Actuarial Outpost has a garbage layout

BigPeePee

I hope this place becomes the new AO.

CalebWetherell

I hope it becomes the new AO as well! And, I agree, the new layout there leaves one feeling underwhelmed.

Here's to more traffic on Average Actuary 🍻

CalebWetherell

Am planning on posting an update soon with how things are evolving here, but we are seeing pretty consistent growth in traffic and search volume over time. Here's the Google Search data since launch:

Aviva

It's sad what the ao has become. I don't think they know what they are doing to think that was a good idea. 🙁

BigPeePee

Aviva AO has gone down the shitter even before DWS bought out the site. Way too much moderation, and I even had a suspicion that the SOA co-ran the site to shoot down any posts that were critical of them. If you mentioned that the exams are too easy these days and questioned why the SOA was making them easier, you would get a ban.

Aviva

I don't remember the name of the chick in my ao avatar. I might need to find a different one. I forgot to save it! Saved avatars from some of my alts, but not this one.

CalebWetherell

The worst part is all the history is lost. Lot's of great long term discussions that you could see the evolution over time. Hopefully, we can create that here!

@Aviva maybe it's time for something fresh?

@BigPeePee you're the closest on the site to needing moderation so far 🤣

BigPeePee

CalebWetherell But you won't ban me, right? I am a loyal member here.

CalebWetherell

BigPeePee I appreciate the loyalty 🙏

The only moderation plans I have is to try and keep trolling and low effort posts to BBM.

Aviva

CalebWetherell change is hard for me, but I guess it's not like my avatar was that great. It also bugs me that I cannot remember the chick's name in my avatar. My mind is going!

BigPeePee I mostly stuck to the non-actuarial portion of the ao, so I don't have much of an opinion on moderation in the professional sections regarding the SOA, but I did constantly have an issue with moderation in the non-professional sections.

lol I think you were trolling a bit about the SOA making exams easier, although, I can truthfully state that EA-2L is easier than it was a decade ago having taken it back then, giving up because it was horrible, and then going back to it in 2019 and passing easily. I doubt that's true of all exams though.

BigPeePee

Aviva

lol I think you were trolling a bit about the SOA making exams easier, although

Unfortunately, it is the truth.
The Actuarial profession is being challenged by many fields that pay as much or higher than actuaries but don't have such an arduous series of exams. If you were smart enough to pass the older actuarial exams, you're smart enough to succeed in any other job not named mathematician or physicist, so why become an actuary when you can become a bullshit management consultant at McKinsey and make 165k base + 50k bonuses?

Aviva

not that I'm in the market for a recruiter, but with how they just discarded the entire ao with no warning or consideration for their loyal posters, no way I'd use a DW Simpson recruiter now.

Aviva

One day I was posting on the backdoor ip entrance to the ao, pressed refresh and it took a bit too long to load and i realized at that moment it was gone forever 🙁

the destruction of the ao after 19 plus years goes along well with the theme of 2020.

CalebWetherell

Aviva As I've said elsewhere, this place costs me about $10 per month to operate. I thought about upgrading to the $20 per month server so the load time gets reduced by 400ms. 🤔

I get >$10 of enjoyment per month looking at a website I made (regardless of activity) with a cool logo on it, so I'm not going anywhere!

BigPeePee

CalebWetherell You'll make your money back through ad revenue when this place becomes the new AO.

Aviva

BigPeePee when did you take exams? under which system?

I guess you might have a point. I took exams under way too many exam structures, with several breaks in between to finally culminate into an ASA in 2018 and waiting on my EA application in 2020. The exams sucked in the 90's, especially when they increased travel time to even get ASA by moving exams from FSA requirements to ASA requirements. There were a LOT of little exams. Then they attempted to reduce travel time in the year 2000. They combined 2 or 3 prelims into one exam. It was probably a bit easier to get the prelims, but then there were I think 2 big exams on top of that to get ASA which were HARD. Then in 2006, they scrapped those 2 hard exams for FAP. I think the 2006 system was probably the easiest to get ASA under, but after that they started breaking apart the exams again making it harder and they put in VEE's which we didn't have before and now they have predictive analytics, which I didn't have to take. Not that FAP is "easy" if you took it seriously, but it was easy to pass for some people. It was somewhat random who it was easy to pass though and didn't necessarily correlate with being good at exams. FAP was easy for me to pass. I put it off though thinking I'd hate it while having all the prelims since FAP started, and finally tackled it right before they were going to add Predictive Analytics, so I got ASA in 2018 after starting exams in 1995. Took a bunch of time off from exams though in between, so not like I was taking them that entire time. I wound up stuck on the EA exams which were terrible and dissuaded me from exams at all. Went back to the last EA exam I needed in 2019 and it was magically easier than I had last taken it like 12 years earlier.

CalebWetherell

BigPeePee You'll make your money back through ad revenue when this place becomes the new AO.

Maybe someday I'll make enough to buy one single share of Tesla 🙂 Might never happen since it's a moving target!

BigPeePee Anyway, if I had to do it all over again, I would not pick this field. I would become a software engineer, investment banker, or consultant.

Being a software engineer does seem like it would be great work. There's something primal about humans - we like to make things with our hands. In a digitally-based society, there are obviously not many high paying careers with physical labor, and software engineering is pretty close to "making things".

BigPeePee

Anyway, if I had to do it all over again, I would not pick this field. I would become a software engineer, investment banker, or consultant.
Funny thing is that out of all my friends who entered the above fields, I have the highest net worth ($650k) and the only one who owns a house, and I will probably become a millionaire once my TSLA and bitcoin investments moon.

CalebWetherell

@Aviva It was a slow and painful death for the AO ☠

First, it was gone, then there were backdoors, then there was speculation it would be up for a while, and then it was just... gone.

BigPeePee

Aviva I started my first exam 4 years ago and passed my last exam a year ago. This was back when MFE still had stochastic calculus and MLC had a 35% passrate. The CORE and ADV exams were also a joke. Now every single exam is even more of a joke.
Pretty soon, you'll see elementary school kids passing these tests.

Aviva

BigPeePee so ummmm, you're saying a mere 4 years ago was the height of the difficulty of these exams? i cannot imagine that much has changed in 4 years other than adding PA.