Thesis

[minerva2]

Hey everyone,

I'm an Actuarial Science student (Masters in Morocco).
I started thinking a little about the thesis I'd like to work on. I hesitate a lot. I love reinsurance, but I aslo like subjects like financial risk management (for countries, not financial institutions). It's quite in vogue right now, with the euro crisis and the sovereign debt. But I'm open for new ideas.
Do you have any suggestions please? I would really really appreciate it.
Many thanks.

[campbell]

I would be careful how ambitious you want to get in your thesis. Too big will be untenable. A good first step is to look at the theses of recent grads from your program.

Do you have a thesis advisor yet?

[minerva2]

Thank you for your quick answer.
No, not yet. The thing is, to pick an advisor, I need to have a theme (we do have that luxury for now)
Also, my other problem is that we're the first promotion. So I don't have any inspiration.
Do you have any suggestions please? I'm open for anything. I'm really just toying with ideas now.
Any advices? Thank you so much.

[campbell]

Oh, I see. Yes, that does make it difficult.

My main advice is that you're going to have to pick a topic at least one of the faculty members has an interest in. Given I don't know anything about what your university is like, what resources you have in terms of information sources and computing power, I can't give you better information than go talk to the faculty members. That's multiple faculty members. Ask them about their areas of research.

Generally, it's not expected for masters students to pick the details of their thesis other than a very broad theme, and you've already named several broad themes.

[minerva2]

Thank you so much.
Actually, as actuaries (in making at least!) we're asked to do an internship in an organism of our choice. It could be an insurance compagny, reinsurance, bank, the stock market.
We're supposed to collect informations and data from that internship, make a model on the theme we picked (for instance, terrorism that I really like) so we combine between theory and actuarial work.
I hope that was clear enough.
Could you please give me some theme exemples. Just to get a general idea.
Thank you so much Campbell for your help. I really appreciate it.

[campbell]

Oh, then something like mortality trends might be a good choice...I would say it will depend on the organization you get & the type of data they allow you to look at.

[minerva2]

Mortality data. Thanks so much. I'll note that. I'll also try to talk to some professors.
If you have any other suggestions, I would reallllly appreciate it.
Thanks so much for your help :)

[campbell]

Remember, you will have access to data from a specific company/organization, but there are also sources of general information you may be able to compare it against from governmental and other organizations.

So you may want to look at the types of studies that have been done (for example, one of the best sources for investigating info on mortality trends is this:
http://www.actuaries.org.uk/research-and-resources/pages/continuous-mortality-investigation

There is a =lot= of stuff there, and yes, it's UK-specific. But places like the CMI and this:
http://www.mortality.org/
have plenty of things you can compare against.

[Delothus]

Oh, I see. Yes, that does make it difficult.

My main advice is that you're going to have to pick a topic at least one of the faculty members has an interest in. Given I don't know anything about what your university is like, what resources you have in terms of information sources and computing power, I can't give you better information than go talk to the faculty members. That's multiple faculty members. Ask them about their areas of research.

Generally, it's not expected for masters students to pick the details of their thesis other than a very broad theme, and you've already named several broad themes.

I didn't do a thesis in AS, mine was a Queueing theorytopic, but I knew one of my graduate professors had interest in that area. Queueing theory has so many applications that I sat down with him and he basically handed me 3 or 4 different graduate thesis I could do off the top of his head.

I'd suggest finding out what areas your professors actively do research in and try and find a fit you would like to follow up on. Think of it as a informational interview.

[minerva2]

Hello,
Thank you so much for your help. Thanks Campbell for the links. They're very helpful.
I'll try to ask some professors and see what they suggest.
I'm still open for any suggestion that goes through your head.
Thanks again! :)

Delothus: Goodness! The Queuing theory looks soooo complicated. :D hats off to you!

[minerva2]

Hello,
I'm back with a new subject and I'd like to have your opinion. It's the modelisation of pandemic risks. What do you think about it?

Thank you for your help!

[limabeanactuary]

Hi minerva - sounds like a good topic, if you have the resources to investigate. What aspects of pandemic modeling are you considering? The economic impact?

[minerva2]

Hey!!
Thanks for your reply and happy new year :)

I didn't really think about it deeply but yes the economic impact sounds like a good angle or social. I'll think more about it.
Thank you :)

[limabeanactuary]

The reason I'm asking this is there are models out there on how epidemics spread (various structures, but the common ones I've seen have geographic and age components)...you could use something like that as a base.

But a more interesting aspect would be looking on the economic results, or positing a model for that. If the really old get sick... well, that's not going to have a huge impact on productivity, for example. But some of the worst pandemics hit the middle-aged range, those with the biggest economic output. Then there's the aspect of hits to life (and health) insurance companies.

You'll want to make the topic sufficiently focused, though. As I said earlier in the thread, if you make the topic too big, you'll not be able to get a coherent thesis out of it.

[minerva2]

that's brilliant! thanks so much for your help. You always give very useful advices. I like the pandemic subject, but I didn't think about it the way you did. I love it! thanks! I'll see with my professor. Thanks again. I might need your help later.
Best wishes for 2012!

[OldGuy]

I suggest pretty charts and graphs. Interactive is the way to go. I wrote a simple, model based on the Game of Life, which could be expanded using more detailed population models and more robust infection models.