After my exit from old coaching classes, students are irresolute

Since many students in past 2 weeks have discussed the confusion with me, I feel it is necessary to state my views...

This post is addressed to all those students who have contacted me in last few days with state of extreme confusion of where to go after I left the previous coaching classes. They feel when I was a part of the old coaching centre, it was a great place for them to study. Now they are not sure whether to join that coaching where I am not there anymore or to join my new organisation S.MONK.

On lighter note, Oreo cookies and its attractive wrapper makes great team which makes it sell. If someday Oreos and its wrapper are kept in 2 different plates, what would you prefer?

Coming back to the topic...

The confusion has no end and students feel if they prefer one, the other one would be unhappy. I feel this perception is incorrect.

You may come to S.MONK or you may choose any other tutor, at the end what matters is that you should pass the exam after such a big investment of time, energy and money. You should feel comfortable in class with the faculty and some other factors should work too.

If you are confused, answer these simple questions, may be, you will get your answer.
1. Which teacher you are more comfortable with, when it comes to discussing your career?

2. Which teacher is full time into teaching, which makes him/her available to you at any point of time?

3. Look at your past and just remember which teacher did you thank last time after getting a successful result?

4. Did any teacher motivate you to push hard when you were going through rough patch, if yes, who was he/she?

5. Who is the teacher whom you wouldn't hesitate to message at 1am to get your queries resolved?

6. Which teacher comes to your mind, to drop a WhatsApp text when you get stuck at any point of time while planning about actuarial career?

Above 6 questions relates to chemistry a teacher and student should enjoy to make the classroom less boring or tiring.

Coming to service part of the institute, as you will be paying a huge amount to get yourself educated. Answer some more questions to yourself...

1. Which classrooms offer better ambience to study, small things like air conditioning, clean toilets, clean drinking water, Hygienic classrooms and receptive reception desk?

2. Which classes provide timings of your convenience and gives space for back-ups and doubts when you miss lecture at least due to genuine reasons?

3. Which class has got better location?

4. Which class is more value for money?

5. Which class sends less annoying marketing calls?

You must have got the answer by now. Ultimately your success is relatively. You get only as much as you want. You pass of fail depending on your own work, good teachers can only push you to success a bit. Mind it, wrong selection of teacher can also resist you from success sometimes. So be wise in making choices.

To all my ex-students, S.MONK is always open for you, for any help. You don't need to take admission by paying us for seeking help. We are always available, for everyone, in every possible situation.

May lord give you loads of success!

Also, thanking you all the past students, each and every one of them. With 3 centres, 14 batches and 100+ students in Mumbai and Pune, S.MONK is doing amazingly good and it's all due to your words of mouth. Every student at S.MONK is because of reference of old students. This was not possible without your reviews, support, word of mouth and everything else you gave me back for the success we have achieved together in the past.

Cheers! And Cheers again for successful launch of S.MONK.

S.MONK is out the replace the old pattern of Teaching of Tradition Coaching Classes

Under traditional course structure, we used to conduct lectures and take test. Most of the time it happens that tests are so many that they remain unchecked or were given to assistants to check which doesn't give mentor a great idea of how student is performing and student doesn't get real feed back.

We are scrapping this old test system to replace it by Open Book Exams, followed by Prelims and final exams. With this new patter, we are very much sure a student will be much better prepared for the real exam of the respective institutes. Details of new course structure is as follows.

New Course Structure of training of Actuarial Exams.

Actuarial Market is becoming more challenging and competitive and so are actuarial exams. To be able to help our students cope up and perform better we have planned a new study schedule taking inspiration from various universities across the globe.

Our Course will be divided into 3 parts namely LEARN, EVOLVE and APPLY.

LEARN

We will have Lectures for 4-5 hours every week for around 15 weeks which will extensively cover the syllabus for writing exams of Institute of Actuaries of India and/or Institute and Faculty of Actuaries, UK.

Students will be provided with a Practise Question Bank which will carry good number of Exam Style Questions to practice after lectures.

EVOLVE

Students will be provided with Assignments which they will have to solve at home and submit on scheduled dates. Assignments will carry 20-35 marks each and will require students to solve 4-5 exam style questions in each assignment.

Students can use any source to be able to solve this question, except discussing with classmates or friends. These assignments can be called as an open book exams that students will themselves write to evolve in the concepts that they have studied in classroom.

Strict deadline will be observed for submission of assignments. Assignments will be marked and results declared within a week of submission date.

APPLY

Students will have to write 3 compulsory exams before he/she appears for IAI/IFoA exams. There will be 2 Preliminary Exams and one Final exam conducted at our campus.

