Day 254

I just got super excited about going to bed.  I'm pretty tired.


This morning when I went to make eggs, one of the eggs broke in the carton.  I was sad.  But I'm over it now, I think.  It was tough at first, but I've grown and become a better person.


In investments we did something, I think.  Mainly Dr. Foley talks about stuff that doesn't really connect with the chapter we're supposedly discussing.  He spent the first 10 minutes talking about the quiz we turned in on Monday.  He took the last page of one of the student's and was talking about how it might not be right because the numbers looked too big.  Except that he hadn't worked it out yet, and the rest of us had really similar answers.  So then we talked about why the numbers might be so big.  I really questioned why I had woken up to go to that class...


I did much better in my probability quiz this week than I did last week.  Thankfully.  Not much else to say about that, except that studying for next week's quiz is going to be miserable.  This chapter is very long and goes over some stuff that I'm not especially familiar with, like Chebyshev's inequality.


After class I went to the Atrium to eat lunch.  It was pretty full so the table where I was sitting filled up pretty quickly.  I was joined by some fantastic freshmen.  They were real winners.  It was a group of three guys, one of whom was obviously trying to prove that he was the alpha male by telling appalling stories.  I don't miss being a freshman.


I had an interview today.  I thought it went really well.  Even the interviewer said that he thought I had done really well.  He really liked that I've had a class to learn how to use Access and even had a little bit of experience with it.  He said that usually people have a class in Excel and try to figure out Access, but he liked that I had a class in Access and just figured out my way around Excel because Access is so much more complicated.  So we talked for a little bit about how we are quick to Google things when we don't know the answer.  The interview questions were pretty standard: "why do you want to be an actuary," "what are your strengths and weakness," "why do you want to work for this company," and things like that.  As I was researching CNO last night, I realized that I legitimately do like the company, on paper anyhow.  They really push for being a company for the middle class, and their entire structure shows that.  They have good ratings, but nothing superb.  They focus on values that are important to individuals, not just rich executives.  They try to focus on the products that people need, not necessarily trying to sell things that people don't want.  I don't know, I just really liked it.  There are a lot of career ASA* actuaries at the company, which I liked.  (*This means that an actuary took a little more than half the exams and is an Associate in the Society of Actuaries, not a Fellow who took all the exams).  This means that there isn't a huge push for passing all the exams and they don't mind if you decide to stop someday.  The guy who interviewed me is a career ASA.  He finished his last exam around the time that he and his wife adopted their second daughter and he just didn't want to study for my exams while he was raising a family.  I told him that I felt the same way.  If Kimmy and I decide to have kids, I don't want to be studying for exams while they're growing up.  I want to at least become an Associate, but if I don't finish all of the exams, I'm fine with that.  As long as the company for whom I am working is fine with it as well.  Anyhow, I thought the interview went well.  He mentioned a few times that he liked my technical experience, so I hope that's a good sign.  I'm going to email him after I take my exam, and hopefully I can inform him of my unofficial pass.


After my interview I came home.  Kimmy and I then got ready and went on Apartment Adventures part 2.  We wanted to give Creekside and Orchard another look.  I'm really glad that we did.  It was very helpful.  After a lot of thought, we've decided to go for Creekside.  I'm not looking forward to the longer drive, but Orchard just didn't seem as nice the second time and I think that we'll be happier in Creekside.  Plus we'd probably be spending around $30 a month for laundry in Orchard.  I'm pretty happy with our decision.  Now I just need to do some paperwork.  Woo!


Umm.... after Kimmy left for Mount Vernon Dustin and Timbo came over to study for our exam on Friday.  They were here for a couple hours.  It wasn't too bad, but a lot of the stuff we didn't directly talk about in class.  So we had to do a lot of referencing and deriving equations.  But we got through it.


I didn't study for FM today at all.  Boo.  But I had a lot of other important things to do, so I'm ok with it, I suppose.  But I'm going to bed now so that I can get up and study tomorrow. Woo hoo.  So.  Good night!

Day 246

So I'm ready for this exam to be over.  Truly.  And I'm sure you're all ready for me to be done talking about it.  17 days and it will be over!  Hopefully for good...


Anyhow.  I woke up this morning at 6 and did some studying for about an hour. I think I had oatmeal this morning for breakfast.  Yeah, I did.  I remember because yesterday I ran out of biscuits, so I had to make more today.


After breakfast I got all my school and workout materials together and left for work.  I was in the computer lab for 2 hours before life con this morning.  I did some grading for Dr. Nelson and talked with the various people that filter through there at 9 am.


During life con we discussed some of the homework problems, then talked more about the "common shock" joint survival model.  I feel like he spends a lot of time on things that really don't matter that much.  But if he thinks that's what we should spend more time on, then far be it from me to say otherwise.  


