If you don't already know, studying towards a degree in actuarial science is for lovers of risk. To be sure, they are not adrenaline junkies, but lovers of probability and statistics. Actuaries are experts in determining the odds of certain events occuring, and then finding ways to reduce the impact of these events. In essence, they look for opportunities in risk.

The most direct path to becoming an actuary is through studying actuarial science, but any bachelor's degree with majors in math, statistics, finance, and/or economics can also be used as an entry path to becoming an actuary.

Actuaries in the Insurance Industry

Actuaries play a very important role in the insurance industry. In fact, insurance would not be a sustainable industry without actuaries. Some functions that actuaries perform for insurers include:

• *  Calculating what travel insurance, household insurance, and car insurance should cost. They do this by considering a multitude of factors including a home's location, the type of car being insured along with a risk profile of the actual driver, and a risk profile of anyone having their life insured.

• *  Calculating what insurance should cost individual businesses, again taking into account the nature of the business, and its location. Other factors include the type of insurance being bought by the business, with business interruption insurance requiring a different assessment to liability insurance.

One example of how an actuary functions in the insurance industry, would be to consider the following: the price of fuel has a direct influence on how frequently people drive, and how far. Fewer cars on the road can correlate to fewer accidents, so an actuary working in insurance would need to account for this when adjusting the pricing model for car insurance.

Actuaries in Other Industries

Careers for anyone studying actuarial science aren't limited to the insurance industry, with many career paths existing in a diverse range of industries - from financial services, through to transportation, energy, and even the environment. If you have ever seen a company advertising a vacancy for a risk manager, chances are that their ideal candidate would be somebody who studied actuarial science. Actuaries even have a role in the C-suite, with many organisations now having a Chief Risk Officer in place.

In a corporate environment, someone who studied actuary science could be involved in establishing or managing an organisations risk management programs, while also advising on rules and regulations to minimise risk, or the impact of risk. The can also help establish pension and retirement plans, and in financial institutions they can help manage assets and liabilities, and develop methods for managing financial risk.

In government institutions, actuaries are heavily involved in all social programs such as Medicare, where they don't only help manage risk, but also advise on the development and implementation of regulations and legislation.

Finally, in areas with a large ageing population, someone with an actuarial science background would be able to work independently as a financial planning advisor.

The beauty of actuarial science is that there a many career paths you could follow, exposing you to many different aspects of business. But you are never far away from having some involvement with risk, and risk management.