Syllabus will be covered partially in Preliminary exams and completely in Final Exam. Details are given in further pages of this document. Students may opt for additional exams if required. Results of all the exams will be published and feedback given to students within a week of date of Exam. Records will be maintained on online platform provided by our IT partners which will help students and Trainers to check Track Record of Students.

This will help students in identifying his/her good and bad points and work on them according.

(Please note- This program is applicable only for CT1, CT3 and CT5 for Mar/April 2017 Exams. Similar Course pattern will be developed for other CT papers too for September 2017 exams.)

More Details of our Program “EVOLVE”

Under our Program EVOLVE, Students will have to practise lot of questions themselves extensively and submit solved assignments on below mentioned dates.

CT1-Financial Mathematics

Topics covered	Assignments Submission Deadline
Interest rates and Cash flows including annuities	11th December 2016
Project Appraisal	25th December2016
Investments	15th January 2017
Loans and Forward Contracts	5th February 2017
Term Structure and Stochastic modelling of Interest rates	26th February 2017

IAI Exam Date – 21^st March 2017

IFoA Exam Date – 18^th April 2017

CT3- Probability and Mathematical Statistics

Topics covered	Assignments Submission Deadline
Sample Statistics, Probabilities and Generating functions	3rd December 2016
Joint Distributions	18th December 2016
Point Estimation and Confidence Intervals	15th January 2017
Hypothesis Testing	5th February 2017
Regression and analysis of Variances	19th February 2017

IAI Exam Date – 14^th March 2017

IFoA Exam Date – 21^st April 2017

CT5- General Insurance, Life and Health Contingencies

Topics covered	Assignments Submission Deadline
Basics Notations and Derivation relating to life Probabilities, Life Assurance and Life Annuities	27th November 2016
Single Life Policies (Pricing, reserving, Death Strains, Profits)	8th January 2017
Competing risk	29th January 2017
Profit Testing	12th February 2017
Joint Life	26th February 2017

IAI Exam Date – 22^nd March 2017

IFoA Exam Date – 19^th April 2017

Notes-

-          -Feedback shall be given within a week of submission date. Submission strictly on or before deadline, no assignments will be accepted after submission date. Prior Approval required in exceptional cases.

-         - Assignments should be hand written

-        -  Legitimate hand writing expected. Assignments with poor presentation will not be accepted for marking.

Details of our Program “APPLY”

Under this program we shall conduct 2 preliminary exams and one final exams. Syllabus under each exam is as follows.

CT1-Financial Mathematics

Exam	Marks	Date	Timings
Prelim 1 (Chp1-7)	50	24th December	4pm-5.30pm
Prelim 2 (Chp 1-11)	75	29th January	3.30pm-5.30pm
Final Exam (Full Syllabus)	100	5th March	10.30am-1.30pm

IAI Exam Date – 21^st March 2017

IFoA Exam Date – 18^th April 2017

CT3- Probability and Mathematical Statistics

Exam	Marks	Date	Timings
Prelim 1 (Chp1-7)	50	7th January	2pm-3.30pm
Prelim 2 (Chp 1-12)	75	19th February	1.30pm-3.30pm
Final Exam (Full Syllabus)	100	4th March	10.30am-1.30pm

IAI Exam Date – 14^th March 2017

IFoA Exam Date – 21^st April 2017

CT5- General Insurance, Life and Health Contingencies

Exam	Marks	Date	Timings
Prelim 1 (Chp1-7)	60	22nd January	11.30am-1.15pm
Prelim 2 (Chp 1-7,10,12,13)	80	26th February	10.30am-12.30pm
Final Exam (Full Syllabus)	100	5th March	10.30am-1.30pm

IAI Exam Date – 22^nd March 2017

IFoA Exam Date – 19^th April 2017

Notes-

-          - Feedback shall be given within a week of examination date. Students will not be allowed to have flexibility in dates and timings of exam. Exception may be accepted only in selected case, provided prior approval is taken from management.

-          - Legitimate hand writing expected. Answer sheets with poor presentation will not be accepted for marking.

-          - Final decision with dates and timings of exam rest with management.

*IMPORTANT NOTE*

We are currently working on incorporating practical training sessions into the curriculum. That may apply from next session after we are prepared with robust curriculum, but students who participate in current session will also be able to participate in "Computer Skills Program" to be held next session onward. 

Basically, under this program, every student will be trained to use computer softwares for topics covered in syllabus. Making a student more employable. 

Happy Actuarial Journey with S.MONK!

"S.MONK", School of Actuaries

Actuarial Science is a profession different from others. It requires complete dedication, determination and lot of patience to become an Actuary by clearing 15 odd exams.