After class Dustin and I went to go work out.  The first exercise we did is normally a sitting exercise, but all the benches were occupied so we did it standing up.  This turned out to be a bad idea because both of us, in an attempt to do one more rep, arched our backs a little bit and promptly did something to the muscle right around our shoulder blades.  So we kept going, being very cautious of what we were doing... but ended up quitting early because it was just causing too much discomfort and we didn't want to irritate it anymore.  It was odd that we both did the exact same thing and injured ourselves in the same way.  I'm feeling better now, but I'm glad that we're taking tomorrow off.  After working out I went back to my office to eat lunch.  Then I had to work in the lab for another hour, which I spent finishing me grading.  While I was there I got a call from a company I applied to last night.  The guy wanted to do a phone interview with me, so I told him that I could do it at 4:30, to which he agreed.


When I got back to my apartment I showered, got a snack, then got to work on studying.  For the most part my studying from now until exam time is going to consist of working problems and looking over formulae that haven't quite yet stuck because they are hardly ever used.


So my phone interview.  PJ called me a little after 4:30, asked me a few questions about why I wanted to work for the company, my education, my physical proximity Ball State Campus, and things of that nature.  Then we went on to describe why I want to work for the company (Campus Special).  This seemed oddly familiar from Vector Marketing, but I let him keep going.  The basic idea is that Campus Special creates coupons for college students.  The part where I come in is that they need people to talk with local businesses about participating as vendors.  I asked if I would have to do any cold calling (which would have been an immediate deal-breaker for me) and he assured me that I would not.  For the most part I will given an account/client and working with that account.  I don't mind selling to people who want my product.  I do mind selling to people who don't want it.  So this shouldn't be too bad.  At the end of the interview I asked when I could expect to hear back about potentially progressing on to the next stage, and he said that over the course of the interview he decided to move me on to a phone interview with the head of HR and hiring.  So I have another phone interview on Thursday.  Except that PJ was supposed to email me contact information for this next guy... and he has not.  So hopefully he does that soon because tomorrow is going to be pretty busy.


After I got off the phone with PJ I had dinner.  I finished off the lasagna I made last week.  Then I studied for my probability quiz tomorrow for a while, followed by more studying for FM.  I did that until about 8:30 at which point my brain was done.  So now I'm going to go to bed!  Good night all.

Day 178

I'm sure this comes as no surprise, but today was a very busy day.  It started with Finance, where we talked more about different derivatives and options.  In between classes I went up to the computer lab to finish planning my lesson.  Then I went on to life contingencies, where we talked more about the expected value of a group of policies.  It was pretty slick, I suppose.


I taught my class a little bit about interest today.  I never know whether they're bored because they get it or because they don't.  It's pretty frustrating.  But I just kept on going, hoping that they catch on.


After that I went to my office, ate lunch, and reviewed what I was going to talk about during my interview today.  I tried to think of things that I had been doing wrong in the other interviews, and I think I picked out a few things that I really tried not to do during this interview.  Things like... saying that I don't know whether I want to be a life actuary or property/casualty actuary, or that I don't know if I want to take all the exams, or things like that.  So I made sure that I was very certain about my career goals in this interview.  Anyhow, after I did some research I went back to my car to drop off my lunch bag and backpack.  Then I just took a nice little stroll for some fresh air.  I also stopped by the Atrium to get some coffee.  Then I continued my nice little stroll to the Career Center.  I got there way early, so in my spare time I started looking for apartments and duplexes in the Muncie area for next year.  I didn't find anything, but I'm getting a better idea for what is around here.


I think that the interview went well.  I met with a guy named Clark from the Indiana Farm Bureau Insurance.  He started off by telling me about the internship program and that there were many different positions (and I had applied to all of them).  He told me that they weren't all directly actuarial, but that they were all a good experience.  So he started to ask questions and he really seemed to like some of my answers, especially when I told him how I organize my day.  He liked that I specifically "start each day" the night before by planning out what I do.  But anyhow, that went really well.  He said that if he didn't contact me by the first week of December to contact him.


After the interview I came back, changed, got some food, relaxed, then left for the Actuarial Club Meeting.  We all met at 4:45, got into 2 vans, and headed down to Indianapolis.  Timbo, Jacob, and I were in the van with Mr. Dean.  We talked most of the way down.  I just asked him lots and lots of questions about... everything.  From his career to his personal life to just being an actuary in general.  It was a good time.  When we got to Indianapolis we missed our turn because the venue wasn't well labeled.  But we made it.


