Edition

Location-agnostic Professional Experience Course in Actuarial Science

By Vicki Zhang

Expanding Horizons, June 2022

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In fall 2020, the University of Toronto piloted a professional experience program in actuarial science. This is a mandatory, work-integrated learning requirement for Actuarial Science Specialist students. The program comprises two major components:

  1. A professional experience (PE) course, designed to prepare students for the work-integrated learning opportunity
  2. A work-integrated learning component, experienced as a full-time internship in actuarial science-related fields

This article will focus on the first component of the program, the professional experience course, and discuss our experience designing and implementing the course during a global pandemic.

We started the planning phase of the course in 2019. Before the COVID-19 pandemic, we had identified several key building blocks for a successful PE course:

  • A speaker series that introduces students to every major subfield of actuarial science through lived experiences of practitioners
  • A professional skills workshop series that covers a variety of topics, including identifying individual strengths, career planning, résumé and cover-letter writing, networking skills, interview skills, and workplace conflict and resolution
  • Professional ethics beyond legal considerations
  • Networking events to connect students and practitioners in the industry
  • A student research and presentation component

When the pandemic hit in spring 2021, we were forced to rethink and redesign the PE course. We re-examined each building block, aiming to understand which ones would lend themselves well to the online environment and which would require major modification. We have since fully implemented the PE course online twice and achieved a location-agnostic design that meets the desired course objectives.

Practitioner Speaker Series

Students at the University of Toronto enter the Actuarial Science Specialist program in the first semester of their third year, after completing a series of mathematical foundational courses and second-year introductory actuarial science courses (and achieving required scores for Specialist entry). Students entering the Specialist program have the strong academic background to continue their actuarial studies, but most are unfamiliar with the various subfields and functions within the profession. The primary purpose of the PE course is to provide students with an in-depth professional context for the theoretical expertise they have acquired—or are in the process of acquiring—through their coursework.

The Practitioner Speaker Series helps students navigate the many distinctive professional paths under the broad umbrella of actuarial science, so they can think deeply about their professional interests and goals. Every week we focus on one or two actuarial subfields, including life insurance and annuities, property and casualty insurance, pension, health insurance, reinsurance, quantitative finance and investment, actuarial software, social insurance and the public sector. A panel of speakers also focuses on “nontraditional” actuarial fields such as microinsurance and climate modeling.

It was relatively straightforward to transition the Practitioner Speaker Series between in-person and online environments. There were a few obvious advantages of organizing an online series: easier scheduling and zero commute for speakers. The lack of geographical limitations translated to the inclusion of fantastic international speakers who otherwise wouldn’t have been involved in the course. The online offering allowed us to bring in a global perspective on actuarial practices.

The chief challenge of offering the speaker series online is student engagement. On one hand, as part of the “digital natives” generation, many students are less self-conscious online and more willing to post questions or comments through the Chat function. This appears to be especially true for international students whose first language is not English. On the other hand, the face-to-face, intimate aspect of in-person communication is lost in an online environment. Several studies have also shown challenges for educators in identifying students’ emotional states on-screen. We initially considered a mandate for students to turn on their cameras during class time. But after consulting with psychological counselors and student groups, we decided against it, as a camera mandate could potentially have a negative impact on students’ mental health during the pandemic.

Instead, we ameliorated the challenge partially through the use of technology and partially through an extra personal touch. We implemented frequent Q&A breaks throughout the live sessions, using the real-time polling system PollEverywhere (which allows for a variety of question formats) to engage students. We provided ample time for breakout rooms so small groups of students could gather to have informal, personal conversations with industry panelists as well as their peers.

Professional Skills Workshop Series

This series is designed to provide practical skills training to facilitate students’ internship search.

The advantages and challenges of offering this series online are similar to those of the Practitioner Speakers Series. To counter the challenges, we significantly increased one-on-one contact time with students. For example, after offering an online live workshop on résumé and cover-letter writing, we provided online assistance to improve students’ résumés, including résumé templates specifically designed for actuarial science, as well as individualized review and editorial suggestions for submitted résumés and cover letters.

Another example comprised the activities around the Interview Workshop. First, in a live online workshop, an industry panel of HR specialists offered insights on interview practices in the context of actuarial internships and entry-level positions. We then worked with actuarial practitioners in the industry to develop a list of common topics and questions covered at entry-level interviews, as well as a grading rubric for each topic and question. Students were then required to prepare for a one-on-one mock interview based on the list and grading rubric. Students went through a week of self-preparation, during which they could book a one-on-one “mock mock interview” with the course instructors. Finally, each student had a one-on-one mock interview with an actuarial manager from the industry. Each industry participant then graded the students’ mock interview performance based on the grading rubric. Most actuarial managers also provided qualitative comments and suggestions for improvement to students they had interviewed personally.

Students commented in the course review that this sequence of interview activities, although conducted fully online, was highly effective and greatly improved their confidence and ability in handling real-life interviews.

However, this process suffers from the issue of being labor-intensive. We will be experimenting with a few strategies in the next offering to make the process more scalable. We will replace the existing “mock mock interviews” with a demo mock interview with course instructors, followed by peer interviews. A demo mock interview is between a course instructor and a student in front of the whole class, where the instructor can provide real-time feedback and comments to the student in the process of the interview. Students in the audience can then better understand the process and learn to improve their personal answers as they prepare for their one-on-one interview. The peer interview is an informal, low-stake activity that allows students to practice interviews with each other before facing an industry interviewer.

