The underlying purpose of the project is to gain an understanding of how Australian actuarial graduates perceive the quality of their education after some period of work experience.  It is somewhat of a follow up to a paper written by myself (Adam Butt), Brian Chu and John Shepherd in 2011 (see in particular Section 4.1 of the following link).   I believe these responses will provide valuable information that will guide the profession and educating institutions such as universities in their future decisions on the structure of education programs, both in Australia and internationally.

This understanding will be obtained via a survey of those who have recently undertaken actuarial courses at Australian universities and/or through the Actuaries Institute of Australia.  This survey will ask a number of questions on how the material learned in these courses relates to their current employment, the strengths and weaknesses of the various components of the education program and views on generic skills that should be taught as part of formal education versus those that should be learned "on the job".  This approach is different to the typical course feedback requested of students on an individual course level, as it asks students to look at their education holistically.

The session will be interactive by asking participants (via an audience response tool) to postulate what they believe will be the graduate responses to these questions and what the results mean for the profession.