srilanka, HongKong etc etc.

2. Students who have lots of experience but dont have the papers as the study/work is regime is tough and they cannot cope with it. You all may agree that at the end of the day practical experience is the most useful compared to these papers. So if someone has the lots of experience but cannot pass the papers, isn't it better that he/she go for one of these courses and qualify. I certainly would do that.

Thirdly these courses are very expensive. They are in excess of £10,000 and are very intensive as well. You may not be working but you def. will have to do study full time.

I guess for these two grps the courses offered by City are very useful indeed. Hence I would disagree that these courses should be removed.

 

You should take a simple test to prove your point. After you have proved them then no one will disagree with you. And the confidence that you have it should be a breeze for you.

THE ACID TEST:

Give all the exams from the Inst/Fact that you were granted exemptions, in one attempt.

If you pass, it will show the quality of City (or other unis); if you fail it will show otherwise.

Are you ready to take the attempt?

I/We could write to the Inst/Fact to waive your exam fee as it will evaluate the quality of the City (et al) courses in the true sense.

 

Well I've failed already as I can't even understand your question.

What are you asking him to do? List his exemptions? What will that prove?

 

The course in question is here:

http://www3.imperial.ac.uk/tanaka/news/instituteofactuariesaccreditsmscactuarialfinance

I have a friend at Hewitts who will be doing this on a one day a week basis. I think it's natural to feel threatened but we should probably reserve judgement until the course has been around for a while and there is a measure on the quality of the output.

Someone suggested that the institute should "do something about this" upthread. The institute has certified the course. They are the only organisation capable of handing out exemptions so it follows that they are happy with the plans. For my money, there is a clear potential conflict of interest in that the school will advertise its course based on its success, which is measured by its results, which it controls through the process of setting and marking its own internal exams. I don't know how the Institute is intending to oversee/ manage this but I hope it is rigorous.

It feels like a unique struggle to go through these exams and it is disconcerting to think that others won't have to submit to the idiosyncracies of the examiners (I'm thinking particularly of ST6 here) but you never know, the students at Tanaka may have there own problems to overcome and seeming inconsistencies to work with.

It is also important to note that these students will supposedly be exposed to some genuinely brilliant minds (other than their colleagues of course ), and important industry figures which will certainly increase the variety of experience amongst qualifiers and may in the long run result in a strengthening of the profession and a better profile for all.

/devils advocate.

 

As someone who did not do an actuarial course at university (hence no exemption), I had to sit every single exam. True, it's tough to work and study at the same time and I am very envious of an ex-colleague who got lots of exemption through an actuarial course at Macquarie University in Sydney.

However, I must say his understanding of actuarial principles is very good and I think that from the Institute's point of view, it's the end result that counts, not how you get there. Besides, I am sure everyone had experience with incorrectly set exam questions - I came across at least three papers containing errors in actual sittings. There are also people who had their scripts lost etc. The Institute's exam system is as fair as you are going to get, but is it the best way to train actuaries? Provided that there is good quality control, I would say university courses are far better!

 

I asked him/her to resit the exams (note1) in which he was granted exemptions.


Note1:
Such exams that all of us have to appear in and pass, i.e. the april and sept Official exams by the IOA/FOA.

 

Its all very well for these course providers to rattle on about exposing students to ‘brilliant minds’ etc – but ultimately that is of no consequence if their teaching skills are substandard. I’m sorry, but those who can do, those who cant – teach.

On the bus to work today I read 3 chapters of CA1. If the same material was communicated by a lecture it would have taken about 3h, given the time needed to articulate it in the context of a lecture – etc. I simply refuse to accept that if I give these institutions my time they will use it more effectively than me. Do you even remember lectures at uni? By my mind the ActEd correspondence courses are much more thorough. . . The course in question operates one day a week (30 weeks a year, over 2 years) , so implicitly implies that it can use my study leave time much better than me, by offering masses of exemptions.

On these slap-stick expetion courses, the lecturer lectures the course, writes the material, writes the exam, and plays a hand in the marking. These are obvious advantages to this from the student’s perspective, as far as attaining a pass is considered. I’d likewise like to see these courses timed to run up to an institute exam sitting, then they can just sit the proper exams along with the rest of us. But is that going to happen – no –who is going to pay £10k for a 30% change of passing?