After some awkward mingling we all sat down at various tables.  There were a couple hundred people, I would say.  I had intended on spreading out to meet some new people, but it seems that most of the Ball State group wanted to follow me.  So... we had a table of 1 Purdue student and 7 Ball State students. The Purdue student and one of the Ball State students just talked the entire time, each trying to one-up the other.  The rest of us just sat in silence, for there was never a time when one of them wasn't speaking.  It was as if what they had to say was so important that clearly we wanted to hear it.  They didn't really ask questions and never tried to involved everyone else.  So... it was lots of fun, for certain.  The meal was pretty good and the coffee was wonderful.  When we were done eating a few actuaries from the area sat at the front table and answered questions.  Most of them were the standard "what do you do on a daily basis?" or "How many exams should we pass before looking for a job?" that we hear a lot.  They had good answers, but they weren't so different from other things that I've heard.  Overall it was good.  A bit long, but good.


On the way back there was far less conversation.  I think we were all just tired.  We got back before the other van, but I had to wait around because I had given Kathryn a ride and figured that I probably shouldn't leave her stranded.  It's a good thing she didn't try to get a ride with Tim because Erin (Tim's wife) was still at small group.  So I also gave Tim a ride home.  Then Kathryn.  Then I came home, made a snack, played a game, and now I just finished writing this nonsense up so I can go to bed!  Night all!

Day 152

I have successfully survived another day of grad school.  No matter what else happened today, I call it a victory.

I got up a little early this morning so that I could do some more research before my interview.  Then I had some breakfast, read up on Lincoln some more, showered, got dressed, and headed off to my interview!  I got there a little early so I just sat and talked with Daniel, who is a sophomore Actuarial Science student.  He's already taken FM and is studying for P.  I guess that makes sense that they're try to get them through the exams as fast as possible.  It's just weird to think of all the math classes I've taken, but most of these kids just get through the calculus classes and probability, then focus on economics courses.  They'll miss so much good math!  No differential equations, numerical methods, modern algebra, number theory, discrete math, or real analysis.  It's so sad....

Anyhow.  The interview.  I thought it went really well.  I answered all their questions and they seemed to like my answers.  For the most part I was able to give them good, concise answers but also use humor appropriately.  My theory is that if I can make them laugh or at least smile regularly and at the appropriate time, I have a higher probability of being remembered, thus increasing my chance of getting an internship.  I also try to either get the first or last interview of the day.  If you interview well, getting the first slot of the day will give them a measuring stick against whom  they will compare everyone else.  So doing well can make you look really good against everyone else. Going last also gives you the advantage of being the person they will remember best because they don't have new faces to see and remember at the end of the day. So hopefully I left a good enough impression.  One of the guys asked me what I was looking for from a future employer.  I looked him dead in the eye and said "a job."  He thought that was pretty funny.  It seems that each company likes to have some question at the end that is unique and atypical.  Lincoln's question was "What do you think will set you apart from everyone else when we discuss all the interviews at the end of the day?"  So I said "Well. If you were two women I would mention my incredible good looks."  They both laughed a lot at that.  The one guy said to the other "Do you want to write that down?"  and the other said "No... I think we'll just leave that one here."  But overall I had a good time.  I honestly like doing interviews.  I don't get nervous.  I just like talking with these people and telling them about myself. I mean...who doesn't like doing that?

After my interview I went to the atrium and hung out with my friends there in between classes.  I missed finance because of the interview.  Then we went to life contingencies.  We have a test in that class on the 28th.  So, you know, that'll be fun.

Then... I taught.  Kind of.  Apparently there were a decent number of my students who didn't recall me telling them to type everything.  So I had to think of some way for them to get that to me.  Mostly I just let them email me.  This is going to be a mess to grade.... Then we had story time.  I read the story of the fisherman and his wife, where the fisherman catches a magical fish who grants wishes and the wife isn't content and asks for all the things.. and eventually gets nothing.  After story time we went over a few homework problems.  At this point it was way later than I had anticipated.  And I forgot my lecture notes.  So with only half an hour left... My class convinced me to just call class early for the day.  I was fine with that.  I plan an extra day in for studying, so I told them they won't get review day.  They seemed fine with it.  Personally I think they're going to regret that, but it was their decision.  They're grades, not mine.

In the office I read some life contingencies and did some stuff on Blackboard. Answered some emails.  After the office I came back to my apartment.  I thought about doing homework... but just didn't feel like it.  So I played video games and cleaned.  Then around 5 I went to the gym to go work out with Kathryn.  We ran.  I hate running.  Especially on treadmills.  I just get overheated and dehydrated so quickly that I can run as fast or as long as I can outside.  So I was not amused by my running performance.  But that's ok.  I got a good workout.  I didn't get back to about 6:30, then I showered and got some dinner.  I made chicken and rice.  Next time I make chicken I need to remember to defrost it prior to putting it on the stove.  That would have made things go way better.  Anyhow, it worked.  But I started feeling kind of like I was having a stuffy nose.  Which is not ok.  But I guess I don't have much of a choice.  So after dinner I just started doing some more life contingencies.  Right now I'm working through problems and trying to not to look in the book for the formulae.  It's been going ok.  But I have a week to get better.

And I'm exhausted.  So I'm going to bed.  Night!