Course 7 Seminar

[hopper]

Do you really have to write the practice papers?

[smarty pants]

Case Study. We went over the pre-work papers during Monday and Tuesday. Case Study. They gave you little background of what you'd be doing on Thursday. Case Study. It wouldn't hurt to go over it. Case Study. I didn't spend much time on the pre-work and I wasn't at a huge disadvantage. Case Study. It's better to do it than not to. Case Study.

[monkey grass]

Umm...Are you trying to say the case study is important?

[Emily]

If you really want to do the minimum amount of work, you don't have to do the practice papers. My fear was that that attitude might show up on the final project.

Don't kill yourself on it, but I suggest you do something. It will be critiqued, and you might get something out of it. They'll be looking for the same types of things on the practice work as the real thing, and practice makes perfect.

[Ham and Cheese]

IMO the pre-work is helpful in gaining experience with WORD/EXCEL. Graphing, formatting, typing, practicing with a laptop (if you're not familiar). If you don't do this regularly as part of your job - - it is a disadvantage to you while you are putting your paper together. This might seem trivial, but for me - - it was a big issue.

[smarty pants]

That's very true. You don't want to go into Thursday and not feel comfortable with copying graphs or getting around in Word & Excel. Formatting apparently isn't graded but if you can't put a graph in your report then it is something to work on. The rest of the stuff just depends on how afraid of feeling stupid you are for not completing your work. I didn't care if I felt stupid so I spent little time on it.

I'm stepping up on the soap box now. Here is some advice and some venting. I was also mad that my group members took up my time until 9:00 pm Monday & Tuesday. I was all for spending an appropriate amount of time on doing the projects but it's ridiculous to spend that much time on it when it's not graded. Even though you technically don't have anything else to do that week, I think it is utterly STUPID to make yourself mentally drained for Thursday just because a few other people enjoy depating pretend scenarios. Word to all of you who did this, all of the pretend people who you pretend negotiated a pretend contract for are now all dead. They were killed in a tragic spelunking accident along with all of their beneficiaries so the company now has no liabilities. All of your time was wasted and now you are pretend unemployed yourselves. Did you really feel like you accomplished something substantial from all that time?

I would have rather just rested because the 10 hours for the project sounds like a lot of time but it isn't and it's relatively stressful. If I hadn't had a couple beers in me during the "debates" I would have just left. It was also interesting seeing the all of the "strong" (for a lack of a better word) personalities of the group of actuaries. The best part about the seminar was that I realized that I was glad I didn't have to put up with many of those people where I work. Stepping down now.

[Phil]

Learn Excel. If not for the seminar, then for your general life afterwards. Seriously, some of the Excel features you'll learn are useful.

As smarty pants implied, if you study too much you'll be bored to death. Too little and you'll feel stupid and foolish (though will probably still pass if you take good notes in the classes).

Choose your preferred weighted average between "bored" and "stupid". The credibility-weighted boredpidity is:

(Z) * boredom + (1-Z) * stupid feelingness.


Other notes: I recommend writing the practice executive summary from the case study. Don't worry about formatting text or using the "office template". They don't grade you on formatting.

[Abducens]

That's very true. You don't want to go into Thursday and not feel comfortable with copying graphs or getting around in Word & Excel. Formatting apparently isn't graded but if you can't put a graph in your report then it is something to work on. The rest of the stuff just depends on how afraid of feeling stupid you are for not completing your work. I didn't care if I felt stupid so I spent little time on it.

I'm stepping up on the soap box now. Here is some advice and some venting. I was also mad that my group members took up my time until 9:00 pm Monday & Tuesday. I was all for spending an appropriate amount of time on doing the projects but it's ridiculous to spend that much time on it when it's not graded. Even though you technically don't have anything else to do that week, I think it is utterly STUPID to make yourself mentally drained for Thursday just because a few other people enjoy depating pretend scenarios. Word to all of you who did this, all of the pretend people who you pretend negotiated a pretend contract for are now all dead. They were killed in a tragic spelunking accident along with all of their beneficiaries so the company now has no liabilities. All of your time was wasted and now you are pretend unemployed yourselves. Did you really feel like you accomplished something substantial from all that time?

I would have rather just rested because the 10 hours for the project sounds like a lot of time but it isn't and it's relatively stressful. If I hadn't had a couple beers in me during the "debates" I would have just left. It was also interesting seeing the all of the "strong" (for a lack of a better word) personalities of the group of actuaries. The best part about the seminar was that I realized that I was glad I didn't have to put up with many of those people where I work. Stepping down now.

:rofl: After the Wednesday morning session, I caught myself thinking "Well, the hard part's over."

[rockytop]

Do you know if it is important to bring your Pre-test Study Notes to the seminar? Thanks

[Phil]

Useless.

Do, however, bring a basic probability book, and possibly an introductory linear regression book (a linear algebra book with a chapter on this will do). The probability book must have all of the distributions (exponential, gamma, Poisson, etc.) with their means and variances.

The seminars like to focus on fitting a distribution to sample data, or fitting a line to a curve, and on estimating the error of prediction.

[secada]

phil
can a person use windows xp in the seminar

[Phil]

I assume you can use XP, but I took course 7 a year ago. Check the laptop computer requirements they give you.

[smarty pants]

The requirements stated Windows 98 but several people in Montreal including me used XP and it was fine.