I never back
down from a challenge. As expected I have received a lot of pushback to my new
ideas surrounding the certification of actuaries from a couple of actuaries who
have been around the block a few times. As I previously discussed in my last post, I feel that actuaries in general have a mentality about them that is
almost unavoidable in feeling “smarter” than others. I have felt this in myself
from time to time as I tirelessly work and sacrifice my time to pass actuarial
exams. When I do pass them. I too can sometimes become “big-headed”. It is a
vicious cycle that needs to be stopped.
This semester I have had the
opportunity to take a class from a visiting Actuary. His class is amazing and
his insights are great, as there aren't any fellowship actuaries currently
teaching at BYU. I asked him what he thought about the exams, and if this dogma
of being “smarter” than others existed, and was leading to the difficulty of
the exams. He quickly shot me down, and stated that the exams are not a product
of a better-than-the-world mentality, and that they have to be difficult to
ensure actuaries know what they are doing. A response I expected as Joe’s comment
suggested.
I also messaged an actuary on LinkedIn
who is in a group with me titled, The Entry Level Actuary. He responded almost
identically to my teacher, saying that no such dogma existed among professional
actuaries, and that the exams should be harder if anything else.
So was I completely wrong? Perhaps.
But I think it is also fair to suggest that those I talked with about this
issue have a skewed frame of reference in which they would be unlikely to
respond in any other manner than in which the one they already have. These were
two men who had sacrificed many hours to take 8-10 actuarial exams, sacrificing
time from family, friends, work, and school work to accomplish professional
goals. They aren't about to say that the exams they sacrificed over are too hard, and especially that they are hard because of some kind of poor mentality among
actuaries.
The world is changing, and because of
this there are more people out there that could be actuaries but can't because
of an outdated thought about the requirements. Actuaries of the future need to change their frame of reference and see that more can be done to allow those
who are able to be actuaries to become certified.
I don't know exactly what an actuary is, but maintaining a rigorous testing process will maintain high quality actuaries. When you start to lower the standard, you also lower the quality. I have seen this in the translation industry. In the US, there is not firm requirement for translation. Because of this, there are some very poor translations out there. In other countries, the requirements are extremely high for translators and the quality of translation in those countries is normally at an acceptable level. You could make the argument that it needs to be easier to do a lot of things. A few students are talking about accreditation, I think of professional athletes or musicians. Professional sports wouldn't be professional sports if it was easier and I wouldn't want to have to listen to high school quality musicians on top 40 (although some may argue that we already do).
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