This can be achieved only if one decides to quit the desires and concentrate on his Goal of attaining the fellowship with calm and belief. An aspirant meditates for a long time with complete focus on one goal . Even after becoming a fellow, the discipline which an Actuary has practised for past many years remains intact and he continues to works in similar manner for rest of his life while practising as an Actuary.

As a source of inspiration, While it comes to practising discipline or spirituality, no other knowledge holds more relevance then Buddhist knowledge of practising spirituality. Buddhist disciples are known to be most focused and dedicated personalities in the globe. They dedicate their lives, leaving everything aside, for a spiritual belief to live an ideal life which they call nirvana.

Every Aspiring Actuary should know that there is a common goal of attaining fellowship, Process of becoming an Actuary requires every aspirant to have a SPIRITUAL BELIEF in his goal with similar dedication of that of Buddhist disciples.

We as an institution dealing with Actuarial Science Profession, take great inspiration from such disciples who dedicate their life with great passion to achieve a common goal and with an aim to convey this to every aspirant, We have named our institution as

“S.MONK”
School of Actuaries

While seeking blessings of all the well-wishers, with great pride, starting the journey of spirituality in Actuarial Science

I decided to quit my Actuarial Job and take up Teaching as full time profession.

When I was brain storming on which career to choose being in Junior college, I decided to take up Actuarial Science. There were 2 common reasons for this, firstly my love for numbers and secondly it was among highest paying JOB in most of countries. Yes, I did join actuaries initially to work in a corporate sector and take away big fat cheques every month. Things changed when I actually entered the profession.

In those days, I was looking for some more information over internet but nothing substantial was available. I walked in to official institute’s office in Mumbai but the guy sitting at reception desk was less helpful and had only one answer to every question “Pls visit our website, all information is available there”. This was way back in 2011. The website was way less informative that time. I realised that there is greater need of this information being available on internet. I started finding people of similar interest on social network and got some great information from them. I created a Facebook group and added them all to be able to socialise better. Today there are more than 6200 members benefiting from the group.

Link to the group - https://www.facebook.com/groups/actuary.aspirants/

Eventually when I started preparing the course, being an average student, I struggled a lot to understand the concepts of my first paper CT1. I was hardly prepared and I couldn’t make it in exam. Then I decided to reappear for CT1 along with CT3 and CT7. I joined one coaching institute in Mumbai for CT3 tuitions. I paid INR 12500 in 2011 for one subject. This was huge amount for me but at the end I was happy as it did help me, to some extent, to pass CT3 in first attempt. I cleared CT3 and CT7 in this diet but failed CT1 again. I was least bothered about CT1 and I was literally dancing with joy on clearing other 2 actuarial exam. My journey had just started and now I was sure I will complete my fellowship and will be getting a very high paying job.

When I started for next exam, I struggled again. I couldn’t afford to join coaching for another paper and it was getting difficult. I thought institute would help but there was no support from them too. With no option left, I had to join coaching again for CT5 by paying INR 15000. I could clear this again in 1^st attempt but the cost was pinching.

I had started realising there is a huge dearth of help required to aspiring actuaries. Almost all other profession students get the required help quite easily but things are not same here. I was reluctant to become a teacher myself but I was determined to do something for the profession by helping students like me who need help. I started counselling many students via social networks in similar way as some other seniors genuinely helped me.

Around this time some of the teachers of old coaching classes of Mumbai had left this classes and started their own coaching classes. I got a message from one of the teacher asking me if I wished to join. I needed help again and fees was less in this new coaching classes so I joined. I was in my third year of college by this time in 2014 and had already cleared 4 papers. I was witnessing huge business as no. of students were ever increasing and coaching was hardly available. I would rather say “money making business” happening. I was very anxious to help aspiring actuaries in whatever way possible without earning money but there was hardly any way I could help them other than social network. 

I decided one day to approach one of the teacher of this new coaching classes for some teaching work (at this time I was less interested in earning money out of it), I just wanted to give my profession back something. Coincidentally when I was supposed to approach, they themselves approached me to teach. They asked me to give a demo lecture to them next day and then I was hired as assistant faculty for CT1 (I was literally being paid Rs 350 per student and I was happy with this too). I was just giving things a try and I seriously was not able to understand where I am heading towards. 

Teaching was never my thing, In fact I always had such a huge stage fear that I literally shivered every time I was asked to give a presentation in front of class in my school or college. Something unconventional happed. I could pull of my task well as per feedback received and I literally fell in love with the work. Stage fear and all the other problems disappeared automatically.

I fell in love with teaching profession in these 3 months. Helping other achieve their dreams is a noble job and a true teacher will always see his own success in success of his students.

