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Riley Rock

Junior Year Math Essay

12 April 2023

Math in the Real World

This past fall I took some essential classes for my future career in actuarial science.

Financial Mathematics was extremely valuable to me because of the FM exam I will have to take

in the future. It took a lot of the business terms I’ve learned in my previous economics and

accounting classes and brought a very mathematical side into it. Along with that, I also took

Principles of Finance, which went right along with Financial Mathematics. Not only will these

two classes help me as an actuary, but also as a person making investments in our society. It has

become clear to me how integrated mathematics is in everyone’s personal lives. Consumer in

Our Society class also expanded my knowledge on the market and the history behind it in the

United States. This semester I am taking many impactful classes for my future. Excel and Other

Software Bus is teaching me the basics of excel, which I know I will need for my internship this

summer. Probability and Statistics is giving me an introduction for Exam P, which I plan to take

in the near future. Predicting outcomes is a huge role in actuarial work and the opportunity we

have to work in teams makes it that much more impactful. Predicting outcomes, like the weather,

also appears in everyday life without us even thinking. Programming II is introducing several

different programs that I will also be using in my internship this summer, like R and Python. The

data manipulation used in these programs is so advanced and is taking me to the next level of

what I learned last year. Corporate Finance is building on my knowledge I learned from
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principles of finance. Linear Algebra is turning out to be one of my favorite math classes yet,

going in depth about linear equations and all the transformations and applications of it. After

several years here and in different math courses, math has such a strong impact on our daily lives

and my soon to be future career.

After many many applications and a few interviews, I have landed an actuary internship

in Houston, Texas at Tokio Marine HCC. I will be spending the summer down there working on

different teams and projects and I am so excited for it. I am hoping I can find the time to

schedule an exam here shortly. I have shifted my plans for the future and have decided not to get

my MBA at Seton Hill. With two years left of volleyball, I hope to find another school and get a

masters in applied mathematics.