The bottom line is that due to the isolating nature of the online learning environment, professional skills development requires significant direct contact time with students. Depending on the cohort size, such direct contact could vary from one-on-one appointments to small-group activities to simulated demonstrations.

Industry Networking

As part of the practical skills workshop series, we invited an HR specialist to offer a networking workshop that covered both regular (offline) and online networking skills. Students then put their networking skills into practice by participating in our annual actuarial career fair. Students were highly involved in organizing this event. They contacted and invited 20 key players/employers in the industry, across all the major actuarial subfields. As the career fair had been conducted online for the past two years through Gatherly, several students also offered peer instructions through video demos and podcasts to teach others how to navigate the online networking platform. The platform allowed private video calls between employers and students, group video calls at a virtual booth, the freedom to move around between virtual booths, the real-time submission of résumés and real-time technical support from support staff.

Professional Ethics

We embedded discussions on insurance and financial ethics throughout the PE course. We employed a Socratic pedagogical approach when it came to ethical topics—a dialogue between the course instructor and the students, offering questions in place of answers to stimulate critical thinking and draw out ideas and underlying assumptions. Our goal is to develop students’ pluralistic thinking by guiding them to consider perspectives from various stakeholders of insurance and financial products, including industry professionals, regulators, policyholders and the general public.

The online platform facilitated this dialogue quite well. In small groups and as a class, we debated about the various forms of conflict of interest, the importance and limitations of actuarial fairness, the ethical considerations of using predictive analytics for insurance pricing and underwriting, and moral visions of the profession and the industry. The discussions were conducted online through frequent real-time polling, breakout rooms, courtroom simulation involving historical cases and team-based debates.

Student Presentation and Case Competition

Various points of research and presentation opportunities were embedded in the weekly online sessions. There was also a main event where students would make a formal presentation on an actuarial subfield that they had explored in their research. The presenters were asked to select a subfield of interest and focus on the key actuarial functions, technical advancements and key players. This main event served as an opportunity for all students to gather and exchange industry information, which could be helpful in their internship search.

To further improve online community-building, we also embedded a case competition in the PE course. Students signed up in small teams and worked on a real-life actuarial case to compete for various awards. In the pilot year, we selected a case that many of our students care about deeply—climate change and its impact on property insurance. Students were given insurance data as well as historical hurricane data going back to the 1850s. Based on the data, student teams evaluated the insurance coverage in dozens of locations around the globe and made suggestions in light of recent climate change trends. We invited industry experts to form a panel of judges. After several weeks of analyzing the case data, each contending team submitted a short video presenting their preliminary results and recommendations. Six teams were selected by the judges to move forward to the final round, which was a live presentation and Q&A event. Through analyzing data and additional research in climate trends, student participants became keenly aware of the role climate change played in both the frequency and severity of insurance claims around the world, and they suggested novel responses for insurers.

There was an award ceremony for the winners. Each industry judge then hosted a breakout room for further conversations with students, which was an extra opportunity for the students to network with potential future employers. A group of senior students also served as peer mentors for the case competition, providing technical workshops and consultations to student participants.

Student Assessments

Unlike regular academic courses, the PE course is graded pass/fail based on a detailed marking scheme. The student assessments are comprised of a series of “in-class portfolios” and assignments. In-class portfolios include participation in class discussions and debates, mock interviews, participation in employer information sessions and career fairs, and student presentations. Take-home assignments include the completion of StrengthsQuest, résumé/cover-letter writing, the completion of experiential learning online modules and short reflections, and brief reports on internship searches.

Conclusion

After two years of implementing the new professional experience course, the following is a summary of our takeaways and lessons learned:

  • For both in-person and online delivery of a professional experience course, it is important to first establish learning objectives and a set of building blocks.
  • Online delivery can potentially make certain aspects of the course easier to manage, especially in terms of external practitioners’ participation. Students may also be more inclined to ask questions in the online environment.
  • Student engagement is both a main challenge and the key to a successful online PE course. Our solution is multi-pronged: to maximize the use of technology (real-time polling, breakout rooms, online presentation system), to significantly increase instructor/student contacts, to capitalize on local HR resources and involve industry practitioners, to embed team-building events such as case competitions, and to provide creative space and opportunities for peer-based learning and mentorship.
  • It may be worthwhile to utilize a third-party networking system to simulate real-life networking events and offer students a more authentic experience.
  • Allow reasonable accommodations for students who have to take the course asynchronously. In our online offering, some students were not able to participate in live seminars due to pandemic travel bans and time zone differences. We provided full recordings for all live activities as well as reflection prompts. Students were asked to review the recording and contribute to online discussions through the course management site.

Statements of fact and opinions expressed herein are those of the individual authors and are not necessarily those of the Society of Actuaries, the editors, or the respective authors’ employers.

Vicki Zhang, FSA, ACIA, CERA is an associate professor (Teaching Stream) at the University of Toronto. Vicki can be reached at vickijing.zhang@utoronto.ca.