But, I had to sadly resign from my work as it was painful to see my seniors doing business out of dreams of other aspirants. A teacher can only be a teacher. He/She should not be a business person. Money automatically flows in when you start teaching just to teach. This will never be affected by recession, competition etc. Coaching classes who do business in teaching will always cry hard when competition in this “Business” increases. If teacher will teach only to teach, he will be hardly affected by competition as students know well whom to go for tuition even though there are choices available.

After leaving this classes I started tutoring on my own. I again enjoyed teaching for next 6 months. I dint make money out of it, I just managed to pay my rent of classroom. Now I was a graduate and started looking for a job, I was not yet sure of being a teacher but there was somewhere in my mind a question popping up again and again, why not become a teacher if you love it? But I thought maybe I will love corporate office too.

I found one actuarial job within a week of searching. I thought this was end of my teaching and I will just always cherish this phase of my life that I really enjoyed. But things went other way. I was going mad sitting in office in front of my laptop all the day and started missing my classrooms, I took a decision which dint really go down well with my parents and peers. The decision was to QUIT THE JOB and PURSUE TEACHING as a profession. Well-wisher thought I am making a great fool of myself. Some were craving for a fresher job and I was dying to quit the one I already had. But I was determined. I know I am doing unusual but I was sure, If I help aspiring actuaries in genuine way, I will definitely earn my bread and butter well plus I will do something I really enjoy.

I did what I thought of doing without listening to others.I am just 24 right now. I started my own coaching classes in 2014 itself again. Actuarial blogs and everything happened in the meantime to be able to help well. Intention was and is still only to help students pursue their dream and it really makes me happy. I really get energised after giving good lectures. I enjoy company of so many young students who have got similar dreams. I see myself in them and help them as if I am helping myself. The Journey will go on for long time…

I hope institute will also recognise some genuine teacher’s efforts into actuarial academics in India and someday work cordially to make things better for students…

I haven't named any coaching classes in which I used to work or learn. I do not wish to offend anyone. Everyone has its own ideology to follow. Do contact me incase any offence is being made to anyone unintentionally.

Lectures schedule for CT series Exam Training session for Mar/April 2017 Diet

Dear Students,

Kindly take note of following schedule for CT Series Training Sessions to be conducted in Mumbai for March/April 2017 Exams.

Lectures to be held at Vile Parle and Dadar.

CALL US ON +91 95615 72749 for Enrolling yourself. Lectures starting on below mentioned dates.

We have also arranged orientation lectures for following subjects before commencing lectures.
Date - 16th October
Venue - Vile Parle Centre
CT1 - 9am-10.30am
CT3 - 10.30am-12pm
CT5- 12pm - 1.30 pm
CT6/CT2 - 1.30pm-3pm

After orientation, Schedule will be as listed below.

SCHEDULE FOR MARCH/APRIL 2017 Exams

Vile Parle Weekends

Subject

Day 1

Time

Day 2

Time

CT1

Saturday

6pm-8pm

Sunday

1pm-3pm

CT2/CT6

Saturday

12.30pm-2pm

Sunday

3pm-4.30pm

CT3

Saturday

4pm-6pm

Sunday

11am-1pm

CT5

Saturday

2pm-4pm

Sunday

9am-11am

Lectures starting from 22nd October

Vile Parle Weekdays

Subject

Day 1

Time

Day 2

Time

CT1 option 1

Monday

12pm-2pm

Thursday

12pm-2pm

CT1 option 2

Monday

4pm-6pm

Thursday

4pm-6pm

CT3

Monday

2pm-4pm

Thursday

2pm-4pm

CT6

Monday

6pm-8pm

Thursday

6pm-8pm

Lectures starting from 24th October

Dadar Weekdays

Subject

Day 1

Time

Day 2

Time

CT1

Wednesday

2pm-4pm

Friday

2pm-4pm

CT3

Wednesday

4pm-6pm

Friday

4pm-6pm

CT5

Wednesday

6pm-8pm

Friday

6pm-8pm

CT4

Wednesday

7pm-9pm

Friday

7pm-9pm

Lectures starting from 21st October

Dadar Weekends

Subject

Day 1

Time

Day 2

Time

CT1

Saturday

-

Sunday

5.30pm-8.30pm

Extra Lectures on all public holiday for dadar weekend batch

Lectures starting from 23rd October

NOTE

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Timings can be adjusted to an extent wherever possible

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Additional batches may be created

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Existing batches may be cancelled in case of insufficient strength

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Each batch shall consist maximum 15 students

Demo lectures available. Do contact admin for registering for demo lectures. No student can be allowed to attend demo without prior registration. No fees payable for attending demo.

 THANK YOU FOR VISITING ACTUARIES 101. Do share this on your social network so that maximum students can benefit.