maybe some of you are actu-curious hello aspiring actuaries my name is michelle this
is actuaryelle my actuarial youtube channel. maybe you subscribe? maybe you follow me on instagram at
@actuaryelle - same way it's spelled here. if you know absolutely nothing about becoming an actuary
the one thing that you need to know is you have to pass a lot of exams in order to become an actuary
in today's video i'm going to talk you through the ways that i studied for my actuarial exams
in order to become a fellow of the casualty actuarial society and fun fact about me
i didn't fail any of the exams which i don't know how to say without making it sound like
i'm bragging so usually i just brag about it my co-workers can vouch i let them know pretty
often that i didn't fail any of these exams i've posted the timing of all the exams i took on my
actuarial instagram page i passed 10 exams over the course of a little over five years
i want to talk you through the study strategies that i used give you a whole bunch of tips that
really resonated with me but before i get into that there are a few things that i want to say
the first being if something does not resonate with you you don't have to do it just because
it worked for me does not mean that it works for you everyone learns differently and you're going
to hear me mention a lot of times in this video the ways that i think and the ways that work well
for me but that doesn't mean that it's going to work well for you the second thing that i wanted
to mention before i jump into a video full of tips is that along with a lifetime full of privilege i
lived with my parents throughout the exam process which absolutely put me in a position of privilege
i was able to focus solely on my studying i didn't have to worry about paying rent i didn't have to
worry about buying groceries i didn't have to worry about cleaning the house my parents were
handling that and i do really recognize that it's a privilege to be able to focus so much
of my energy on exams specifically and not have to worry about all the other adult things that go on
so i just wanted to throw that out there too the way i like to refer to my study technique
is to study in iterations i would pass through the entire material multiple times i would
iterate through it and each iteration would have a different purpose a different goal and a different
way of learning the material one of the nice things about having to take 10 actuarial exams
is that i got to refine my study techniques as i took more and more exams at the end of each exam i
would debrief with myself and say what worked and what didn't and what i really found is that in my
first iteration of studying it didn't benefit me to try to learn the material because i wouldn't
remember the material i'm the kind of person who cannot study for 12 hours in a day my brain just
does not have the attention span i prefer to study over more months but fewer hours per day versus
studying for a shorter amount of time and then cramming just these really long marathon study
sessions in i studied three months for each of the preliminary exams and four months for each of the
advanced exams since i was starting the study process so early it didn't make sense to spend
three weeks on chapter one really really understand chapter one because by the time i would
get through the entirety of the material i would have completely forgotten chapter one my goal was
generally to spend about a month getting through the entirety of the syllabus which for some exams
that was a lot some of the syllabi is that the plural syllabus i think so some of the syllabi
were stacks and stackss of papers the goal of my first pass was to make sure that everything was
clearer to me the second time that i iterated through the material what do i mean by this in
my first pass i was making my formula sheets i was making some study aids i was possibly making flash
cards probably wasn't making flash cards i don't love flash cards i only did it for the later more
advanced exams because there's more memorizing to do i was highlighting and underlining and
leaving myself notes in the margins if there was something that i had to spend you know 30 minutes
three hours staring at a paragraph to try to understand what it was saying once i finally
understood it i would write myself notes in the margin to say this is what this paragraph means so
that the next time that i read it it's clearer to me because it's explained in a way that my brain
already understands if you've purchased a study manual to learn the material and i do
recommend purchasing study manuals to learn the material they would have already aggregated past
exam problems with each of the chapters so that you can do them and i would say in my
first iteration i would do a few problems per chapter but i wouldn't necessarily want to do
all the problems at the end of the chapter because then there's nothing left for my next iteration so
first pass is make your formula sheet 100%... 1000% make your formula sheet early make some summaries
highlight your notes make it super clear so that the next time that you have to read it
you understand what's going on do a few problems to make sure you're starting to get it and so
that you have a sense of what the most important information in the chapter is but an important tip
for your first pass is that if you're getting stuck on a page if you're getting stuck on a
chapter if there is something that you're just staring at it doesn't make any sense to you
skip it it's not worth spending three days feeling mind blocked because you cannot
possibly read through this chapter and that sometimes happens you're not going to remember
it anyway you can worry about trying to figure it out later in the process for now we skip it
we move on we're trying to just get organized and if reading this one chapter is stopping you from
getting through the rest of the material make a star at the corner of the chapter like we are not
