The Reason Why Finance Major Is My Aim for Education

I want to pursue a degree in business because I believe business has an earning potential to earn more income. I want to be able to support my family with their financial problems and carry on my responsibilities. I went to ask for advice from my cousins who have already graduated from college. I asked questions about the beneficial a person can gain from majoring in computer science and finance. I know that I am most interested in finance majors because I am good at money management and I want to invest in some programs to make big money. My ideal job after college is to become an actuary because I want to play a leadership role in an organization. A finance major is what I choose and what interested me the most out from all other business majors. Finance is not just about solving the economic issues in the market but provides various opportunities for finance people to invest or speculate to preserve and increase the value of your assets by knowing what stock market does. By investing money in stock markets, it provides you a fast and easy way to earn money compared to deposit money in bank just like what many others do.

In recent years, finance is still the most popular industry in this advantage technology world. With the rapid development of the nation’s financial industry, both Chinese financial institutions and foreign financial institutions need a large number of talents in this career. Therefore, finance professionals have many job market opportunities. Even if a person is not engaged in the financial industry, be solid on financial knowledge is a key to be successful in its career and financial management. Finance is a good starting point for financial services, such as banking, and consulting. According to U.S. salary data collected by PayScale, financial professions are likely to earn a little more than most accounting professionals because they tend to centralize current and future financial data about companies or organizations. Since financial professions earn a higher salary, it means that people in finance career often have additional responsibilities such as predicting and analyzing the potential for earnings growth, evaluating monetary resources, and using accounting statistics to find external sources of capital. The major in finance also involve courses in financial evaluation, behavioral finance, derivatives, econometrics, financial modeling, quantitative finance, and financial regulation, as well as banking, international finance, financial engineering, risk and financial planning.

According to the accounting standards and actuarial provisions of liability assessment, actuarial assumptions applicable to liability assessment are adopted by actuaries to calculate in-force policies through the discounted cash flow model. Actuaries are professionals who use probability mathematical theory and a variety of financial tools to analyze and predict economic activities and solve economic problems with actuarial methods and techniques. Actuaries work in the commercial insurance industry. Their work mainly covers the commercial insurance industry that includes the calculation of insurance rates and the development and design of new insurance products. They are also responsible for the management of insurance products and financial management, accounting of liability reserves.

Some specific skills needed for this career field are networking, problem solving, and business acumen. Actuaries must have an advanced mathematics and basic knowledge of probability and statistics, it is “the ability to choose the right mathematical methods or formulas to solve a problem” (Summary Report for: 15-2011.00 - Actuaries). Be able to calculate annuity, return on investment, stock and bond prices, establish simple repayment fund and amortization plan and deal with depreciation of assets. In order to use analytic to solve problems, actuaries need to manage to use excel table, SPSS and other statistical analysis tools to examine data and determine if the factors are responsible for each outcome. Be proficient in operating a statistical software and statistical analysis. Having “Knowledge of economic and accounting principles and practices, the financial markets, banking and the analysis and reporting of financial data” (Summary Report for: 13-2031.00 - Budget Analysts). Many foreign financial service companies have begun to use prophet software to deal with profit test, asset evaluation, business model and other issues. Using excel software is the most easy to solve a large part of daily data processing problems.

Most actuaries are not good at expression and communication, or disdain to communicate with other people. In fact, excellent expression and communication skills can minimize the possibility of misunderstanding in the work, so that the work progress more smoothly, fewer detours, and efficiency will become higher. Having strong communication skills and have “the ability to communicate information and ideas in speaking so others will understand” could also help you to become successful in this career (Summary Report for: 13-1199.02 - Security Management Specialists). As an actuary, you must communicate with the other departments because if others want to know the business situation in a company, they are more likely to find the finance and actuarial department. Since the actuarial division is at the core of the company, so having strong communication skills is important.

One of the skills that is important in my field and that I need to improve are communication skills. The knowledge and competence I currently have in this skill was that I am able to speak fluent English but I do not know how to communicate with upper level professions. For example, on the business career fair I do not know how to communicate with the businessmen that come to the fair to introduce their company for us. I need to improve my speaking skills on using a more advanced language to speak to others. In the workplace and daily life, the importance of interpersonal communication can not be ignored, especially for actuary. They must understand some interpersonal communication skills, which will greatly improve the success of their career. Positive and effective communication with others can achieve twice the result with half the effort, it can build a good interpersonal relationship which plays a great role in a person's life and career.

In order to Improve my communication skills I need to be able to accurately express myself. Therefore, it is necessary to experience and receiving ability of the information recipient, and to determine the way of expression and words according to the specific situation of the recipient. Choose accurate vocabulary, tone and punctuation. Pay attention to logic and organization, add emphasis to important points, with the help of body language, movements, and expressions. It helps you to communicate mentally and emotionally to deepen each other's understanding.

I have already developed this skill through my BUS 103 course because my professor always provides us the opportunity to speak to business organizations such as DELTA organization from Mason and guest speaker to knowlegde us about the business events that’s happening in school. This skill contribute to my personal success because it gives me a real-world experience about how business works, and what interpersonal soft skills most companies are looking for.