Actuarial Science Program
An actuary is a business person who uses mathematical skills to define, analyze, and solve financial and social problems. Actuaries are employed by insurance companies, consulting firms, some large corporations, and the federal and state governments.
Most North American Actuaries are members of the Society of Actuaries or the Casualty Actuarial Society. Membership is achieved by passing a sequence of rigorous examinations; some completed while an undergraduate, but most completed during employment. The early examinations of the two organizations are identical, so undergraduate students do not have to choose a specialty before graduation.
The Lebanon Valley College Actuarial Science Program has had nearly 100% placement of our graduates. LVC alumni include 67 fellows and 39 associates of the Society of Actuaries or the Casualty Actuarial Society and over 20 enrolled actuaries. Among the graduates are numerous company officers and consulting firm partners and principals. Alumni can currently be found working for over forty different employers including national insurance companies Aetna, The Hartford and Hartford Life, the Chubb Group of Insurance Companies, Prudential Life and Prudential Financial Services, Guardian Life, and ING. Others work at national consulting firms including Buck Consultants, Towers Watson, and Milliman USA. Another large group of alumni work for Central Pennsylvania employers including Health America, Penn National, Keystone Health Plan Central, Capitol Blue Cross, Highmark, Conrad Siegel Actuaries, and Markley Actuarial Associates.
Most graduates of the Lebanon Valley College Actuarial Science Program have held summer actuarial positions while students at Lebanon Valley College. Summer positions provide students with valuable experience and excellent summer income. Though most commonly done in the summer before the student's senior year, some students are able to secure positions earlier. Positions are regularly available in cities such as Baltimore, Philadelphia, New York, and Hartford, but may also be available in smaller cities such as Harrisburg, Bethlehem, and Lancaster.
The major in Actuarial Science at Lebanon Valley aims to provide each student with the mathematics background and appropriate education in economics and finance sufficient to begin their careers as an actuary. The Lebanon Valley general education program, with its emphasis on analysis, communication, and leadership, coupled with our strong mathematics program and numerous extracurricular opportunities, provides an excellent undergraduate experience for prospective actuaries.
The list below shows the relation between LVC courses and actuarial examination program of the Actuarial Societies.
|
Professional
Examination
|
LVC Courses
|
| P/1 |
MAS 111, 112, 113, 114; MAS 261; MAS 371; ASC 281 |
| FM/2 |
ECN 101, 102, 201; ASC 281, 385 |
| MFE/3F, MLC/3L, C/4 |
ASC 386, 481, 482, 472 |
The details of the actuarial science major are provided below.
Degree Requirements: Bachelor of Science with a major in actuarial science
Required courses:
ACT 161 Financial Accounting| Basic concepts of accounting including: accounting for business transactions, preparation and use of financial statements, and measurement of owners' equity. |
| An introduction to risk management in property/casualty and life insurance with emphasis on probability concepts. |
| Measurement of interest, time value of money, annuities, amortization and sinking funds, bonds, capitalized cost, net present value, yield rates, yield curves, duration, immunization; derivative products including calls, puts, forwards, and swaps. |
| Foundational aspects of computer programming. Algorithms and data; control structures; the design of small programs. Class and object basics. Uses the Java programming language. |
| The course examines how individuals and firms make choices within the institution of free-market capitalism. Individuals decide how much of their time to spend working and what to buy with the earnings of their labor. Firms decide how much to produce and in some cases what price to charge for their goods. Together these choices determine what is produced, how it is produced, and for whom it is produced in our economic system. |
| This course extends the study of consumer and producer choices to discover how they affect the nation's economy. Macroeconomics deals with the economy as a whole as measured by the key variables of inflation, unemployment, and economic growth. Emphasis is on both Keynesian and classical theories and how they predict what monetary and fiscal policies can be used to affect these variables and reach national economic goals. |
| A calculus sequence for department majors and other students desiring a rigorous introduction to elementary calculus. |
| Second semester of a calculus sequence for department majors and other students desiring a rigorous introduction to elementary calculus. |
| An introduction to college mathematics for potential mathematical science majors. |
| Second semester. Introduction to college mathematics for potential mathematical science majors. |
| Introduction to logic, set theory and proof techniques. |
| Multivariate calculus including partial differentiation, multiple integration, vector fields and vector functions. |
| A mathematical introduction to probability, discrete and continuous random variables, and sampling. |
| An introduction to the mathematical foundations of statistics including sampling distributions, estimation, hypothesis testing, linear models and multivariate distributions. |
Two of:
ASC 386 Mathematics of Finance II| Parity, binominal pricing, Black-Scholes pricing, hedging, exotic options, and interest rate models. |
| An introduction to loss distributions and credibility theory with emphasis on actuarial applications. |
| Survival distributions, life insurance, life annuities, benefit premiums and reserves, multiple life and decrement models. |
| Multiple life and decrement models, expenses, individual and collective risk models, compound distributions, including applications. |
Total of 46 credits.
The Course P/Part 1 or Course FM/Part 2 examination of the Society of Actuaries/Casualty Actuarial Society must be passed before senior standing is reached.
There is no Actuarial Science minor.
This curriculum covers about 95% of the material for the preliminary examinations (P/1, FM/2, MFE, MLC, C) on the Society of Actuaries and Casualty Actuarial Society examinations.
For students transferring into the Department of Mathematical Sciences after having completed two semesters of calculus, the MAS 111, 112, 113, 114 requirement may be replaced with MAS 161, 162, and one other MAS course numbered 200 or higher, which is not otherwise used to fulfill the requirements of the student's major and is approved by the student's advisor.