My Journey to Passing My First Exam

My name is Jenna Itwaru and I am a sophomore majoring in mathematics with an actuarial concentration at the University at Buffalo. As a recipient of the STEM Stars scholarship, I have been exposed to a supportive and educative community of peers, mentors, and other experts. I am grateful to have reached many goals since, such as passing Exam P in January 2025! I will admit I had a lot of moments of self doubt struggles with balancing work, classes, and studying. It felt impossible to pass an exam within the time that I wanted to. I ended up burning myself out and ultimately found it best to take a step back from studying until I could approach it with a clearer mind. From this experience, I believe it’s very important to build a study plan, and be okay with having to adjust it because of life’s changing circumstances. 

Community support:

• I reached out to peers for advice, and scheduled study sessions with others.
• Your weaknesses may be someone else’s strengths, and it helps to learn from a different perspective.
• Having a mentor is great, because he gives me advice that is personalized to the type of student I am.
• Integrating myself into the community has helped to lift my spirits.

Coaching Actuaries:

• There are video lessons, explanations for problems, and exam/quiz building tools. You can track your progress on the website, and find your weak spots.
• I recommend working on SOA sample questions to get used to the wording after you have thoroughly understood concepts.
• I set long-term goals such as “get 80% accuracy on an EL 5 difficulty practice exam by the end of the week.” I also set short-term goals such as, “Practice more quizzes from 2.6 and 3.4, and memorize formulas.”
• During the learn process, I suggest taking a 10-question quiz after finishing a section to ensure that you understand a concept and can work through the problems yourself.

Pacing yourself/Mental Breaks:

• During extensive study hours, my focus dwindle away overtime. This became counterproductive because I’d become frustrated.
• I took brain breaks such as going on hikes, runs, playing with my dog, or anything else to step back from the material to refresh my mind.
• Something I will do in the future, is break up my study sessions. Instead of 5 hours of study, I will work in shorter periods such as 30 minutes to an hour, with at least 15 minute breaks.
• The brain needs resting periods to grow stronger and retain information.

There are no shortcuts, putting the time in will pay off. Don’t feel confined to only measure your success by the ability to pass exams on the first try, it’s just a part of the career. The feeling of finally passing an exam after putting lots of hard work into it is unmatched!