Integrating into society
01 March, 2006
society
Brian Fitzpatrick and Shane Murphy muse on the evolution of the actuarial collective.
aMathematicians were the rappers of the 6th century bc. Pythagoras knew he had a rare talent when he spotted that there was something fishy about the length of the biggest side of a triangle. Like all of today’s most prominent rappers, he surrounded himself with a posse. They called themselves Pythagoreans, and with their beats and support, Pythagoras produced his best material. Pythagoras, through the group he built around him, secured his place in history. They killed his rivals, they recorded his work, they followed his gods. They even subscribed to his ethos of bean-free-vegetarianism.Mindful of this success, modern-day actuaries have also immersed themselves in groups for support. The Institute is one, the Faculty another. There are also university actuarial student societies. Over the years less emphasis has been placed on religion, and the killing of rivals is less documented, but nonetheless mathematicians or actuaries with similar interests tend to group together to share work, share ideas, and socialise (albeit only occasionally). University College Dublin’s Actuarial & Financial Society is one such group. It was set up very much with a social aspect in mind; the mandatory vegetarianism of course came later. Actuarial students in the college didn’t have a reputation for mixing easily, so roughly ten years ago the students set up a social society for the actuarial classes. It had such noble aims as having all the actuarial students in the university on first-name terms with each other. It had some success in this regard, but things changed quite drastically in 2004 when the committee, tired of being dwarfed by the UCD super-societies, and perhaps looking to beef up its death squad, decided to open the society to non-actuary members.Getting third-level students to joins the Actuarial & Financial Society, instead of say Party Soc or Nurse Soc is exactly as difficult as it sounds. We needed a gimmick for an image boost. While Pythagoras created mystique by lecturing from behind a veil, such acts were considered highly inappropriate in the UCD fresher’s tent. Our previous mottos (such as ‘We like to integrate’) had to be rebranded. But even our best effort at a new one, which somehow tied Kate Moss to stochastic modelling, was pretty pathetic. It took one of the officers from UCD Pagan Soc to point out that we could use the A&F from Actuarial & Finance, but call ourselves Alcohol & Fun or Alcohol & Food. And so we did!Word spread like wildfire as wide-eyed freshmen set out to see if the rumours were true; was alcoholism actually being actively encouraged in Ireland’s biggest university? The strategy worked and 500 non-actuarial students were quickly signed onto the society’s books. Alcohol & Fun became to Actuarial & Finance what Superman is to Clark Kent. By the time the Lex Luthors in the larger societies discovered our secret identity, we had already found a good membership base, and luckily they were fresh out of Kryptonite. As expected, not all of the non-actuarial members take part in our events. Many of our new members signed up just for the goody bags, free hugs, and half-used tubes of Pritt Stick we gave out. There has been quite a high participation of non-actuaries in the society, however, and only luck and wholesale corruption prevented a team from agricultural science winning our five-a-side tournament in December.The main goal of the society has never changed from having everyone in our course on a first-name basis. Our methods for doing so have, and we have seen more success as a result. Changes such as hiring nightclubs for events and cheap cocktails have all brought out people’s sociable side. Realistic or not, the committee makes every effort to get to know every one of our active members. Such conviviality simply does not happen in the larger societies, where anonymity reigns. Unfortunately, our society doesn’t have the aggression or rhythm of 50 Cent and G-Unit. Even more unfortunately, precious few of our members look set to make mathematical breakthroughs which will last 2,500 years. Nonetheless, we’ve encouraged actuarial students to mix as much as possible and we’ve even educated countless arts students that actuary is not a cousin of archery. And to cap it off, we allow our members eat beans! That will show those Pythagoreans!
