Maths for Business Programmes BSc(Hons) Mathematics with Actuarial Science
What will I study?
This popular and flexible degree programme combines a thorough academic education in mathematics and statistics with a coherent professional-level specialist education in actuarial science. Students who perform sufficiently well in specific modules within the programme are able to gain exemption from Subjects CT1-CT8 of the professional actuarial examinations of the Institute and Faculty of Actuaries. The University of Southampton is the only Russell Group university in Great Britain to offer such a programme, enabling students to gain exemption from all of CT1-CT8. Indeed, according to both the Times Higher Education and QS World University Rankings for 2010, the University of Southampton is the highest ranked university in the northern hemisphere to offer such a programme. Unsurprisingly, therefore, the programme is highly regarded worldwide and has proved to be very attractive to well qualified applicants, many of whom are international, who wish to gain many exemptions and subsequently enter employment as actuarial analysts with advanced professional standing, reducing their remaining time to professional designation by around two years. However, it is also very flexible in design and appeals equally to those applicants who wish to experience a different educational balance, increasing their exposure to mathematics and statistics and decreasing their exposure to actuarial science. This is perfectly possible, given the flexible structure of the programme and the wide variety of optional modules available.
In the first year of the programme, students take eight modules. Six of these are mathematics and statistics modules that are taken by all of the students on our mathematics programmes and which provide a thorough academic education in algebra, analysis, and probability and statistics. The remaining two modules are in microeconomics and macroeconomics.
What do Actuaries do? Actuaries are highly skilled quantitative professionals who are primarily concerned with the identification, quantification, analysis, and management of various types of risk, particularly those with long term financial consequences, such as mortality risk, morbidity risk, and investment performance risk. Their expertise is essential to the proper operation and management of life, general, and health insurance companies, pension funds, and investment firms, and their skills are very highly regarded and valued throughout the financial services industry. Graduates of this programme with several exemptions have gone on to have successful careers within leading insurance companies or actuarial consulting firms or government, such as Aon, Aviva, AXA, Deloitte, Ernst & Young, Financial Services Authority, Fortis Investments, Grant Thornton, Hewitt Associates, HSBC Life, Jardine Lloyd Thompson, Lane, Clark & Peacock, Mercer, Price Waterhouse Cooper, Skandia, Watson Wyatt, Zurich, and many other leading firms in the financial services sector.
16
In the second year of the programme, students take eight modules. There are two mathematics modules that build particularly on the analysis covered in the first year. There are also two statistics modules that build on the probability and statistics covered in the first year. It is in the second year that the exploration of actuarial science proper really begins. There is a compulsory module in financial mathematics and there are optional modules in stochastic processes and in accounting and finance. There is also a free option in the first semester of the second year. In the third year of the programme, students take eight modules. There is a core module in communicating and researching mathematics, taken by all students on our mathematics programmes, which requires students to undertake a group project and an individual project, submit reports on their research, and, in the case of the group project, give a presentation on their work. The actuarial science modules at this stage include two modules in actuarial mathematics applied to life insurance and pensions, a module in demography and survival models, a module in statistical methods applied to general insurance, and a module in mathematical finance, focussing on portfolio theory and the valuation of derivative securities. Students may select all or only some of these actuarial modules. They also have the freedom to select other optional modules according to their interests. For example, some students at this stage choose to take additional statistics modules, some choose to take operational research modules, whereas others choose non-quantitative management modules or even language modules. The flexibility of the programme design allows students considerable freedom to tailor the final year of their studies to suit their individual interests and post graduation plans. Of course, as with all our mathematics degree programmes, students also develop key transferable skills, such as time management and personal organisation, use of the library and the web for information location and retrieval, and written and oral communication.