twig93
06-13-2005, 05:36 PM
I originally posted this in the Statistics area, but it occurred to me that it really applies to all the VEE topics so I am reposting it here.
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I am now in the midst of my second NEAS course: did Time Series last time around and now I'm doing Regression. I have come to learn the following about NEAS and I post this in the hopes that some of you will find this helpful.
Do not view these courses as being in any way similar to society exams. They are not. The SoA cares about the prestige of their organization and the exams are the primary way that they filter out the people that they don't want to be part of their club. They are highly committed to the exam process, even though we don't always like the ways this commitment manifests itself (ridiculously hard exams, high levels of secrecy, insane periods of waiting for results, etc.) However, we can sort of understand that they are anal because they care. The SoA is made up of volunteers who share the organization's commitment.
The NEAS is a different beast entirely. They do not care. They want our money, plain and simple. Their members get paid to provide a product. We are basically purchasing our VEE credits - hopefully with our employers' money! They care about losing their SoA approval on the courses so they are doing just enough to keep the SoA happy so that they can continue to sell their product. Similarly they have to do just enough to keep us happy so that we will take more NEAS courses and tell our colleagues to do the same. So they have straightforward exams with extremely high pass rates. At the end of the term you're going to be happy because even though you had to put up with a load of crap, you passed the exam in one sitting and to an actuarial student that is enough to make you thrilled.
That is why we see things like multiple glaring typos, unposted homework assignments, lack of practice exams and the like. For the final exam last time around they emailed the exam to my proctor. I was in his cubicle when the e-mail came in. I easily could have hacked into his computer and gotten ahold of the thing early. They provided my proctor with no instruction whatsoever and when he called to inquire about a few points they told him that they did not care if he observed the start time, or even the length of the exam. That's right: they told my proctor that if I needed more time at the end of the exam to let me take as much time as I needed!!!
Think about how anal the SoA is about us discussing the exam here on Rebel Outpost. The Mods won't allow it until 5 PM Eastern time for fear of the wrath of the SoA. Contrast that to NEAS: less than one hour after the exam was over on the west coast there was a full PAK posted on THEIR website!
There is a glaring error in Module 4 of the Time Series. I pointed it out to them months ago and it is still not fixed. When I turned in the minimum number of assignments last time around, I refused to do the portion of Module 4 that dealt with the error and they still gave me credit for the assignment anyway. I really don't think they even looked at it. When I called to ask how much work we needed to show (some of the regression stuff can be done entirely on a calculator) they couldn't answer the question. They hadn't thought about it; they don't care. They don't even care what calculators we use or if the memory is clear. I could probably bring in my TI-81 (which was state of the art when I bought it) with all of the formulas keyed in to the "programs" area and they would allow it. There are no instructions to the proctor.
They do not care if we learn the material or if their product is higher than the minimum permissible quality. They want the SoA to give us credit for their courses so that they can collect money from us. To the extent that it is easy for them, they are going to make it easy for us (8 exams offered in a year,fixed passmark, high pass rates, don't have to do all the homework, results right away). They are not worried about the small details: like typos in the homework or on exams or even incorrect information in the modules. Fixing those would require a lot of effort on their part and no upside: they're not going to sell any more exams if there are fewer typos. They're going to sell more exams if the pass rates are high. Why do you think they published the passrates? A moron can tell that they've got a better chance with NEAS over the CAS exams: their primary competition.
Keep that in mind and don't stress about all the NEAS stuff. If you get 70% on the exam and turn in a packet of junk that looks like it probably constitutes 80% of the homework you are going to pass. Save the stressing for the SoA/CAS exams!
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
I am now in the midst of my second NEAS course: did Time Series last time around and now I'm doing Regression. I have come to learn the following about NEAS and I post this in the hopes that some of you will find this helpful.
Do not view these courses as being in any way similar to society exams. They are not. The SoA cares about the prestige of their organization and the exams are the primary way that they filter out the people that they don't want to be part of their club. They are highly committed to the exam process, even though we don't always like the ways this commitment manifests itself (ridiculously hard exams, high levels of secrecy, insane periods of waiting for results, etc.) However, we can sort of understand that they are anal because they care. The SoA is made up of volunteers who share the organization's commitment.
The NEAS is a different beast entirely. They do not care. They want our money, plain and simple. Their members get paid to provide a product. We are basically purchasing our VEE credits - hopefully with our employers' money! They care about losing their SoA approval on the courses so they are doing just enough to keep the SoA happy so that they can continue to sell their product. Similarly they have to do just enough to keep us happy so that we will take more NEAS courses and tell our colleagues to do the same. So they have straightforward exams with extremely high pass rates. At the end of the term you're going to be happy because even though you had to put up with a load of crap, you passed the exam in one sitting and to an actuarial student that is enough to make you thrilled.
That is why we see things like multiple glaring typos, unposted homework assignments, lack of practice exams and the like. For the final exam last time around they emailed the exam to my proctor. I was in his cubicle when the e-mail came in. I easily could have hacked into his computer and gotten ahold of the thing early. They provided my proctor with no instruction whatsoever and when he called to inquire about a few points they told him that they did not care if he observed the start time, or even the length of the exam. That's right: they told my proctor that if I needed more time at the end of the exam to let me take as much time as I needed!!!
Think about how anal the SoA is about us discussing the exam here on Rebel Outpost. The Mods won't allow it until 5 PM Eastern time for fear of the wrath of the SoA. Contrast that to NEAS: less than one hour after the exam was over on the west coast there was a full PAK posted on THEIR website!
There is a glaring error in Module 4 of the Time Series. I pointed it out to them months ago and it is still not fixed. When I turned in the minimum number of assignments last time around, I refused to do the portion of Module 4 that dealt with the error and they still gave me credit for the assignment anyway. I really don't think they even looked at it. When I called to ask how much work we needed to show (some of the regression stuff can be done entirely on a calculator) they couldn't answer the question. They hadn't thought about it; they don't care. They don't even care what calculators we use or if the memory is clear. I could probably bring in my TI-81 (which was state of the art when I bought it) with all of the formulas keyed in to the "programs" area and they would allow it. There are no instructions to the proctor.
They do not care if we learn the material or if their product is higher than the minimum permissible quality. They want the SoA to give us credit for their courses so that they can collect money from us. To the extent that it is easy for them, they are going to make it easy for us (8 exams offered in a year,fixed passmark, high pass rates, don't have to do all the homework, results right away). They are not worried about the small details: like typos in the homework or on exams or even incorrect information in the modules. Fixing those would require a lot of effort on their part and no upside: they're not going to sell any more exams if there are fewer typos. They're going to sell more exams if the pass rates are high. Why do you think they published the passrates? A moron can tell that they've got a better chance with NEAS over the CAS exams: their primary competition.
Keep that in mind and don't stress about all the NEAS stuff. If you get 70% on the exam and turn in a packet of junk that looks like it probably constitutes 80% of the homework you are going to pass. Save the stressing for the SoA/CAS exams!