The actuarial career is consistently rated among the top jobs in America, according to surveys and rankings such as one recently reported by CareerCast. Good pay, low stress and interesting work equal high job satisfaction. It’s not surprising, then, that actuarial science is gaining a lot of attention from prospective students. But what does it take to educate a successful actuary?
One evening this spring, like so many other working parents, I was working late. As I graded papers and wrote emails — after finishing dinner, dishes, and kids’ homework — I turned on the TV show Revolution. Watching main character Rachel Matheson dodge bullets while running through the underbrush, I thought, “Now, wouldn’t that be nice?”
What will be the tipping point for national legal recognition of gay marriage? Politicians, scholars, activists, and historians can all disagree but one thing is certain: the Supreme Court cannot avoid at least the first significant step toward that tipping point this month.
On March 14 in Washington, D.C., a group of business school educators and administrators gathered at the National Academy of Sciences to meet with leaders from the private and public sectors and have a conversation on an unlikely topic: climate change education for future business leaders.
When we talk about the importance of global business education, most people think about the integration of international business concepts into the curriculum, or opportunities to take students abroad.
Increasingly important, though, is the degree of international diversity in the classroom. A good example is our new Bentley University MBA, which brings together 13 international students from 11 different countries with six domestic students.
During my time at Bentley, I took a variety of business courses. We all know that to be a successful business person in today’s world, you need a variety of skills and exposure to many different ways of thinking.
In one class, Professor Tim Anderson introduced the talking stick.
He explained to us that it was an ancient tradition. Whoever held the talking stick was the person talking. They could hold on to it as long as they wanted, say whatever they wanted and everyone else had to allow them to speak and not interrupt.
In the past decade, the presence of women on the boards of public companies has been increasing virtually everywhere in the world — except in the United States.
Internationally, the 16.6 percent of female directors serving on U.S. Fortune 500 boards falls somewhere in the middle; Japan sits at slightly over 1 percent and Norway at 40 percent. But that U.S. number is only 3 percent higher than it was 10 years ago.
The numbers are surprising, considering:
I am a baby boomer, one of the many Americans approaching their dream retirement age. I am also one of the many baby boomers who has a little panic attack every time I look at my retirement accounts and my exposure to the whims of the stock market.
One of the questions that I often get as a financial planner (and one that I ask myself) is: Should I take money out of my retirement account to pay off the remaining balance on my home’s mortgage?
The answer: It may make you feel good, but it is an expensive decision.
The MBA is in trouble. Organized and taught in the same way for generations, the traditional MBA program is increasingly anachronistic.
I am a risk taker, and I urge others to take risks too.
That doesn’t mean I encourage hasty or reckless decisions. Mine have actually been pretty well thought out. But I do say: trust your instincts, listen to your gut, and take chances.
It is something that has worked for me, although it has also raised some eyebrows. Take my first job out of college. I went on countless interviews and turned down multiple offers. My family was about to have a meltdown. I remember my 94-year-old grandmother’s advice to “ … just accept something already.”