President's Blog August 2022

Back from Holidays, Refreshed and Engaged…

Hello and welcome dear readers to the President’s blog post for August 2022!

With the beginning of Session 2, ASSOC has embarked on its final string of events for the 2022 Cabinet. We’re all motivated to finish the year as strongly as we started, meaning larger and more ambitious events to fill your calendars.

In August, this meant hosting the largest careers event in recent MQ society history. This, of course, was complemented with the customary social events to complete a very satisfying month. At the risk of sounding self-aggrandizing, I’ve decided to expand upon that even more with six full paragraphs of praise… enjoy!

Amazing Race

Amazing Race returned to its in-person form this year with flying colours. Teams formed across the Actuarial cohort participated in: running, becoming confused, google maps-ing, face-palming, back-tracking, double-checking, berating teammates and walking across the city throughout the entire afternoon. I speak from experience and a certain measure of embarrassment.

A big thanks must go to the organising team for putting together the circuit of different locations and challenges spanning from the tip of Wynyard down to Town Hall. It’s wonderful to see an old classic brought back to its physical form.

Meet the Professionals Night

From the beginning of our tenures, the 2022 Cabinet set an ambitious agenda aimed at revitalising the actuarial community of MQ. Chief among our many goals was holding a careers summit with size and scale surpassing anything of years past. After months of planning and correspondence, I’m very happy to say the careers team were able to pull it off.

Hosting sponsor representatives from twelve different firms, the Actuarial and Applied Finance department and 90 university student attendees, ASSOC was able to provide an event unprecedented in MQ circles. Being able to provide these incredible opportunities for the actuarial cohort is something that the Cabinet takes enormous pride in and goes directly towards our goal of strengthening the bonds between individuals in this niche field.

Poker Night

Actuarial students have a great tendency towards the game of Poker. Not being too familiar with the sport myself, I’ve always wondered why this was so. But after mulling it over for a couple years, I’ve gotten it down to two main factors. The most obvious of the two is the benefit provided by an inane fascination for risk – poker provides the practical marketplace for the currency of ideas taught in weekly lectures. The other factor comes very simply from the countless exams whereby the student desperately tries to mask their growing panic after a cursory glance at the paper – and thus, a poker face is born.

A big thanks to our Sports team and Sports Director Jason Wong for the great event; that’s a wrap for our sport events under the 2022 Cabinet! I have to thank our sponsors from VivCourt Trading who came to lend their time on the night. As much as we love inviting sponsors to our massive career events, there’s an equal amount of fun to be had in our more social gatherings. I should probably also thank them for going easy on the attendees.

Hoodies!

The merchandise has finally arrived! It’s a topic of great importance to a lot of us in the community but, I must reiterate: if there’s ever a maxim to live by; surely let it be “better late than never”. Yes, it’s our way of life. No, that’s not just our excuse.

In any case, order forms will be releasing with the option to pick your favourite colour. Make sure to snag one up now!

Future Events?

You’ll have to stay tuned to our socials for information on upcoming events but here’s a little sneak peek at this next month:

Event	Timeframe
SQL Workshop	13th September
Ball	17th September
Python Workshop	End of September