Hi, So a little bit of a background about me... I worked in a GI firm for 3 years and I've started my own company... I've completed CT1-CT8 and now I'm at an impasse. I am technically supposed to give ST8 next week; but i'll probably fail it because of a combination of me not finding time to study (read startup) and me finding the material boring (read: I've already done this, why am i reading this...this is boring) So... I've been giving it some thought and I came to the realization that I am very partial to finance and investments... However, I am not really sure how this will fit into the broader scheme of things (after I get my fellowship and whatnot). Would it be possible for someone to let me know my options? What are the possible paths that an actuary can take if he/she clears ST5 and ST6? What is the value of an actuary who cleared ST5 and ST6 (I understand ST6 is difficult....but what's life without a challenge is my thinking on it ) I'm pretty sure ST5 will help me enormously with managing/running my startup... But I'm not really sure what else I can give... ST7 and ST8 will possibly allow me to write SA3 with ease (also since I know the GI market significantly well). So i'm kind of stuck in a dilemma... Any help is appreciated.
I've got feedback from our GI tutor: "If your planning to sit SA3 I’d strongly recommend that you sit ST7 and ST8, since SA3 builds on these and Core Reading questions can come up from all 3 subjects. The chances are you would only have to go back and learn the key topics anyway. I appreciate it’s boring, but no pain no gain! It's unusually for someone to have seen all the material before as that would require work in all three core areas; pricing, reserving, capital modelling. Even if you have seen all three areas, you're unlikely to be an expert in ALL techniques, be they for pricing or reserving (frequency/severity approach, burning cost, GLMs, exposure curves, chain ladder, Mack, Bootstrapping). Equally certainly, you won’t have seen all classes of business, personal lines, commercial lines, London Market." And out investment tutor: "ST5 is not a business course, and has nothing to do with running a small business. ST6 is quite mathematically demanding and requires a lot of time as it is textbook based, with a huge range of questions that the examiner can draw from. The natural next step for someone who is not working in the investment consulting field would be SA5, which builds on ST5." I hope that helps.
