{"id":7815,"date":"2010-09-02T00:00:15","date_gmt":"2010-09-02T00:00:15","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.ukm.my\/news\/?page_id=7815"},"modified":"2015-05-14T00:06:54","modified_gmt":"2015-05-14T00:06:54","slug":"ukm-student-bags-coveted-us-actuarial-scholarship-award","status":"publish","type":"page","link":"https:\/\/www.ukm.my\/news\/archive\/year-2010\/september-2010\/ukm-student-bags-coveted-us-actuarial-scholarship-award\/","title":{"rendered":"UKM student bags coveted US Actuarial Scholarship Award"},"content":{"rendered":"<aside class=\"mashsb-container mashsb-main \"><div class=\"mashsb-box\"><div class=\"mashsb-count\" style=\"float:left\"><div class=\"counts mashsbcount\">0<\/div><span class=\"mashsb-sharetext\">SHARES<\/span><\/div><div class=\"mashsb-buttons\"><a class=\"mashicon-facebook mashsb-noshadow\" href=\"https:\/\/www.facebook.com\/sharer.php?u=https%3A%2F%2Fwww.ukm.my%2Fnews%2Farchive%2Fyear-2010%2Fseptember-2010%2Fukm-student-bags-coveted-us-actuarial-scholarship-award%2F\" target=\"_top\" rel=\"nofollow\"><span class=\"icon\"><\/span><span class=\"text\">Facebook<\/span><\/a><a class=\"mashicon-twitter mashsb-noshadow\" href=\"https:\/\/twitter.com\/intent\/tweet?text=&amp;url=https:\/\/www.ukm.my\/news\/?p=7815&amp;via=https:\/\/twitter.com\/ukmtwit\" target=\"_top\" rel=\"nofollow\"><span class=\"icon\"><\/span><span class=\"text\">Twitter<\/span><\/a><a class=\"mashicon-subscribe mashsb-noshadow\" href=\"#\" target=\"_top\" rel=\"nofollow\"><span class=\"icon\"><\/span><span class=\"text\">Subscribe<\/span><\/a><div class=\"onoffswitch2 mashsb-noshadow\" style=\"display:none\"><\/div><\/div>\n            <\/div>\n                <div style=\"clear:both\"><\/div><div class=\"mashsb-toggle-container\"><\/div><\/aside>\n            <!-- Share buttons by mashshare.net - Version: 4.0.47--><div class=\"newsitem_tools\">\n<div class=\"newsitem_info\" style=\"text-align: justify;\"><img decoding=\"async\" class=\"border alignleft\" src=\"https:\/\/www.ukm.my\/news\/images\/stories\/Campus_News_Picture\/kelvin.jpg\" alt=\"\" border=\"0\" \/><\/div>\n<\/div>\n<div class=\"newsitem_text\">\n<div class=\"news_item_article\">\n<p style=\"text-align: justify;\"><span lang=\"MS\">THURSDAY, 02 SEPTEMBER 2010 20:03<strong><br \/>\nBy Kuah Guan Oo<\/strong><\/span><\/p>\n<p style=\"text-align: justify;\"><span lang=\"MS\">BANGI, 2 September 2010 \u2013 A final-year actuarial \u00a0science student of Universiti Kebangsaan Malaysia (UKM) has done the university proud by bagging the John Culver Wooddy Scholarship award of the Actuarial Foundation of the United States of America.<\/span><\/p>\n<p style=\"text-align: justify;\"><span lang=\"MS\">Kelvin Yeong Song Bor, 22, is among 13 students from around the world who are recognized with the coveted award of US$2,000 after sitting for an actuarial examination conducted by the Illinois-based Actuarial Society last April.\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n<p style=\"text-align: justify;\"><span lang=\"MS\">He\u00a0 followed the footsteps of\u00a0 Tang Khai Sheng the first winner from UKM, who was also recognized for his achievements in the examinations of the society last year. Tang is now working with Bank Negara.\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n<p style=\"text-align: justify;\"><span lang=\"MS\">Kelvin, the eldest son of a carpenter and a housewife in Mentakab, Pahang, is the second actuarial science student of UKM to win the award.<span class=\"apple-converted-space\">\u00a0<\/span>\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n<p style=\"text-align: justify;\"><span lang=\"MS\">Apart from the US, the other students who won the awards come from Canada, Ghana and the United Kingdom.\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n<p style=\"text-align: justify;\"><span lang=\"MS\">The Actuarial Foundation, in a statement said it was \u00a0pleased to announce that the National University of Malaysia student Yeong Song Bor is a recipient of the Foundation\u2019s John Culver Wooddy Scholarship. Bor, who was awarded $2,000 is the only recipient from Malaysia and joins 12 other students from around the world recognized with this prestigious scholarship.