Upper level exams advice needed?

[kayson1212]

Some history:

Prior experience in Retirement Benefits Consulting. Want to switch to P&C. Currently a stay home dad (1 child, now going to full day preschool). Recently moved to a town with no actuarial opportunities within a 120 mile radius. Will be here for minimum 3 yrs for da wife to do medical residency. Not sure where we'll end up afterwards for her to do fellowship (another 1 or 2 years depending on the sub-specialty she chooses). Recently completed both CAS Online courses. Have also completed all VEEs and Prelim Exams. I will be job hunting soon (try and get into some HR benefits position).

So right now I have a lot of time on my hands. Gonna start doing some training in SAS and SQL in a few days. Just waiting for the books to get here. Already have SAS software. My question is, which of the upper level exams are doable with no P&C experience (especially now with the introduction of Bloom Taxonomy)? 3 - 5 yrs is a long time to be out of the actuarial field and I cannot not do any exams during this time. I plan to do Exam 5 next May (the reason for posting in this forum). Would have attempted 6 in October but I've read somewhere on this forum where ppl advise against doing 6 before 5. All exams, study materials, seminars (online and/or live) are out of pocket so failing is gonna be VERY costly.

Or maybe I should do 2 Exams (5 and either 7 or 9). I should be able to get in 1000 hrs by May (whether or not I get employed). Yeah Right.

[Vorian Atreides]

Exam 6 is do-able w/o P&C experience since it's mostly accounting and regulatory history (more or less). However, it's a lot of memorize a bunch of stuff that may not make sense to those outside of accounting. However, it's still do-able, IMO, if you have the time and inclination.

But I would get Exams 5 and 6 down before worrying about the Fellowship Exams . . . And I would say that Exam 5 is a better one to devote limited resources to.

[Darkness Falls]

They are all pretty much doable without experience.

[Vorian Atreides]

BTW, don't get too caught up about "Bloom's Taxonomy" for Exams 5 and 6. I didn't see much difference in the types problems of problems asked on 5 from the past (there might've been one or two more that could be categorized at the higher level) . . .

I do believe that the bigger changes are going to be realized with the Fellowship Exams . . .

[kayson1212]

Thanks for the advice. It's just about 4 months to the exam (exam 6) and even tho it's probably enough time to prepare (being home all day and all), I'm just gonna learn SAS and SQL and get SAS certified to the Advanced Programming Level. My only concern is getting certified and not using the knowledge gained. Don't want it to fall into the "use it or lose it" category. Will just have to keep practicing until I find a job to use it in.

[Emerald]

Originally Posted by kayson1212

Thanks for the advice. It's just about 4 months to the exam (exam 6) and even tho it's probably enough time to prepare (being home all day and all), I'm just gonna learn SAS and SQL and get SAS certified to the Advanced Programming Level. My only concern is getting certified and not using the knowledge gained. Don't want it to fall into the "use it or lose it" category. Will just have to keep practicing until I find a job to use it in.

How do you get SAS certified?

[Bobby]

Originally Posted by Emerald

How do you get SAS certified?

http://support.sas.com/certify/