Barney student Anna Pan (Accounting, BSBA '14) started her actuarial career with The Hartford Financial Services Group in the Property & Casualty Student Actuarial Program in the spring of 2015. Below Anna reflects on how she embarked on an actuarial career path at the Barney School of Business.
I first heard about actuarial science during my freshman year from several Barney professors who encouraged me to enroll in the Actuarial Science Minor program. After learning more about the profession, I realized it would be a good fit for me since I enjoyed both math and business. I will always be grateful to my dynamic math professors for strengthening my interest by explaining difficult concepts so well that I had hope of surviving in the actuarial field. The director of the Actuarial Science Minor program at the time, Professor Carmen Cotei, strongly encouraged me to take an actuarial exam. So, after taking Probability Theory (M 360) and Financial Mathematics (FIN 580), I passed the first two actuarial exams, Exam P and Exam FM. The Barney School generously provides ASM study manuals for the first four actuarial exams for students to borrow from the library, so I subsequently passed Exam MLC and Exam MFE through self-study.
During my sophomore and junior years, I completed two accounting internships: a five-month internship at Standard Builders in Newington, CT, and a one-year internship in the International Tax Compliance department at United Technologies Corporation (UTC). During the summer between my junior and senior years, I interned at Cigna in the Actuarial Executive Development Program (AEDP). In the fall semester of my senior year, I received job offers from each of the six Fortune 300 companies I interviewed with.
I was able to receive these opportunities because of the education I received from the outstanding faculty at the University of Hartford and am incredibly grateful for their guidance. In the future, I hope to give back to the program and assist students in pursuing their actuarial goals.