Actuarial Science, B.S.

The Bachelor of Science degree in Actuarial Science will provide students with the skills necessary to begin a successful career as an actuary. The curriculum was developed with input from multiple Fortune 500 companies and professional actuaries to identify the key areas that are needed for students to be successful actuaries. These key areas are: (1) Programming skills, especially Python and R, (2) An emphasis on the practical actuarial science courses of most value to the super majority of actuaries, (3) Time and credit hours to explore a wide range of liberal arts courses. The BS degree from Fontbonne addresses all 3 of these key areas. Graduates of the program will possess a broad knowledge base and preparation to take three Society of Actuaries exams and their Casualty Actuarial Society equivalents.

Student Learning Outcomes

The student outcomes for the BS in Actuarial Science degree program are the following:

This program is intended to build from a strong liberal arts foundation, while providing students with the most relevant skills in actuarial science. The BS degree in Actuarial Science is designed to prepare students to take three Society of Actuaries exams and their Casualty Actuarial Society equivalents.

Successfully sit for the Society of Actuaries Probability Exam (Exam P) and the roughly equivalent Exam 1 - Probability offered by the Casualty Actuary Society.
Successfully sit for the Society of Actuaries Financial Mathematics (FM) Exam and the roughly equivalent Exam 2 - Financial Mathematics offered by the Casualty Actuary Society.
Successfully sit for the Society of Actuaries Investment and Financial Markets (IFM) Exam, and the roughly equivalent Exam 3F

In addition, students will be able to

Work on a team to tackle a problem by acquiring data, performing analysis, and using R Markdown to present professionally written results to a broad audience.
Understand qualitatively and quantitatively the application of a wide variety of interest algorithms to diverse financial investments, including yield curves and the impact of arbitrage-forbiddance on the time-value of money.
Generate and analyze bond and loan amortization schedules for a variety of circumstances - such as debt refinancing, property & casualty loss, and/or life contingency analysis.
Describe how derivative contracts are connected to forwards and put/call options, and the profit functions of those contracts.
Characterize the fundamentals of the R programming language, RStudio and R Markdown, and use these tools to complete a range of projects.
Understand how to structure, price, and protect different investment strategies.
Demonstrate the use of simulations and modeling (e.g., Black-Scholes-Merton (BSM), Monte-Carlo, Brownian, Vašíček, Cox-Ross-Ingersoll, and Black-Derman-Toy) to effectively price options, stocks, bonds, futures, assets, and currency.
Use put/call parity to quantitatively relate option prices, risk-free lending rates, dividend rates, and asset prices.
Apply “Greeks” to derivatives, options, and portfolio hedging.
Effectively use technology to quickly solve practical problems in actuarial science.