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Hi,

I am from Mumbai. Have discovered actuarial late in life , right now i am 31.
Have cleared 2 exams (CT1/3 in 4 attempts). Also, Preparing for ct6 in may and ct4 in nov

I have been working in a life insurance company for past 5 years, bouncing between departments (started with financial inclusion > recruitment > Corp strategy > right now in product team)

Planning to have a family in a year or two.

Wanted feedback from exisiting members as to how tough is the road up ahead and how much effort will get me through.

And just one question, will it be worth it, even if i complete it in say, 40 years of age ?

 

Hey kv911,you cleared CT1 and 3? cool!. I'm no way qualified to answer this question, but I do remember a somewhat similar question(as you will see for yourself) posted on this forum. Here's the link

http://www.acted.co.uk/forums/showthread.php?t=8596

Hope this helps!

 

Thanks a lot dude...

 

Can you rank the remaining exams in level of toughness
CT4,CT5,CT8,CT9

I am already preparing for ct6 so please count it out
Thanks for the help

 

Such a ranking would be too futile really and would serve little purpose. One needs to go through the whole series to clear anyway.

 

ok thanks

 

If I recall correctly, guidance from the Profession says that in a single sitting a well prepared student could expect to do:
3/4 CTs
1 CA1
2 STs
1 SA

This should give you an idea of relative difficulty of these. Not saying it's impossible, but it's better you understand this now rather than later. Spending years making progress on 1 or 2 CTs per year may seem all well and good now but it gets more difficult down the road (and it can turn out to be a very long road at that).

Each person is different though so you may be better suited for the later exams than the earlier ones.

I don't think it can be too late to start once you understand what you're in for and have the perseverance to stick to it (with all the other commitments that show up later in life, like family etc).

Only you can judge whether it is worth it. Hopefully you are in a position to see what actuaries do day to day and their lifestyle etc. It's probably nearly as good to have this from ages 40 to 60 than 30 to 60.

 

I think that is what the student handbook says, but that is very aggressive I think.
What I see in practice, per session is:
- 2 CTs
- CA1
- 1 ST
or 1 SA
To do the 12 written exams at this pace would take 8 sessions, plus repeats.

The minimum time to qualify is 3 years (6 sessions), but I believe 5-7 yrs is typical for qualifiers (sorry can't find reference), which would be 10-14 sessions.

 

The point I was trying to make is that CA1 is easily the equivalent of 3 CTs, maybe 4.
etc.
Yes it seems to be far more common to take 1 or 2 CT a session. Nothing is wrong with this, but I'd expect a significant jump in effort (or reduction in pace to 1 exam per year or slower) will be required once you're past the CT stage.

 

Thanks a lot for the headsup....CA1 is far for me.....CT is the concern now.
Hope to get the CT's over by 2016...

 

Just to give you a different perspective, I lost twenty pounds studying for CA1. True story! Of course causality is yet to be determined.

 

Yes, thanks to CA1 I've never been fatter - I have like 50 days left, have written 4 past papers under exam conditions, failed miserably and am starting to panic which means more unhealthy fast food