Global Equity Derivatives
Global Equity Derivatives (GEDs) is just one example of the complicated economic jargon that’s been thrown around the office space at work recently. Do I know what it is? Not really. Do I have a clue? …I wish. From PnL to VaR, there are an abundance of terms that I’ve came across in conversation with my manager; however, I commonly dismiss them with a façade; a slight nod of my head to assure him I know exactly what he is talking about.
This morning, on our daily coffee break (I have yet to drink coffee still to their amazement), both my managers suggested to me to try the career path of an actuary. I immediately grimaced at this proposition.
I’ve decided, for my life, that there are certain criteria that will have be met in order for me to decide what I want to do for the rest of my life. However, the career path of an actuary doesn’t meet one of my requirements:
- I need to feel proud of what I do, and my accomplishments. It has to be something that I can confidently say I am and glad that I’ve become.
Actuarial work is something that I most likely would enjoy doing, especially the mathematics behind it, but the job itself is more mundane and dry than I would ever tolerate. Not to mention, there’s a complete negative stigma surrounding actuaries in my opinion. Though most say that being an actuary would be really rewarding, earn you a lot of money, and so forth… that’s not all there is to it. I’ve done a bit of reading on the subject and have understood it’s less of a social job than many other professions. Most of the time, you are generally isolated and don’t really work on a team.
To add to that point, the actual work is simple number crunching and is a bit dry. Though I don’t mind doing a bit of number crunching here and there, it’s definitely not something I would spend years of my life on. To be quite honest, it seems almost a waste of life to actually spend it just computing figures all the time.
Regardless, this is just my opinion at this very moment in time. I know of people who are aiming to become actuaries at the moment, and I wish them the best of luck. But for me, I want something more. I want to see the applications of mathematics in different fields from meteorology to economics and more. I want to see the real-world applications of my work, and have it actually benefit society for the best. I want something that I will be proud of being.
