Burning Rubber: Failure Story for the most part

I have been trying to get in roots with the “SCIENCE” part of Actuarial Science. Actuarial Exams are absolutely loaded with material on “probability” and entailing Loss Models but the world has now moved on to bigger things like Big Data and GLMs, Extreme Value Theory and Solvency II (it’s probably all they can tweet about).

It’s all the more important to get the amassed knowledge accounted for and get our facts straight but I think it’s equally important to develop our tool kit and use technology at our aid. This is the part that excites me the most and while for the past few months I have been trying to get hands on practice at probability models, model fitting, and some quantitative finance related mathematics, everything while using MAPLE 18 at my aid.

However, usually in my ambition I don’t get much done but rather lose track and go off on a tangent.

DAMAGE CONTROL: PART 1

I have always felt that my less structured pursuance of Actuarial Studies (as for many other Actuaries in the country) will have its toll on me. Taking ACE or ACTEX manuals as the only required ingredient at passing Actuarial exams, the level of mathematical skill and mastery that should be fostered does not happen. However, I also know now that taking Mathematics as a subject in GCE A-Levels and nailing it with a “Too easy A” really meant nothing. I really should have questioned University of Cambridge GCE examination standards when I was commending my own intelligence.

While taking an online Coursera course entitled “Mathematical Methods for Quantitative Finance”, I have realized some embarrassing gaps in my mathematical knowledge: