Careers in Statistics

Careers in statistics

What are the UBC courses that are useful preparation for the actuarial exams (Society of Actuaries = SOA).?

The latest information on SOA (Society of Actuaries) exams is at: https://www.soa.org/education/exam-req/edu-asa-req/

The following updates were made in January 2026.

1.  UCAP-IC designation for UBC. (Universities and Colleges with Actuarial Programs -- Introductory Curriculum).
This designation requires that there are UBC courses to cover two SOA exams.
The approval was made in January 2026, with
exams P and SRM, plus all three VEE topics covered.

2. Exam P Probability: covered with Stat/Math 302.
Part of Stat 305 can also be useful for studying for this exam.

3. Exam SRM Statistics for Risk Modeling: covered with Stat 306, 406, 443.

4. Exam FM Financial Math: COMR 473 provides much of the preparation, but
some topics in exam FM are not covered with UBC courses that are accessible
to non-Business students.

5. VEE (Validation by Educational Experience)
https://www.soa.org/education/exam-req/edu-vee
The three covered topics are: Economics, Accounting and Finance,
Mathematical Statistics.

6.  Casualty Actuarial Society.
https://www.casact.org/exams-and-admissions
This focuses exclusively on property and casualty risks.
Credit for Exams 1, and 2 is granted based on exam options as defined in
the individual exam syllabi.
The CAS exclusively administers Exams MAS-I, MAS-II, and
5 through 9, the PCPA Exam and Project and the Course on Professionalism.

Exam 1: Probability; Interchangeable with SOA Exam P .

Exam 2: Financial Mathematics; Interchangeable with SOA Exam FM.

Exam MAS-I: Modern Actuarial Statistics-I
(Probability theory, Statistical methods, Regression models, Time series,
including statistical inference and statistical learning).

Exam MAS-II: Modern Actuarial Statistics-II
(Advanced statistical methods, Predictive modelling and analysis,
Regression analysis, including hypothesis testing, time series analysis,
non-parametric methods, logistic regression).

FAQ Category
Careers in Statistics

How does the job of Statistician rank compare with other careers?

Input something like "top careers 2019" into a search engine. Here are some results from https://money.usnews.com/careers/best-jobs/rankings/the-100-best-jobs

#1 Software developer (Education Bachelor's)
#2 Statistician. (Education Master's)
#17 Mathematician. (Education Master's)
#24 Accountant. (Education Bachelor's)
#25 Financial Manager. (Education Bachelor's)
#27 Computer Systems Analyst. (Education Bachelor's)
#33 Actuary (Education Bachelor's)
#34 Operations Research Analyst (Education Bachelor's)
#60 Market Research Analyst (Education Bachelor's)

FAQ Category
Careers in Statistics

What are some careers for someone with a Statistics degree? What kind of skills and grades do I need?

Here are some possible careers (job titles) with their qualifications.

  • Career with quantitative analysis, such as actuary, benefits analyst, insurance underwriter, market research analyst, data scientist, survey analyst. Qualifications: BSc in Statistics (A/B average) with communications skills, computing/coding skills.
  • A.Stat designation from the Statistical Society of Canada. This could be useful for statistical project work as a consultant. Qualifications: courses in Statistics major with grades exceeding B-.
  • Job title of statistician. Qualifications: MSc in Statistics, which requires a BSc with an A average (maybe a B+ minimum), with harder courses in Statistics/Mathematics.
  • Job title of biostatistician (health-related). Qualifications: MSc in Statistics/Biostatistics.
FAQ Category
Careers in Statistics

What is Statistical Science? What is Data Science?

The field of Statistics is quite interdisciplinary because statistical methodology is used in all areas where research studies are carried out, data are collected, and statistical analyses are done to make comparisons, predictions, and forecasts.

The study of Statistics can be combined with business, data science, economics, finance, genomics, health studies, insurance, pharmaceutical science, etc.

A statistician's work can vary from a focus on application areas (requiring knowledge of subject areas), to theoretical development of methodology (requiring advanced mathematics), and the development of statistical software (requiring skills in scientific programming).

Data science focuses on data visualization, data management, data analytics and large databases; data scientists should understand variation and uncertainty, representativeness, efficient data collection, meaningful data reduction and summarization, and analytic tools from different sciences.

The American Statistical Association (ASA) has a good reference page called This is Statistics.

FAQ Category
Careers in Statistics