afraid to scribble all over the page during our first pass leave yourself a little note saying i
skipped chapter 13 i'm gonna get back to it later but for now it's just incomprehensible to me and
i'm going to try to focus on the things that i can comprehend try to make the stuff that's a little
bit more sensical to me make sense so that next time everything is golden the next few iterations
of studying really involve rereading the material and doing a zillion problems you are using all of
that first iteration prep work and you are putting it to the test i am the kind of person who learns
by doing so i'm not the kind of person who ever paid extra for video lessons to try to understand
things i'm not the kind of person who went to in-person lectures to try to learn the material
i really learned by doing and so in my second third maybe fourth iteration um what i would do
is i would reread the chapter and then do the problems using the formula sheet that i prepared
another tip that i have a whole video on is that i would always do my practice problems open book
what i mean by this is i don't see huge benefit in just reading the problem if i don't understand it
immediately going to the solution what i would do is i would say okay let me read the question
if i think i know how to solve it without looking at anything let's try to do that
that rarely happens the next thing i would do is i would look at my formula sheet and say okay
can i figure out the answer from my formula sheet what do i think is a relevant formula to help me
solve this problem if i can solve it using just the formula sheet or just a summary sheet
golden do that if i can't figure it out i'm opening up the chapter again i'm skimming
through the chapter trying to find the relevant information so that i can solve the problem
and then finally if i still can't figure it out that's when i look at the solution that's when
i try to solve it line by line with the solution and the reason why i really like this technique
of doing problems is that it forces me to reread the chapter a zillion times if i read the solution
to that problem all i get is the solution to that problem but as i'm skimming through the chapter to
try to find the information that i need to solve that problem i'm also skimming a whole bunch of
other information that's in the chapter and it's all sort of getting into my brain a little bit
it also helps me know if my formula sheet is adequate i don't have a photographic memory
but what my brain does is it says like i know the answer is at the top left of the page or i
know that the answer is at the bottom right of the page and so what i would do is in my mind i
wouldn't be able to see the formulas but i can say okay when i'm at the bottom right it's a negative
when i'm at the top left it's a positive and so i would sort of use that um to map out where on
the page different formulas are and that would just help me solve problems i don't know if that
makes sense to anyone but that's how my brain worked i have a whole other video on how i use
study trackers but i wasn't the kind of person who would track hours for me it's not about the number
of hours it's about the quality of learning that i'm doing what i wanted to track is did i cover
every chapter did i do problems for every chapter have i made flashcards for every chapter how i put
the formulas for every chapter on my formula sheet like i would check those boxes off in my tracker
if a certain chapter didn't have any formulas didn't need it i would just make a not not needed
note to myself but that's sort of how i kept myself organized they recommend a hundred hours
of studying per hour of actuarial exam for some people that's really helpful for me i couldn't
tell you how many hours i studied i didn't find it helpful to track that because like i said
my brain after a few hours just stops functioning i feel like a broken record just referring to old
videos but i do have a whole other video about how honestly it sounds so dumb i'm like i discovered
it later in the exam process but later in the exam process i started using study music
as i studied and i found that that really allowed my brain to focus for a longer period of time
i would search on youtube study music playlist and i'd find a two-hour video a six-hour video
and just listened to that and i found my brain would concentrate a lot better on
the material and would allow me to study for a longer period of time one tip that i think is
super important like absolutely necessary is to give yourself permission to take time off
i've said this on the internet before i'll say it on the internet again for a lot of the
time that i spent studying there were days where my brain would not focus on studying
and i would not let myself rest i would just feel guilty about not studying but also not be able to
study because my brain absolutely couldn't focus and that is just counterproductive on every level
i'm not studying i'm not refreshed i'm not relaxing i don't feel better nothing good
is coming from this when you give yourself permission to take time off when you say okay
today is not the day i cannot study you let yourself reboot you let yourself
feel better and then next time when you come back to studying you're fresher you're lighter you're
like alright let's do it i took last night off for one whole year when i was studying i was taking
adult ballet classes and tuesday nights were ballet nights i didn't have to study on tuesday
night because tuesday night was ballet night i would reward myself with things like going for
walks which was so important do do go on walks when you're studying get some sunshine make sure
that happens i reward myself with bubble baths i reward myself with all sorts of
fun things.. food.. snacks i'd reward myself with snacks i'm a top quality eater
this one isn't a study tip but something that really helped me get through this exam process
