Vincent MOK

BSc in Risk Management Science
Reinsurance Group of America

I was honoured to have the opportunity to work for the Reinsurance Group of America as an actuarial intern in the product development team. This reinsurance company provides new business solutions to clients. During my internship, I assisted my team with new business development initiatives, which provided me with valuable experience.

First, my major task as an intern was to provide actuarial support for product development initiatives. I calculated the incidence rate of the new benefit that we proposed and produced the distribution for the insured across different issue ages. Then, I used the incidence rate to determine the net amount at risk and maximum limit of the quotation and to draft the pricing document for the quotation team. I also was able to develop a prototype for a new insurance product targeted at young professionals, which was the biggest challenge that I faced during my internship. I had to determine the needs of young professionals and suggest a solution for them. It took me almost a month to set up the product features and pricing direction for the team. In addition, I conducted research on modelling new business ideas and helped the local pricing team to validate assumptions regarding critical illness. Last, but not least, our team members gave me a lot of support throughout my internship, and I was pleased to work with them.

The RMSC programme has equipped me with solid knowledge of statistics, actuarial science, and finance, which played an important role in my ability to gain this internship opportunity as survival functions, probability theory, and the time value of money are frequently used in pricing. Therefore, I am grateful to be a student at RMSC, which provided me with strong support during my internship journey.

Adrian WONG

BSc in Risk Management Science
University of Sussex, United Kingdom

In term one of the academic year 2017/2018, I had a fruitful experience studying at the University of Sussex in the United Kingdom. I studied three mathematics courses and one extra course related to film studies. I learned the difference between education at the host university and at CUHK. In addition, I made friends from the UK, US, Greece, Czech Republic, Japan and China who I learned a lot from.

Two out of the three mathematics courses I took were year four equivalent courses, and the remaining one was a graduate level course. I could see the cohesion among the courses the host university had tried to make. Many concepts or solutions were based on the knowledge obtained from previous courses. The teaching staff knew clearly what level of knowledge their students had. They did not spend much time reviewing the prerequisite knowledge. Instead, they skipped the explanations and taught the more difficult material. They explained things only when a student had a question, and if the explanation would take too much time, it would be explained after class. The students there were less conservative than the students at CUHK, where asking questions during the lesson is normal. In addition, the homework assignments were, surprisingly, marked by the teaching staff. They clearly understood the common mistakes of the class and each person’s progress. They also wrote comments on the assignments, pointing out the incorrect steps and concepts in the solutions.

I took the film studies course out of curiosity because this type of course is not provided at CUHK. I learned how to analyse a film from different aspects: mise-en-scène, editing, cinematography and music. The seminars in this course really provoked discussions of the film assigned each week.

I met people of different origins. Although they came from diverse backgrounds, they were generally very nice. Some were even interested in Chinese culture and cuisine. At the same time, I learned about their cultures. Unfortunately, even in a town as diversified as Sussex, racism still existed. There was a South Korean student at the host university who was beaten with glass bottles by a gang of local teenagers when he was walking back home, and he was sent to the hospital. Therefore, I would recommend that exchange students in the future be more cautious when walking alone on the streets at night.