I think my greatest strengths are my solid foundation in mathematics, teamwork skills and passion about actuarial science from the perspective of an employee. I possess a bachelor’s degree in applied mathematics, which makes it easier for me to get a better and deeper understanding of those complicated conceptions in actuarial science. Through three years of learning abstract theories of different fields in mathematics, I gained the capacity and patience to deal with extremely difficult problems whether in academic world or real life. I am also good at teamwork. It does not necessarily mean that I have to be the leader of a team every time. I can be a good listener who follows the instruction of the team leader, but I can also be a team leader if no one is willing to make decisions. Passion is the best teacher. I am very interested in actuarial science and will attend the Distinguished Guest Lecturer Series held by Gamma Iota Sigma every Wednesday. I learned a lot from the guests and their own experiences, which are extremely precious to me. I have also studied hard for actuarial science and passed 4 professional exams in the 1 year and am preparing eagerly for the 5th exam in June.
However, my biggest weaknesses are that I might be a little bit shy in front of strangers and I am not as fluent in oral or written English as native speakers. But I am trying to fix them by concentrating on the process of preparation for each chance that I have got to present in public. After the presentation, I will find where I need to improve. Some advices that I got from one of my professors are to speak louder, slower and make eye contact with the audience. I know those are the most basic things in public speaking and I will work on every single thing that I need to improve in the future.
I think my strengths would make me a competitive candidate from the interviewers’ perspective. Many actuarial science students never get the chance to deal with modeling problems, meanwhile, modeling is one of the most important parts in pricing insurance products and advanced modeling skill is vital to modeling in catastrophe insurance. From the standpoint of a company, they want people who can work well within a team and most of them are also looking for leadership when they are hiring. Those skills are crucial to a company because they want people who have their own thoughts, can listen to others’ ideas and make the most effective decisions. Passion would be another important criteria for their candidates because they need people who really love this industry with hole-hearted investment. As for those weaknesses that I mentioned, they are also very important to employers. A company can operate well only when employees can communicate effectively and convey their thoughts in a clear way which is why I still need to work very hard on my weaknesses.
Laura Wang 