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The days of manual calculations in actuarial science are long over. Today, even an actuarial student with a mastery of their calculator and all of its abilities may still not be ready for the new technological era. The Actuarial Science Club understands this, and is taking many steps to get its students ready for a career where coding and other technical skills are necessary. To help students prepare for the future, The Club has taken several actions. To start, The Club’s former Webmaster, Aidan Lake, developed a brand new “Excel/Coding” tab on The Club website.

​Here, students can learn about Microsoft Excel, Microsoft Access, Python, and SQL. If the introduction to the skills on the website is not sufficient, there are numerous links that students can use to learn more from other sources. Additionally, The Club once again hosted the annual Excel workshop in September. There, students learned how to fly around a spreadsheet with shortcuts, utilize formulas, and manipulate data to make it more usable. Taught once again by former Club President John Miller, the session was a huge success. The Club is looking forward to more opportunities to help students become technically capable job candidates. Keep on coding! The Club’s Technology team has made an effort to be more efficient in our work so as to better serve Club members. The points system spreadsheet has been further automated, which has allowed us to provide more timely and accurate points updates. It is a constant effort to keep the recruiter contact information in our databases updated, which is crucial to ensure that all potential employers are seeing the resume books.

The Club's former Director of Technology, Noah Donten, has been working hard to keep this information accurate! As for the resume books themselves, we are in the midst of an ambitious transition. The new submission form on the club webpage will make compiling the monthly resume books an easier task for the Club’s next Technology team. Working with a Penn State-hired programmer, the technology team has increased accuracy, accountability, and usability. The form entries now require a Penn State login, which automatically populates several pieces of information from a verified Penn State student. The technology team is now able to export all of the needed information with much more ease. Club members should look forward to more accurate databases that are updated more regularly!