Revenge Of The Nerds

A few days back, the first round offers for Uni spots in Victoria was issued.

I had applied for several courses in Melbourne and Monash Uni. Most of them along the lines of Science, Engineering and Chemistry. Actually, I placed commerce as my first preference in Melbourne Uni because I was thinking about getting into the Actuary course. Sadly, the ENTER score for that was 95+. I didn't make that 'nerdy' score which wasn't overly disappointing for me because I decided not to pursue this course.

What is an Actuary?

I'm guessing many of you are wondering this right now. Few have heard of this career, so I'll just briefly inform the many of you of its specifics. To make your life a whole lot easier, I'll just summarise the main points of this career.

Firstly,

dictionary.com defines an actuary as:

Insurance. a person who computes premium rates, dividends, risks, etc.,
according to probabilities based on statistical records.

wikipedia further defines it as:

Those with a deep understanding of financial security
systems, their reasons for being, their complexity, their mathematics, and the way they work.

Yes, mathematics, my favourite. No, insurance, I hate it. I hate anything that has to do with the economy actually. Bad, I know. But I don't find it interesting at all. I think my hatred for the subject sparked when I was doing Accounting in year 11. The only things I love about this job, are how much mathematics is involved and how amazingly high they pay you. Seriously, that was one of the highlights about this job. I liked the idea of how much you get paid from doing challenging mathematics. If you want an idea of how much an actuary gets, they get around $150,000 to $250,000 annually. That's $12,500 to $20,833 monthly. That's $625 to $1041 weekly. That's $70 to $116 hourly. Oh my. From where I'm standing, that's more than enough for me!

But it was not to be. The mathematics involved is extremely challenging and you have to be top class in order to do it. Otherwise you'll be struggling. I don't think that's me. On top of that, the maths involved is something like 'model making', ie. you have to make a rule of some sort to fit the 'situation'. That's not the type of maths that I like. I prefer applied maths. Gimme numbers, gimme rules, and I'll do it for you in a second. So this job isn't for me.

Which is why I've applied for the Science/Engineering course. The Engineering course will definitely have Maths. And Science, well, let's say I'm going for Maths/Statistics.

I applied at Melbourne Uni and glad to say, that my ENTER score was sufficient this time round. They offered me a spot in Melbourne Uni, so I got what I wanted. However, the sad part begins.

As many of you know, I'm in Singapore doing my NS and will be back in Australia in 2009. This meant I had to apply for deferment. I had to defer it till 2009. Well, I tried to do it today, but as obvious as the word 'tried' tells the story, I couldn't. I went into the right page, but it informed me that I am not able to defer my Science/Engineering course. So this means, I'll have to apply all over again in 2 years time and hope that no one takes my place because they made the ENTER score requirement a little higher. That's the worse that could happen.

Well, maybe not the worse. The worse would be if they removed this entire course when I return which would mean I won't be able to apply for it at all.

Wait, something worse would be the entire Melbourne Uni burning down which would then mean that no one would be able to apply for it at all.

Then again, a gigantic bushfire could engulf the entire Victorian state, but we won't go there.