Actuarial Science

• MET AT 511: Economics and Management Decisions
  The aim of the course is to present decision problems and the economic analysis needed to guide these decisions. Microeconomic tools are used to structure complicated decision problems about production, pricing, investment, and other strategic issues and address uncertainty through probabilistic forecasts and sequential decisions. An important part of the course is to develop an understanding of the external environment in which firms operate by analyzing the implications of market structure, macroeconomic developments and policy, and other forms of public policy toward business.
• MET AT 521: Financial Mathematics
  Undergraduate Prerequisites: MET MA 225 or consent of instructor. - This course develops uses of interest as it relates to the theory of finance. Students will gain an understanding of interest calculations related to financial instruments including bonds, mortgages, annuities, and financial instruments with non-level payment schemes. The material covered in this course may help students prepare for SoA/CAS Exam FM
• MET AT 531: Fundamentals of Actuarial Mathematics
  Prerequisites: MET MA 581 or CAS MA 581; MET AT 521; or consent of instructor. - This course will cover the fundamentals of both long-term insurance and short-term insurance. The long-term topics will include insurance, annuities, and premiums for from both a theoretical basis and the application of those models. The short-term portion of the course introduces modeling and will cover actuarial methods that are useful in modeling. Foundational principles of ratemaking and reserving for short-term coverages will also be covered. The material covered in this course may help students prepare for SoA Exam FAM.
• MET AT 541: Introduction to Individual Insurance
  This course covers the application of basic actuarial principles to individual life and annuity financial security systems. Material covered will include the purpose of these systems, the development of financial security products, risk classification, actuarial pricing assumptions, the calculation of product cash flows, the purpose of reserves and different reserve methods. Taxation, required capital, profit measurement, and reinsurance considerations will also be studied.
• MET AT 542: Introduction to Group Insurance
  This course covers the application of basic actuarial principles to group life and group health financial security systems. Material covered will include the purpose of these systems, financial security product design and development, underwriting and risk management, premium determination, and the funding and valuation of group life and group health financial security systems. Group systems in the United States will be emphasized, but the course will also review the Canadian health system.
• MET AT 543: Introduction to Property and Casualty Insurance
  This course covers Property & Casualty Industry from an actuarial science perspective. Topics include the theory of insurance including insurable risks, calculation of premiums on those risks, payment of losses on the inevitable claims, the history of the insurance industry with a focus on court cases that shaped the current regulatory structure; and the basic policy structures of homeowners, automobile, and liability insurance; and reinsurance.
• MET AT 722: Finance for Actuaries
  Undergraduate Prerequisites: (METAT721) - This course builds off of the topics covered in AT721 ("Mathematics of Compound Interest") by developing both basic and advanced models of corporate finance. Topics covered include net present value valuation, internal rate of return and profitability index models, capital budgeting models, and efficient market hypotheses. These tools will be used to understand and apply basic principles of option pricing theory, including the Black-Scholes formula with application to binomial lattice valuation. The material covered in this course may help students prepare for SoA/CAS Exam FM.
• MET AT 743: Regression and Time Series
  Undergraduate Prerequisites: CASMA582 or METMA582 Mathematical Statistics, or consent of instructor - Part I of this course will cover simple and multiple regressions, serial correlation, and heteroscedasticity, analysis of residuals, and stepwise analysis techniques. Part II will cover time series analysis including smoothing and extrapolation of time series, linear time series models, model building procedure, and forecasting, as well as case studies.
• MET AT 761: Mathematics%20for%20Investment%20and%20Portfolio%20Theory
  Undergraduate Prerequisites: MET MA 225, CAS MA 581, and MET AT 721 - This%20course%20covers%20the%20risk%20and%20return%20characteristics%20of%20primary%20financial%20products%2C%20fundamental%20principles%20of%20modern%20portfolio%20theory%2C%20term%20structures%20and%20yield%20curves%2C%20Markowitz%20Portfolio%20Selection%20Model%2C%20CAPM%20and%20its%20applications%20to%20portfolio%20management%2C%20derivative%20securities%2C%20duration%2C%20immunization%2C%20and%20interest%20rate%20risk%20management.%20
• MET AT 762: Mathematical Finance for Actuarial Science
  Undergraduate Prerequisites: (METMA581 & METAT721) - This course covers the analysis of derivative products and their use in insurance and risk management strategies. It covers selected aspects of rational valuation of derivative products like put-call parity, binomial option, and Black Scholes option pricing model.
