During my actuary degree I was fortunate enough to win two scholarships that helped
pay for my actuarial education. Today I wanted to share with you one of the two
essays that I wrote to win one of the two scholarships that I won if you want
to hear the other essay you can let me know in the comments down below the
essay that I want to share today was the second one that I wrote the second
scholarship that I won. I won $5,000 which I know in the US might not be a
lot but for me I was paying $2,000 a semester for school so $5,000 covered a
year of my university education which was huge for me I don't know how much
weight was placed on the essay I was also top of my class I had passed a few
actuarial exams I had done a couple internships and in rereading this
scholarship essay before reading it out loud to you I am seeing that I was quite
the hyperbolic over exaggerating dramatic kind of writer back in the day
I still am but oh okay this is a real cringe but I think it could be helpful
maybe if you guys are trying to apply for actuarial scholarships too : I never
expected to spend the first two weeks of my first actuarial internship locked in
a bathroom stall bawling my eyes out but that's exactly what happened
admittedly I didn't spend all my time crying but even a few minutes a day is
more than I should have needless to say I'm not proud of how it
all started it was my chance to try out my chosen career and instead of diving
into new experiences I was overwhelmed and terrified once the initial shock
wore off I tried to get my head above water but all I felt was useless as part
of my job I worked in SAS to collect and analyze information endless hours were
spent screaming in my head at the computer and asking people around me for help I
have never asked so many questions in my entire life I would go home at the end
of the day and imagine how my future self would reflect on this period of my
life I settled on it being a very humbling experience as someone who is
normally a very quick learner SAS isn't something that can be mastered in a day
at least not for me and this was a very valuable life lesson this real-time
analysis of my internship helped provide me with some perspective
eventually I got the hang of programming and stopped needing to ask questions
every 30 seconds the proudest moment of my internship was during my final
evaluation with my supervisor he wrote that he saw incredible improvement over
the four months and that was the biggest compliment I could have gotten he didn't
know it but he inspired a complete psychological turnaround in my life I
love that internship more ambitious than ever I had a whole new way to look at
life instead of aspiring to excel I now aspired for continuous and visible self
improvement I started by watching hours of TED Talks I listened to every word
gaining perspective from their diverse life experiences often when a talk
inspired me I would try to find a book written by the speaker and get lost in
their wisdom if nothing else these people provided me with an interesting
story but I always tried to find the lesson a domino effect followed suddenly
I was craving different perspectives all I wanted was to learn new things just
for the sake of learning I knew that school and internships would
train me to be an actuary I wanted to find something that would complement my
personality I wanted to have stories about more than just mathematics so I
signed up for an adult ballet class it was the best decision I've ever made
even though ballet cannot directly help me grow as an actuary it makes me a
happier and healthier person which translates to the rest of my life never
in my life have I been more certain that I want to be an actuary despite a
painful start to a first internship I work every day to prove to myself that I
can do it I have already passed four preliminary actuarial exams with the
intention to write the final one in February 2014
I am currently one month into my second actuarial internship and I can honestly
say that I feel like a different person than it was the first time around I feel
like I'm exactly where I'm supposed to be in life and that's a beautiful thing
I don't know where my actuarial career is gonna take me but I'm optimistic so
so yeah that was my essay I don't want to go into a full-on dissection and
analysis of what I was trying to achieve with each line in my essay I just think
that sometimes having an example of something that someone else wrote could
be potentially helpful for you or maybe not I don't know you can let me know if
you hate it in the comments down below like Yolo if you like this video please
give it a thumbs up see more my face a reminder to let me
know in the comments down below if you want me to do another video reading out
the first scholarship essay that I wrote that won me a different scholarship
that essay was also cringe had a different theme had a different
perspective thank you for calling byeee