{"id":5540,"date":"2019-05-20T12:18:42","date_gmt":"2019-05-20T16:18:42","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/web.uri.edu\/artsci\/?p=5540"},"modified":"2020-09-15T15:22:57","modified_gmt":"2020-09-15T19:22:57","slug":"the-limit-does-not-exist-lauren-black-19-on-her-budding-career-as-an-actuary","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/web.uri.edu\/artsci\/news\/the-limit-does-not-exist-lauren-black-19-on-her-budding-career-as-an-actuary\/","title":{"rendered":"The Limit Does Not Exist: Lauren Black \u201819 on Her Budding Career as an Actuary"},"content":{"rendered":"<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400\">When it came time to apply for college, Lauren Black &#8217;19 had absolutely no idea what she wanted. Opting for her state school, Black brought her love and propensity for mathematics with her from her hometown of Middletown, RI. Her decision turned out for the best, however. \u201c<\/span><span style=\"font-weight: 400\">URI was the perfect place for someone like me,&#8221; she says. &#8220;The math curriculum here appealed to me because it had enough structure that I would receive a solid foundation, but also enough flexibility that I would be able to try out a bunch of random electives and see what interested me.\u201d She took a liking to URI\u2019s Department of Mathematics and its faculty, who served as invaluable guides throughout her collegiate career. She reminisces on how Professor Mark Comerford&#8217;s rigorous <em>Honors Calculus II<\/em> course (taken Black\u2019s freshman year) drove her to throw her heart into studying. This eventually landed her a recommendation from Professor Comerford to be a math tutor at the Academic Enhancement Center where she then tutored every semester until graduation.<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400\">After making the decision to pursue an actuarial career via the applied track of mathematics, Black soon declared a second major in Data Science. She&nbsp;<\/span><span style=\"font-weight: 400\">graduated in May 2019 with a B.S. in Applied Mathematics and a B.A. in Data Science. Her future looks undeniably bright, as she has recently been hired by the PwC firm in Boston, a job she thanks URI for preparing her to go into. \u201cOne of the great things about URI math courses, at least the ones that I took, is that the professors seem to understand how important it is to be able to apply the material in a practical, problem-solving way,\u201d she says. \u201cMany of the classes had a project component or had little case studies throughout that introduced me to how real-world mathematicians approach real-world problems.\u201d In addition, she thanks URI\u2019s emphasis on the importance of learning new subject matter, making its students confident enough to succeed at anything they want to do. For advice to future students, Black looks back fondly on her time at URI, stating, \u201cGet to know your professors, speak up if you find something interesting, try out the courses that catch your eye. And once you know what it is you want to pursue, push down that path, and you will find that the URI community supports you.\u201d<\/span><\/p>\n<p><em>-Written by&nbsp;<span style=\"font-weight: 400\">Chase Hoffman &#8217;21, Writing &amp; Rhetoric and Anthropology Double Major<\/span><\/em><\/p>\n<div class=\"cl-wrapper cl-card-wrapper\"><a class=\"cl-card   right\" href=\"https:\/\/securelb.imodules.com\/s\/1638\/03-Foundation\/interior-hybrid.aspx?sid=1638&amp;gid=3&amp;pgid=770&amp;cid=2270&amp;dids=09&amp;utm_source=homepage&amp;utm_medium=actionbar&amp;utm_campaign=giving\" title=\"\"><div class=\"cl-card-container media\"><img decoding=\"async\" src=\"https:\/\/web.uri.edu\/wp-content\/uploads\/sites\/1132\/Languages-card.jpg\" srcset=\"\" alt=\"\"><\/div><div class=\"cl-card-container text\"><div class=\"cl-card-text\"><h2>Arts and Sciences Impact Fund<\/h2><p>Help us advance our&nbsp;College priorities -- enhancing student engagement, inspiring academic excellence, and achieving global impact<\/p><\/div><\/div><div class=\"cl-card-container button\">Give<\/div><\/a><\/div>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>When it came time to apply for college, Lauren Black &#8217;19 had absolutely no idea what she wanted. Opting for her state school, Black brought her love and propensity for mathematics with her from her hometown of Middletown, RI. Her decision turned out for the best, however. \u201cURI was the perfect place for someone like [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1089,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"footnotes":"","_links_to":"","_links_to_target":""},"categories":[7],"tags":[88],"class_list":["post-5540","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-news","tag-mathematics"],"acf":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/web.uri.edu\/artsci\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/5540","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/web.uri.edu\/artsci\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/web.uri.edu\/artsci\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/web.uri.edu\/artsci\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1089"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/web.uri.edu\/artsci\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=5540"}],"version-history":[{"count":5,"href":"https:\/\/web.uri.edu\/artsci\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/5540\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":6766,"href":"https:\/\/web.uri.edu\/artsci\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/5540\/revisions\/6766"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/web.uri.edu\/artsci\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=5540"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/web.uri.edu\/artsci\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=5540"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/web.uri.edu\/artsci\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=5540"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}