and i think really motivated me to pass all my exams on the first try is the people that i was
surrounding myself with i have mixed feelings about the fact that i took an actuarial degree
and i've made videos about this but the number one reason to study actuarial science and university
in my opinion is that it puts you in an environment where you're surrounded by other
actuarial students during my degree my earliest classes would be at 10 15 or 11 30 in the morning
but i'd show up around 9 9 30 meet up with my classmates and we'd do homework together we
would study together we would motivate each other we weren't all necessarily studying for the same
actuarial exam at the same time but the fact that we knew other people who were studying for
exams really motivated all of us to strive for better motivated all of us to try harder and
then my first actuarial internship really lit a fire under my butt because my first actuarial
internship was at the company that i work for now and the company that i work for now hires
really talented actuaries that's not a brag on myself that's a brag on the people that i have the
privilege of working with and my first actuarial internship was the first time that i've ever felt
inadequate i would say as someone who is used to being you know top of her class or you know top
20% of the class whatever it is i never really had to try that hard
and then i showed up here and everyone was at 150 and i was at let's say 100 i probably
wasn't at 100 but everyone else was up here and i had to say to myself yo michelle step up your
game or you're going to fall behind and so i had to step up my game because they would say
look at him he became a fellow at 23. look at him he became a fellow at 23.
look at him he became a fellow at 24. look at the other intern who's working here this
term he's studying for exam 7 and eventually after the internship became a fellow at 22.
these were the people i was pacing myself against let's be clear no one thinks you need to become a
fellow at 23. that is not the goal that is not the dream no one needs to do that but being surrounded
by all these other fellows being surrounded by all these other people who are still studying for
these exams we all motivated each other i'm not the kind of person who likes to study in groups
i don't like it when we quiz each other i don't need any of that i much prefer to just be me
and my study material and writing stuff down but we would have study facebook groups and if i
had problems if i didn't understand something i could ask them questions more often than not what
would happen is i would just go in those facebook groups and complain. its just really nice to have a
place to complain and people to complain to who understand what you're going through because
they're going through it at the same time a lot of my co-workers were people who liked studying
together so they would book the same meeting room every evening after work and just go study there
all the time on nights and weekends i think there's something really beautiful about that
if that's something that would work for you try to find it but for me i
prefer to study alone my study environment is a little strange i will admit
i would study at home on the couch under blankets with a big mug of tea
probably a big bowl of popcorn because i like the kinds of foods that you can eat a million of and
just like snack snack snack snack i just wanted to be as comfortable as possible when i was studying
i know this isn't going to work for everyone i know a lot of my friends and coworkers think i'm
nuts for that and that they have to be dressed and out of the house and at the library and they focus
so much better but no no for me i just want to be at home cozy safe warm and that is where i thrived
i mentioned earlier that for most of the exams i didn't bother with flash cards but
there were a couple exams that were pretty theory heavy and what i would do is i would
prepare virtual flash cards the site that i used was cram no one's paying me to say that
its just what i used and what was nice about it is i could make the flash cards on the computer
it would link to the app that was on my phone and at the time when i was living in montreal i
had a 45 minute commute to and from work and on my commute i could just open up the app flip through
the flash cards and memorize some stuff i wasn't going to be doing problems on the subway but flash
cards was good you know just that that quick repetition it was a a nice way to pass the time
on the subway possibly in one of my most recent q&a sessions on my instagram page
which again you should follow someone asked me for a study secret and i said that this isn't a
secret per se because i have said it on the internet before but the night before my exam
i would sleep with my formula sheets under my pillow there is something very nice about the
ritual and the superstitions that come along with studying sometimes for me i believe that
after studying three four months for an exam the day before your exam you are not doing yourself
any good by doing a little bit of extra studying the day before the exam is all about getting
yourself in a good mindset to take the exam the next day i would be taking bubble baths i would
go for a massage the day before my very last actuarial exam i actually vlogged and you can
find that on the internet and for me sleeping with my notes under my pillow was just a weird
superstitious ritual that helped me learn by osmosis and helped me feel a little bit better
so that if in the middle of the night i woke up and went is it a plus or a minus i can just
pull up my formula sheet say it's a minus and then go back to sleep do thumbs up this video
if you found it helpful and let me know any of your study tips in the comments down below
good luck through the actuarial exam process i love all of you thank you for calling bye