I have always loved math. In fact, I distinctly remember the day in kindergarten when I figured out how to count to 100. Yes, kindergarten. Later in elementary school, I would sneak a flashlight to bed so that I could stay up late practicing multiplication tables. To say I was a nerd would definitely be an understatement.
I loved the black and white nature of math: 2 + 2 is always 4. Because of this, I really wasn’t looking forward to Statistics my sophomore year of high school. Fortunately, I was blessed with the most incredible teacher who made stats come alive. Seeing the real world applications of math quickly turned Statistics into my favorite class. I liked it so much that I read EVERY. SINGLE. WORD of the textbook. I even asked my mom to buy it for me. Seriously, what high school student asks for a personal copy of their textbook to keep?! Yep, that would be me.
Well, it was in a side note of this textbook that I first heard of an actuary. And you know what? It stuck! A year later when deciding on my college major, I remembered that blurb and did some research. My father, an insurance agent with State Farm, offered to drive me 3 hours to their headquarters so I could job shadow an actuary. Well, I took him up on the offer and later that day I was sold. I knew being an actuary was the career for me and haven’t looked back since.
I chose to start my journey at The Ohio State University where, by God’s grace, I managed to study for and pass a few actuarial exams while training 20+ hours per week on top of a challenging class schedule. The fall of my senior year I was fortunate to be offered a full-time position as an actuarial analyst with State Farm.
After more than 7 years and thousands of hours of studying, I finally passed my last exam and became a fully credentialed actuary (aka. A Fellow of the Casualty Actuarial Society) in the fall of 2019.
A couple months later, my husband and I moved back to Columbus, OH where I currently work as a Pricing Manager and Actuary at Root Inc., an InsurTech start-up aiming to “unbreak” the insurance industry.
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