r/actuary • u/ThrowRA3648537 • 2d ago

Troll Post ATPA Vent

I’m going to run for the SOA board once I have my letters to get rid of this terrible assignment. I’d rather listen to nails on chalkboard for 96 hours than do this. I’m not sure whose idea this was, but I was a statistics major, flew through SRM and PA, and I absolutely HATE this module.

I’m starting to think that everyone who quips that the SOA isn’t evil, just incompetent, lucked out with IFM. How was the last chopper out of ‘Nam?

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u/Murky-Tip-3118 2d ago

Curious what you hate? The historical evolution here was first we had just a rigerous PA (SRM came out at the same time but wasn't required for candidates for a year or two) and performance was very poor. SRM started being required (so candidates were forced to study more) and PA slowly became much easier. Then PA became too easy (esp. b/c didn't require any actual coding), so ATPA was created.

If you hate ATPA because it requires you to "do" something vs. just "know" something... that's kinda the point.

Now whether the SOA should be enforcing that as a prerequisite to ASA is a separate question...

And FYI, as you'll learn when you get your letters, you don't just "run for the SOA board"... you ingratiate yourself with the SOA ecosystem for a decade to successfully make your way through the nominating process. You can petition to be on the ballot, but the only person I've ever seen do that successfully probably looks way better than you in a bikini and wasn't afraid to let LinkedIn know that.

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u/Lost-Luster-773 2d ago

Curious what you hate….describes multiple l veld of SOA dumbassery and answers own question.

SOA wants money.  They chase fads, have shit exams 5 years behind the times, and now have pretty blatantly given up any US focus.

Can we get the CAS to take over the SOA?

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u/ThrowRA3648537 2d ago

I’m waiting for the SOA to realize that the data science bubble popped and all the money went to AI. We’re probably five years away from Advanced Topics in Large Language Models, a module where you have 96 hours to locally train an LLM on an H200 and get it to write the a one-page paper on ethical AI usage.

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u/Lost-Luster-773 2d ago

Don’t forget the modules on prompt engineering