The Start of Junior Year

I have been at school for 5 weeks already and it has been difficult to find a good time to update everyone on my life but now is as good of a time as any. I am majoring in actuarial science now and I am enjoying it. Pure science was not my calling and I need to embrace and acknowledge my strengths. Tough times lie ahead but from what I hear actuaries tend to enjoy what they do. So let me begin by telling you the classes that I am taking this semester. I am taking Financial Accounting, Macroeconomics, Business Law, Organizational Behavior, and Calculus 3. I am enjoying all of these classes although they are certainly keeping me very busy.

Financial Accounting: I am impressed by the elegant system that makes up a financial statement. It is very important to know how to classify transactions. It requires good organization. There is a lot of analysis and interpretation that goes into it. My professor was a public accountant for 33 years. I am having my first exam in this class next week and I hope that it goes well. It has really helped me to understand how businesses classify their financial transactions better.

Macroeconomics: Economics is an interesting subject studied by curious people who make assumptions and enjoy asking questions. The material is enjoyable but quite basic. This is as good of a time as any to study this subject because of everybody going on in the US and the world. My teacher is enthusiastic about his subject and a very nice guy. The workload is not too bad and it has shed light on a lot of what policy-makers have been doing.

Business Law: This is a very new class where so many concepts are foreign. My professor has done a good job of distilling it down and making it interesting. He expects us to read a lot and to think logically. It is a different kind of logic from mathematics and one that will take some getting used to. It is insane how many different things a person can be sued for.

Organizational Behavior: One thing that I have wanted to do in college is take a few psychology classes before I graduate. I am curious to learn what this field is about since I enjoy chatting and meeting people. Well, this is a class with some psychology grounded into it. It has been interesting to learn all of the elements that are necessary to successfully manage an organization. I have learned a lot about different categories that are used to determine efficacy in managing people and working with others.

Calculus 3: This is a class that will be important to my major. There are some actuarial exams that require a good grasp of calculus. So far I have understood most of what has been presented. It has been nice to learn this material because it has an important basis in a lot of real-world applications. I am anticipating that it will get a lot more challenging and I am hoping that everything will click because I truly enjoy how conceptually rich this subject is.