Act Sci Club Announcements:
Actuarial Students National Association
Place and time: This year, the convention will take place in Quebec City during
the weekend of January 8-10th, 2010.
Registration dates and price: Tickets will go on sale starting on Oct 26th at an
early-bird price of $90. After the early-bird special ends on Nov. 27, tickets
will be available at the regular price of $120. The ticket price includes meals
worth over $150, so this is a bargain! The events will be held at the Hotel
Chateau Laurier with a special room rate of $94 per night with up to quad
occupancy. ASNA will also supply a travel reimbursement for anyone who has
attended the convention.
If you are interested please email
uoftasna@gmail.com so we get an estimate of how many will come so we can
organize a bus to go down to Quebec City.
Thanks
uoftasna@gmail.com
Student participation laser pointers:
Are less than 5 mw - I've shone one in my pupil
for 5 seconds but you are strongly advised not to do the same! (Or to stare at
the sun either!) Please don't distract your classmates by shining
them around too playfully, but please do use them to point at items you don't
understand, suspected errors in formulas or diagrams, or to respond to
questions. Please return them at the end of every lecture by leaving on a table
near the door - I currently pay for them personally in dollar stores. Can
anyone recommend a bulk supplier in China who'll ship more conveniently
then 'FOB Shanghai' where they could get left in the rain for a while before I
pick them? Comments or recommendations
please to me at
sharp@utstat.utoronto.ca
Medical certificates
To be fair to the honest 399 students, I assume that your MD, despite his/her (required) College of Physicians and Surgeons of Ontario number, is like the one above and feels that his/her time has better uses than guessing how you sick you were on term test day. Please see course outlines below about my policy for (usually not) accepting medical certificates. A medical certificate usually results in a zero on a term test.
Courses
Summer 2009F2009
W2010
(Note that assignments and helpful content is primarily on the
password-protected Blackboard portal for each
course currently being taught)
| Click for Outline |
Meeting Section |
Location | Instructor | ||||
| ACT230H1 | F 2009 | Math of Finance | L5101 |
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UTSG-RW110 | K Sharp | |
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| ACT230H1F | Sum2010 | Math of Finance | L5101 |
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UTSG-WI 1016 | TBA | |
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| ACT240H1F | F 2009 | Fund Invest & Credit | L0101 |
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UTSG-MP102 | K Sharp | |
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| ACT245H1S | W 2010 | Financial Principles I - Derivatives | L0101 |
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UTSG | K Sharp | |
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UTSG |
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| ACT245H1S | Sum2010 | Financial Principles I | L5101 | Tu-1:00-3:00 (Classes start Jan 4, 2010, reading week Feb 15-19) Th-2:00 (Classes end Aprl 1)
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UTSG-MP103 UTSG-MP103 |
TBA | |
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| ACT247H1S | Sum2010 | Intro Life Conting I | L5101 |
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UTSG | TBA | |
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| ACT349H1 | F 2009 | Corporate Finance | L0101 |
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UTSG | K. Sharp | |
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UTSG | ||||||
| ACTB40H3 | F 2009 | Fund Invest, Credit | LEC01 |
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UTSC-BV 340 | K. Sharp | |
| TUT0001 |
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UTSC-PO 101 | |||||
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| ACTB47H3 | W 2010 | LEC01 |
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UTSC-BV260 UTSC-BV260 |
TBA | ||
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| STA219H5F | F 2009 | Math Invest Credit | LEC0101 |
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UTM-SE 3093 | K. Sharp | |
| TUT0101 |
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UTM-SE 3093 | Wenwen Gao | ||||
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http://www.beanactuary.org/ has some info about the US job market, which
appears to be more promising for entry level actuarial students than the crowded
Canadian job market. For a Canadian citizen with a math or act sci degree and a
letter offering US employment, a TN (Trade NAFTA) US employment visa is likely
to be obtainable but check it out first:
http://travel.state.gov/visa/temp/types/types_1274.html Most employers like
to see some office work experience on your resume, preferably actuarial
experience - try very hard to get some work experience anywhere. Many recent graduates want to
live in Toronto, Vancouver, Montreal, Boston, New York, San Francisco, Los
Angeles etc. but you might have a better chance of getting a suitable job in a
less popular city.
Another
way to get your resume noticed in the pile could be to attend
Toastmasters (public
speaking - preparation for client contact) and give enough five-minute speeches
to get a "Competent Toastmaster' certificate; Clubs close to
the campuses are likely to be particularly student-friendly: email and go and
try it.
The membership listing at
www.soa.org is very useful in a job search. Maybe look for excuses to send
an email to a potential employer. Don't send a lot of spam and
don't be upset if you don't get a reply. Everyone is busy and everyone quickly
deletes non-essential email, faxes and snail mail. But for example, maybe you'll notice at
www.soa.org a person working in investments in X-land and you are a fluent
X-ese language speaker and have taken some investment-related courses. Then try
sending an email
with a email 'subject' field such as 'X-ese speaker with investment skills',
attaching your resume. For greater visibility, you could snail-mail a hard copy
resume. A follow-up phone call is likely to be necessary - stay cheerful despite
hearing 'no thanks' a few times and, if your resume is OK, you may eventually
hear 'come and talk to us!'.
www.actuarialoutpost.com has job ads and, on the popular discussion board, a
lot of comments and information, much of it correct. See in particular the forum
named 'Careers-Employment'. An October 2009 posting from a Canadian ('up here')
sounded about right: "As for online postings, most of the people who
graduated with me and got hired never applied online. It was either through
previous internships or through contacts/referrals. It seems many companies are
now preferring this approach (at least up here) as it's often a safer approach
in terms of candidate quality + you don't have to sort through 100 CVs to find
people."
Here is placement rate info on an ad for a 'how to stay competitive' Act Sci
Club seminar in October 2007.
Admin Links for UTM
| Session dates | http://www.utm.utoronto.ca/regcal/WEBGEN3.html |
| Course timetable | https://registrar.utm.utoronto.ca/student/timetable/index.php |
Admin Links for UTSC
| Course timetable | http://www.utsc.utoronto.ca/~registrar/scheduling/timetable |
| Final exam timetable (if available) | http://www.utsc.utoronto.ca/~timetable/exam_timetable/ |
Admin Links for UTSG
| From Prof Broverman | U of T Downtown Act Sci programme |
| Act Sci Club SS6007 | http://fisher.utstat.toronto.edu/actsci/main.htm |
| Arts and Science Calendar | Dates of Sessions |
| Courses and Prerequisites | |
| Arts and Science Course Timetable | Fall/Winter Session |
| Summer |
Society of Actuaries Exams
Info at
Society of Actuaries
Please note that these professional exams are run worldwide out of the Chicago
offices of the
Society of Actuaries,
not by University of Toronto, though instructors sometimes act as proctors.
Professional Links
Canadian Institute of Actuaries
CFA Institute
Comments on CFA for actuarial students
Talk to ASNA on CFA January 5, 2008