Love crunching numbers?
Open to all majors, UMW’s minor program in actuarial science develops skills expected of entry-level actuaries and prepares you for your first two actuarial exams, typically enough to land work while you advance toward future exams required for certification. Learn to compute rates, premiums, and dividends, and anticipate and manage probabilities and risk. You could see your career opportunities multiply!
Areas of Study
Open to all majors, the UMW minor in actuarial science includes courses in math, economics, accounting, and computer science for a full range of knowledge in rates, risks, probabilities, and statistical analysis.
Career Opportunities
Consistently ranked as a top career choice, actuarial science can lead to exceptional earning potential. Actuaries most typically work in insurance, with pensions, or in consulting firms, but they also can find work with financial services industries, marketing/sales organizations, benefits management firms, and other types of businesses. The U.S. Department of Labor expects employment opportunities for actuaries to increase faster than average.
Internships
The Department of Mathematics, which hosts UMW’s minor program in actuarial science, offers internships at the Naval Surface Warfare Center in Dahlgren, Geico Insurance, and others.
Founded in 1982, the UMW chapter of the Pi Mu Epsilon (PME) honorary national mathematics society, promotes scholarly activities in math. The Mary Washington chapter inducts new members each April.
UMW’s minor in actuarial science requires 21 to 22 credits, including Calculus III, Probability and Statistical Inference, Theory of Interest, Principles of Macroeconomics, and Principles of Microeconomics, plus six to seven credits from your choice of Intermediate Accounting I and II, Computer Information Systems, Mathematical Economics, Macroeconomics, Money Banking, Investment Analysis, Numerical Analysis I and II, Probability and Statistical Inference.
UMW’s Department of Mathematics, which hosts the actuarial science major, offers several scholarship opportunities for qualifying students. For a complete list of scholarship opportunities available at UMW, visit the Office of Financial Aid.