Chances are that you are an actuarial science student in Malaysia and would like to find ways to increase your chances of getting an internship/job in a field you are passionate about in the near future.
Fret not, I was once like you and believe me, it can be stressful when you compare yourself to your classmates who are going above and beyond.
Here’s a list of advice I would tell my younger self with the knowledge of what I know today:
1. Figure Myself Out
1.1 Focus on My Existing Strengths
Looking back at what I personally did, I used to write for fun during my teenage years. I wrote fiction bits (an embarrassing part of my life), some articles published on Niexter (the teenage section of New Strait Times) and then continued on to write some interesting insurance articles for student societies like MASA and HWSAS. I regretted not investing more time, effort and money into my writing skill as writing has made me stand out from all the other job applicants.
I would definitely tell my younger self to take the time to identify what I enjoy and be assured that the skills I enjoy are transferable, as long as I knew how to apply it to the job. I should have taken the time, effort and money to hone my existing skills.
1.2 To Specialise or To Generalise?
It took me years, but I finally figured out that I’m a generalist as I enjoyed stacking different skills. Before coming up with that realization, I always thought that I had to focus on one specialization and excel at it. I hated it. I felt like I was not happy trying to conform to the unreasonable expectation that I placed myself into.
Meeting different people from different backgrounds after graduation has opened up more possibilities of what I could be. I tried social media managing, content writing, and now blogging in addition to specializing in insurance for my career.
To my younger self, you’re different and it’s okay. Embrace being a generalist and pursue any curiosity.
2. Don’t be Afraid
2.1 Grab Opportunities
As a university student, our commitments are at an all-time low (I know it doesn’t seem that way but hear me out). We didn’t have to stress about making more money, or dealing with a full-time job, or having dependents to care for. Assuming that our parents supply us an allowance to get-by and our only contribution to the household is to study and get a degree, this will be the only free time we have before graduating and having to do everything by ourselves.
To my younger self, I now believe that one of the best things we can do in life is to do the job we enjoy out of passion; not just for the money.
It seems easier said than done because I personally initially chose to study actuarial science because of the prospects of getting a higher-paid job after graduation, but I find myself not enjoying some of the subjects that I had to take (heck, even nearly failed too). It was luck that I managed to somehow find my way into the insurance underwriting pathway and now get opportunities to learn about the technical side of insurance with my Associate in Risk Management and AMII Level 1 courses.
To my younger self, there’s no harm in trying new things. Stop worrying too much.
2.2 Create Opportunities
Back when I was a uni student, I was passive and never thought to have the idea to create my own opportunities. In a sense, it was more of seeing available opportunities and grabbing them. It was a gamechanger to have this new mindset of ‘focus on yourself and opportunities will come’.
This is where my personal website comes in. This space is my public journal where I am free to document my experience and experiment my learnings. At the moment, I am figuring out SEO and so far I enjoy combining my existing skills.
To my younger self, find ways to create opportunities for yourself. Don’t worry if it looks like you’re all over the place without a direction. It will all work out in the end.
2.3 Ask Questions
Knowing what I know now, I wish I had not been so afraid of asking questions. I should have adopted the mindset of ‘There are no such things as stupid questions’.
If you’re forgetful like me, I would suggest creating a career/work journal where you document your learnings and achievements at work. This can be beneficial in the long run if you need to keep your CV updated.
To my younger self, stop hesitating and just ask. Make it a habit to learn new things.
3. Get Involved
I would highly recommend getting involved in extra-curricular in all sorts of activities that are organised by the university and elsewhere. Here are 2 societies that I would recommend for Malaysian actuarial students:
3.1 Malaysian Actuarial Student Association (MASA)
For Malaysian actuarial students, it is worth checking out the Malaysian Actuarial Student Association, a platform for actuarial students across Malaysia to connect and provide industrial and educational support.
As of January 2022, MASA has over 900 active members from both public and private universities nationwide. MASA has also affiliated with actuarial societies from 11 universities in Malaysia.
