My uncle has always been my mentor, and during my high school senior year we would discuss and brainstorm the possibilities for my future. My uncle’s chosen field as an FSA was something I found very interesting. He would describe his responsibilities at MetLife Insurance where he took on exciting projects. As I continued to develop my understanding of Actuarial Science while studying at the University of Rochester I developed my goal- to apply to the Actuarial Science program at Columbia University.
My four years of study in a double major in Financial Economics and Statistics at the University of Rochester have prepared me well. Under the guidance of Professor Rao, I started to develop shrewd business acumen. I became a member of the Actuarial Science Certificate Program to better prepare me with the more detailed academic vision. The program at the University of Rochester offered three SOA approved VEE courses, one of the reasons the school has a top ranking in this area. I gained practical experience conducting independent research with STATA, and I performed fix and random effect panel regression and Hausman Tests for both normal and lagged period variable models. I learned how to build econometrical and statistical model and logic testing steps with STATA. I even did a study which came to the conclusion that homicide and gun ownership are positively correlated. From this powerful Stata analysis, I realized why the actuary professionals specified programming as the key for future data analysis. Last semester, I also studied SAS, R and JMP to enhance my big data handling skills, and to learn the different advantages of these different statistical packages.
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As an intern at BlueCross BlueShield I joined the dental underwriting team as an Underwriting & Credit Rating Analyst, considered to be one of the top 15 internship programs. I had developed some programming skills at school, and I taught myself VBA programming with the intention of a more efficient data process that fit the pricing model in Stepwise. I improved 5 routinely used reports with VBA programming. Each of these projects took a long time in order to ensure precision and accuracy, but the working efficiency of these reports has increased by 90%. What was once a two or three hour job became accessible in just one click and one minute run time. I amazed my whole team, but also increased my passion for working in this field with the opportunity to apply what I had learned. Another proud moment was when, after 2 month of projects rating credit for 750 companies, I finally saw my signature appear next to column “Underwriter” on 250 successfully negotiated client policies. These responsibilities and accomplishments have prepared me for a future as a certified actuary.
I started my own overseas investment and education consulting company, “Flourishing Education” in China. Here I conducted marketing research and analyzed data for targeted groups. I have also participated in the summer analyst program at HSBC Premier Banking .Here I performed detailed research on high liquid asset populations and offered high yielding clients personalized investment portfolios. Having these experiences gave me substantial risk management exposure, a skill I desired for the financial insurance services industry.
I am a modest person, so it can be difficult to write essays such as this, but I hope that I have made clear that through study, hard work and practice I have become a “triple threat” in statistics, programming and financial economics. In addition I am entrepreneurial, curious and always looking for efficiencies. I am sure to excel in the Actuarial Science program at Columbia University, and in the future as an actuary professional.
