Actuary #1 Job in America

Actuaries always seem to get a bad rep from movies. Every movie that I've seen that contains an actuary as one of the main characters, portrays them as really depressed people who dislike their line of work or as really up tight people who are afraid to take chances. Examples of this are Fight Club, About Schmdt and Along Came Polly.

So naturally, that will leave a lot of people with the opinion that being an Actuary is a crappy job. I was beginning to feel that way as well until I read this article on careercast.com. The article composed a list of the top 10 jobs in the U.S. and Actuaries topped the list. The criteria that was used to rate each job were physical demands, work environment, stress, income and hiring outlook. According to the article, actuaries were in the top ten of every category except for median income where it ranked 22nd with $86,000.

So yeah, don't be fooled by the negative portrayal of actuaries in the movies.It is a job with a lot of upside and should be held in higher reguards.

I know you are probably thinking that there is no way that actuary is the best job in the country. There's got to be better jobs right? Well, the articles goal was not to list the most glamorous jobs but to find the job with the best combo of the criteria they were looking for and that provided a positive experience for the majority of its employees.

What do I want to do?

Well to start this blog off, I'll begin by answering the above question with a bold, "I'm not really sure". With graduation right around the corner, it's a question that's coming up more often from relatives, friends and mainly my parents so it would be nice to have a definite answer. I do at least have my future career narrowed down to a few options, so I guess it's not that I don't have any clue of what I want to do, it's that I'm undecided on which option to choose.

There are really only a few things that I am looking for in my future career. First off, the job has to earn a decent amount of money. Secondly, it has to be something that I am passionate about or at least interested in. And last but probably least important to me, I'd like for it to be something in which there is a high demand for.

Here's a list of options that I am currently considering with a brief explanation and quick list of pros and cons.

1.Actuary: Basically what an actuary does is assessing risk for insurance companies. This is probably the job that I am leaning towards as of now. The main subjects it would deal with are math and economics, two subjects that I find interesting and excel in.

2.Engineer: I'm not sure what kind of engineer I would want to be. I just know that whatever type of engineering you do go into, it pays pretty good and there is almost always a pretty high demand for engineers. The downside is that you need a pretty strong background in physics to be an engineer, and the further I get into AP Physics the more I hate it. So it may not be the best fit for me.

3.Film:I'm a pretty big movie buff and find the way movies are made to be pretty interesting. The main problems with this are that job stability would probably be shaky and the pay may not be the greatest.

4. Professional Poker Player: This one's a bit of a pipe dream. It would be a sweet job but would be almost impossible to maintain a steady income.

5. Career in Pizza Hut: If I fail at everything in my life this is where I will probably end up. Hopefully this doesn't happen because I've seen what 30 years of delivering pizzas can do to a person and it's not pretty.

So throughout this blog, I will focus most of the posts on actuaries and every now and then I will throw in a post about some of my other career options.