As a member of MASA, you can get involved in events that are relevant to your area of studies, gain programming skills like VBA, SQL, SAS, R and Python as well as catch up with the latest news with their ActuaRead newsletter.
Here are more interesting things that MASA is up to:
- Past Events:
- Academy 4.0: Introduction to Data Cleaning
- Academy 3.0: Application of Python: Statistical Modelling
- Academy 2.0: R You Ready to Code?
- Academy 1.0: Learn to Code: Python
- Public Lecture Series 4.0: InsurTech: Venturing Into the Future of Insurance
- Public Lecture Series 3.0: ERM: How Companies Survive the Unexpected
- Public Lecture Series 2.0: Bancassurance: The Untapped Market
- Public Lecture Series 1.0: Actuaries in the Digital Age
- Actuarialogy Conference & Career Fair
- Research:
I believe for a membership worth RM20 (if I’m not mistaken), it is pretty worth it. I had a really great experience volunteering as a content writer for MASA during my 2nd year undergraduate studies as I got to conduct research and personally learn more about the actuarial/insurance field.
Check out the articles I wrote for MASA:
- Rising Temperature and Rising Prices
- The Human Cost of an Environmental Disaster
- The Mathematics Behind the Covid-19 Outbreak
3.2 Association of Malaysian Economics Undergraduates (AMEU)
The Association of Malaysian Economics Undergraduates (AMEU) is a student-run, not-for-profit organization aimed at raising social and economic awareness among youth while providing a healthy platform for constructive discourse on economics-related issues.
AMEU has a presence in both the UK and Malaysia, and is run by a team of dedicated students.
Here are more interesting things that AMEU is up to:
- Initiatives:
- AMEU Economics Summit: Hosted annually with the objective of serving as a platform for academics, professionals and students alike to come together, share and discuss ideas
- Junior Fellowship Programme: 8-week program designed to boost Pre-U / College students’ skills, experience and network through an exclusive opportunity to work in Econsilience (AMEU’s Undergraduate Research Journal) or by planning an event supported by AMEU
- EConversation: Podcast Project in line with our three core tenets of the organisation, promoting education and economic knowledge, social impact and commercial awareness
- Malaysian Youth Climate Conference: Explore how climate change and economic agents interact with each other
- Research:
- Econsilience: The journal, launched and edited by AMEU’s members, is a rigorous selection of student essays and articles covering economics and adjacent fields
- EconBites: Comprising top economic news headlines from Malaysia, the UK and the world, posted weekly on all AMEU social media platforms
- EConsider: Series of evidence-based articles written by members of the AMEU Research team about economic topics of members’ personal interest and is published on a monthly basis
- EConfused: AMEU Research team breaks down complex economic jargon into easily digestible definitions that can be understood by all
- Econtagion: A curated collection of excerpts that examines the economic insights revolving around the COVID-19 pandemic involving various sectors of the world economy
I remember attending the AMEU Economics Summit 2018, but I remember being in awe of being in the same room as the people who are making a difference in the Malaysian economic scene at that time:
- Rafidah Aziz, Former Minister of International Trade and Industry
- Richard Record of The World Bank
- Lin Mui Kiang, formerly of the United Nations
- Lin See Yan, Bank Negara Malaysia’s former deputy governor
Conclusion
Despite academic challenges (actuarial science is no joke!), I truly enjoyed my university days. It was 3 years of learning life skills before adulting full-time. Now that I look back, I’m glad that I took the initiative to get involved in societies and learn the art of writing for an audience that consisted of my peers.
It may be cheesy, but I believe everything will work out in the end. Stop worrying so much about whether you should do this or do that. Just do it!
Things in life happen because of our actions and what we want to achieve is to have the least amount of regret before death. There is a delicate balance of trying out new things and choosing to do the things you are passionate about in the end.
Btw, check out my review on a book called the Top 5 Regrets of the Dying.
As quoted by my Life Insurance Mathematics lecturer, “The probability of death is 1.”
So, let’s make work (and life!) worth living.
