Major Application Essay

I have been an Actuarial Science major at UMass Amherst for five semesters, and over the course of my studies I have learned more than I thought. Before coming to school, I already declared my major in Mathematics because I knew my future career interest would most likely be financial industry. Although I could apply for Isenberg for finance major, which might teach me more pragmatic knowledge and practical skills to be ready for the industry, I want to learn some intellectual knowledge on how things work, or even specifically to learn about the scientific explanation within finance. The mathematical program I have taken so far gives me a new understanding that math is a method to make difficult things easy, and to explain why a situation

This is also one of the crucial reasons that I decided to major in Math: learning how to break problems down into key components, processing information, and then arriving at a conclusion in a rational way. For example, when given a mathematical problem to solve, I must be able to recognize the major procedure in the problem, and then draw from my math knowledge and previous experience to find the appropriate methods solving the problem. Essentially, this whole process of working the problem out is analytical thinking. Throughout history, many intellectuals have consistently kept mathematics as one of the crucial elements in developing into a comprehensive thinker. Since they are outstanding leaders in pedagogy, they had a social responsibility and were able to manage such responsibility with sophisticated analytical thinking. The skill I gained from intense practice at analytical thinking in math study helps me to better analyze and solve problems both in real life and on my future career

One class I enjoyed the most is an introductory nutrition class taught students for a healthy lifestyle. The topics covered include digestion, functions of macro and micronutrients, as well as current recommendations for nutrient intake. It also discussed energy balance and weight control, which is a trend and useful topic among our generations. I learned a lot about nutrition from reading labels on the food packaging to how to eat in a proper way to take control of weight and promote my overall health. This is the most pragmatic class I have taken and was able to talk to my friends and family with easy tips for planning a healthy diet that benefits their lifestyle. Furthermore, I started to read the labels on the packaging that I had never paid attention before as the information is making sense to me now. At the same time, I noticed that most food manufactures print one or two concise statistical statements on their packaging to better promote for the products. For example, it is often seen on the peanuts packing says that “Scientific evidence suggests but does not prove that eating 1.5 ounces per day of most nuts, such as peanuts, as part of a diet low in saturated fat and cholesterol may reduce the risk of heart disease”. The statistics and quantitative data used on this particular packaging is the tool that the manufacture tries to capture customers’ attitudes