Actuarial Science vs Finance

I am confused between Actuarial Science and Finance for a major in college. What do you guys think is better for a respectful, well paid job? I am not sure what I want to do now. I'll figure that out when I get into college, but now I want to ensure that I study the major that will get me a better future, so that I don't transfer or regret it later. Tell me your suggestions please.
I also got the idea of double majoring in Maths, and Finance, so that I almost got the Actuarial idea if you know what I mean.

4 Comments
 

Finance is much broader. You should read about all of the branches of finance and about what actuaries do and pick what you want. I know a few VPs of risk at market-making firms and they all did their undergrad in finance for what it's worth. They started out as traders though and moved to risk once they got families to get on that home-by-six swag.

Actuaries work all over the place though ,not just in finance. Insurance companies and shit...

Dude, just read.

 

Actuarial Science = Mathematics applied to assess the risk in the insurance and the finance spheres.

Two questions you MUST ask to yourself:

Do you love math (pure math)? You're going to dig into deep stuff.

Do you enjoy insurance (life, home, etc) AND financial engineering? Don't forget that you will have numerous professional exams (like 6-8 I remember correctly) related to both of these fields in order to be a member of the SoA so if you do not like one of them, you're kinda screwed.

Becoming an actuary (FSA) is extremely hard while ending up with a bachelor in Finance is really easy. However, recruiting process for actuaries is so easy while in Finance it is much more competitive.

Best of luck

 

actuarial science is a boring back up career that makes good money. Everyone does it for the money - I've never met an actuary who truly loved the subject.

I tried it out and will say the fundamentals you learn are great. Most finance classes will brush over the math and ask you to memorize. Whereas the math courses covering finance topics will emphasize logical completion, theory, over practicality. Actuarial science is a good middle ground that explains the intuition of real financial instruments in concise math. As a result, you'll be learning faster than business majors but also actually know how to apply the math unlike your pure math counterparts.

 

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