Barbara Wothaya and Christine Waweru have completed the required series of the Institute and Faculty of Actuaries (IFoA) examinations, thereby completing the required exam for the class of Fellow.
It has been close to 8 years for Christine and Barbara to achieve the highly coveted status since they first took the CT1 (Financial Mathematics) papers in 2012 and 2013 respectively. Throughout the journey, it has been a mixture of triumph, tears, and resilience.
I started my journey in 2013 excited to venture out into a world of probabilities, assuming it would be a walk in the park. The last 8 years have been full of ups and downs but ultimately I have learned that all my failures have only proven my resilience and made me better.
~ Barbara, Actuary, First Assurance
Barbara is an actuary at First Assurance, where she is in charge of dispensing all the actuarial duties for the GI business. This includes reserving, pricing, capital modelling, R/I optimization, among other tasks.
“A long journey that has required a lot of faith, resilience, hope and vision has come to an end marking the beginning of a new season. Throughout this journey I have had to learn, re-learn, laugh, cry and all emotions in between. Looking back, it was all worth it.
~Christine, a Senior Associate, Non-Life Actuarial, PwC UK
The achievement could have come sooner for Barbara and Christine. There were a number of re-sits for the General Insurance Advanced paper (SA3), and it was not until they sat for the September examinations that they found reprieve. Both are glad they did not give up with the SA3. “I am not one to give up, so I was ready to sit for that (SA3) exam even ten times,” says Barbara.
Going forward, Christine will continue to explore the non-life space, even if they are non-traditional roles, while Barbara wants to focus on GI, specifically reserving and IFRS17 transition. What words can we learn from these two? “If you feel stuck, just try one more time. One more time, because that is what matters to get the results you deserve,” says Christine.
