KUALA LUMPUR: UCSI University’s James Koo (pic) has beaten the odds to become the first Malaysian student to have obtained the Associate of Canadian Institute of Actuaries (ACIA).
The third year Actuarial Science student is also the first student from the nation’s best private university to have passed the Society of Actuaries’ Fundamentals of Actuarial Practice (FAP).
To acquire Associateship, Koo said students would have to sit for five professional examinations, FAP and attend a professionalism workshop organised by Canadian Institute of Actuaries (CIA) in Canada. The FAP, he said, consists of online modules and assessments that test one’s technical knowledge and application of insurance pricing, reserving and actuarial control cycle.
“I am happy to get this Associateship because it is ‘rare’ for an undergraduate to achieve this recognition,” the 21-year-old from Johor Bahru told Bernama.
With ACIA, Koo said his chances of landing a “competitive job” was much higher now, adding that he had already been called up for several job interviews.
“Being an Associate provides me the chance to stand out from the crowd. I have been called for interviews for permanent jobs by several actuarial consulting companies even before completing my undergraduate stidues,” he shared.
The SMK Taman Daya alumni said his next step would be to improve his programming language knowledge as he explained that the demand for automation in most jobs due to Industry 4.0 has made it imperative for actuarial graduates to be skilful in this area.
“My ambition is to become a consulting actuary serving in a general insurance company.
“I have chosen to specialise in general insurance due to the higher involvement of statistical concepts and modelling,” he said. – Bernama