• MET AT 771: Advanced Long-Term Actuarial Mathematics
  Prerequisites: MET AT 531 or consent of instructor. - This course continues with the development of long-term financial models introduced in MET AT 531. Insurance Reserves are introduced, including methods for determining reserves, the impact of actuarial assumptions on the calculations, and the effect of real-world results that do not match those assumed. Multiple life and multiple decrement models are introduced, as are Multiple State/Markov Chains and pension mathematics. The material covered in this course may help students prepare for SoA Exam ALTAM.
• MET AT 781: Advanced Short-Term Actuarial Mathematics
  Prerequisites: MET AT 531 or consent of instructor. - This course continues with the development of short-term financial models introduced in AT531 (“Fundamentals of Actuarial Science”). This course addresses severity, frequency, and aggregate models, and evaluation of both complete and incomplete data. The course also covers mathematical models for specific types of insurance, such as medical, automobile, and disability insurance. Credibility models comprise the final topic for the course, and the Classical, Bühlmann-Straub, and Bayesian methods are discussed. The material covered in this course may help students prepare for SoA Exam ASTAM.
• MET AT 799: Capstone in Actuarial Science
  Restrictions: only for students in the final semester of the MS in Actuarial Science degree program. - The capstone is an opportunity to integrate what you have learned in your actuarial courses to help you better understand how these topics apply in today’s insurance and financial environment. You will use actuarial principles from the MS in Actuarial Science program to collaborate with classmates on a successful research project, which will review problems faced by insurance companies and other actuarial-relevant companies from an integrated perspective and develop solutions. Your final paper and presentation will be assessed by an audience including your instructor, peers, and professional actuaries.
• MET AT 981: Internship in Actuarial Science I
  The course is offered to students who seek practical applications of actuarial principles in insurance companies, financial institutions, pension consulting firms, and other related fields.
• MET AT 982: Internship in Actuarial Science II
  Graduate Prerequisites: MET AT722 and AT731 and cumulative GPA of 3.3 or higher and consent of instructor - The course is offered to students who seek practical applications of actuarial principles in insurance companies, financial institutions, pension consulting firms, and other related fields. The course requires students to participate in an internship program within the industry. Students need to submit monthly progress reports and a final semester report to the Chairman, Department of Actuarial Science at Boston University.
• MET AT 991: Directed Studies I
  The course is offered to students who plan to engage in special research topics under the supervision of a faculty advisor. Application is made through the Department of Actuarial Science.
• MET AT 992: Directed Studies II
  The course is offered to students who plan to engage in special research topics under the supervision of a faculty advisor. Application is made through the Department of Actuarial Science.
• MET MA 581: Probability
  Graduate Prerequisites: (METMA225 OR CASMA225 OR CASMA230) - Basic probability, conditional probability, independence. Discrete and continuous random variables, mean and variance, functions of random variables, moment generating function. Jointly distributed random variables, conditional distributions, independent random variables. Methods of transformations, law of large numbers, central limit theorem.
• MET MA 582: Mathematical Statistics
  Graduate Prerequisites: (METMA581 OR CASMA381 OR CASMA581) - Interval estimation. Point estimation including sufficiency, Rao-Blackwell theorem, completeness, uniqueness, Rao-Cramer inequality, and maximum likelihood estimation. Tests of hypothesis: uniformly most powerful tests, uniformly most powerful unbiased tests, likelihood ratio test, chi-squared test, comparison of means and variances, ANOVA, regression, and some nonparametric tests.
• MET MA 603: SAS with Statistical Applications
  Undergraduate Prerequisites: MET or CAS MA 214 - Offers a unified and in-depth coverage of the statistical computer package SAS, and its statistical applications. Topics include the language of SAS, data formatting, creating and storing SAS data sets, file manipulations, macro procedure, and graphics. Also included are procedures for statistical techniques selected from analysis of variance, regression, factor analysis, scoring, and categorical data analysis. Several large data sets will be used as case studies emphasizing hands-on experience with SAS for Windows. Laboratory course.