Actuarial Science Study Program, FMIPA UI Educates Students, Teachers, and Practitioners About the First Steps to Becoming an Actuary

The Actuarial Science Undergraduate Study Program (Prodi) of the Faculty of Mathematics and Natural Sciences, University of Indonesia (FMIPA UI) held training and education for high school students, undergraduate and postgraduate students, teachers, and practitioners such as actuarial consultants, accountants, bankers and private employees throughout Indonesia about the initial steps to becoming an actuary online on Saturday (30/7). A total of 104 participants attended this activity.

The event was opened by the Head of the Mathematics Department, Prof. Alhadi Bustamam, S.Si., M.Kom., Ph.D.. In his speech, Prof. Alhadi said that this activity is an implementation of the community service program (pengmas) of the Actuarial Science Undergraduate Study Program to increase public insight into the disciplines in the Mathematics Department, especially the Actuarial Science Undergraduate Study Program.

This community service activity also serves as a forum to share insights with the community, and provide practical applications related to the discussion material, so that the community can understand that in fact the initial steps to becoming an actuary are very closely related to everyday life. The initial step in question is understanding the basic concept of interest rates.

Mila Novita, S.Si., M.Si., one of the lecturers of FMIPA UI with expertise in Financial Mathematics in her presentation explained the basic concept of interest rates which include the definition of interest, types of interest rates found in everyday practice, such as simple, compound, effective and nominal interest, as well as several other terms that are often used in the financial industry.

"Actuaries really need to understand the concept of interest rates, because later in practice they will do valuations; one of which is premiums," Mila explained to the participants.

Furthermore, Mila said, in the Actuarial Science Study Program, FMIPA UI itself, there is a Life Contingency course or commonly known as Actuarial Mathematics which is used as the basis for valuation calculations.

In the Life Contingency course, the concept of interest rates such as accumulation function, discount function, present value serta future value combined with elements of probability.

"Thus, it is fitting for an actuary to understand the basic concept of interest rates because actuarial science itself is a combination of mathematics, statistics, and economics, and it can be said that this interest rate is an economic element even though there are still several other factors," he added.

In addition to the presentation by the speakers in the main room, participants then took part in an interactive session with the facilitators who were lecturers at the FMIPA UI Actuarial Science Undergraduate Study Program on the feature Breakout Room.

In the Breakout Room Participants were grouped and given questions related to interest rates. While completing the questions, the participant groups were accompanied by their respective facilitators.

According to the time specified, participants were then directed back to ruang utama to attend the session Ice Breaking to relieve boredom after receiving a series of materials.

Finally, representatives from each group presented their answers and discussion results. There were four groups of participants who demonstrated their answers. The groups of participants consisted of individuals with diverse professional or educational backgrounds.

The head of the community service committee, Sindy Devila, S.Si., M.Si., said that this activity aims to provide insight and an overview of the initial steps to becoming an actuary. She hopes that this activity can increase the preference of participants, especially high school and college students, towards the actuarial field. Sindy said that based on data from the Indonesian Actuarial Association (PAI), the number of actuaries in Indonesia is still minimal, even though Indonesia needs at least 3,000 actuaries. So if you look at these facts, the opportunity to become an actuary is very open.

"Regardless of whether each participant will be motivated to become an actuary or not, what is certain is that understanding this interest rate has a significant impact, especially so that people can choose investment options or installment programs that are not detrimental," he said.

He added that the scope of this activity has great potential to be expanded and the plan is for this community service to be held again in the next few months. The discussion for the next community service will likely be more specific to one of the target participant levels and its implementation will be carried out offline.

News source : https://sci.ui.ac.id/