<span class=\"apple-converted-space\">\u00a0<\/span><\/span><span lang=\"MS\">\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n<p style=\"text-align: justify;\"><span lang=\"MS\">Kelvin told UKM News Portal \u00a0he applied to the society to vie for the award with the help and encouragement of Assoc. Prof Noriszura Ismail, who was then the Head of the Actuarial Science Programme of the School of Mathematics Science.\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n<p style=\"text-align: justify;\"><span lang=\"MS\">Apart from the recommendation of Assoc Prof Noriszura and his UKM academic results, he said the other important factor in bagging the award was his results in the society\u2019s examination. Kelvin had sat and passed five out of 10 of the examinations conducted by the Actuarial Society.<span class=\"apple-converted-space\">\u00a0<\/span>\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n<p style=\"text-align: justify;\"><span lang=\"MS\">He said his aim is to be accepted as a Fellow of the society. For the moment, he needed to sit and pass two more examinations to be accepted as an Associate Fellow.\u00a0<span class=\"apple-converted-space\">\u00a0<\/span>\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n<p style=\"text-align: justify;\"><span lang=\"MS\">Kelvin who has two younger brothers and a younger sister, said he planned to use the award money to sit for the other examinations and probably do his Masters later on.<span class=\"apple-converted-space\">\u00a0<\/span>\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n<p style=\"text-align: justify;\"><span lang=\"MS\">\u201cThe money will help to pay for my examinations which are rather expensive. It is also a recognition for all my hard work at UKM,\u201d\u00a0 said the alumnus of Hwa Lian High School in Mentakab.<span class=\"apple-converted-space\">\u00a0<\/span>\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n<p style=\"text-align: justify;\"><span lang=\"MS\">He plans to work with an insurance company after his graduation next year. \u201cThat is what an actuary actually does\u2026. Calculating insurance risks and premiums in an insurance company,\u201d he said, adding that the field is very specific and limited since there are only 16 insurance companies in the country.<span class=\"apple-converted-space\">\u00a0<\/span>\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n<p style=\"text-align: justify;\"><span lang=\"MS\">Kelvin who has won an OCBC Bank bond-free scholarship since his 2<sup>nd<\/sup><span class=\"apple-converted-space\">\u00a0<\/span>year with UKM, took a study leave to go to North-Central University in Illinois as an exchange student for nine months under a state department scholarship.<span class=\"apple-converted-space\">\u00a0<\/span>\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n<p style=\"text-align: justify;\"><span lang=\"MS\">Meanwhile, Assoc Prof Noriszura said she is very proud of Kelvin and that he won the coveted award because of his co-curriculum and academic achievements.<span class=\"apple-converted-space\">\u00a0<\/span>\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n<p style=\"text-align: justify;\"><span lang=\"MS\">She is very proud of her actuarial science students as it is a professional course and the students have to take the professional papers set by the US society.\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n<p style=\"text-align: justify;\"><span lang=\"MS\">\u201cHalf of the class passed at least one paper last year, \u201c she said, adding that the others did not sit for the examination partly because the fees were expensive and partly because they were not ready for it. The exams were conducted in Kuala Lumpur at a fee of RM500 or more, depending on the level.\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n<p style=\"text-align: justify;\"><span lang=\"MS\">\u201cThe best result we had was last year when five of our students passed all the five papers!\u201d she said, stressing that the performance was certainly among the best in the world.\u00a0 In 2007 and 2008, only one UKM student passed all five papers in one year.\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n<p style=\"text-align: justify;\"><span lang=\"MS\">Assoc Prof Noriszura said from UKM\u2019s experience, the earliest an actuarial science student can pass all 10 papers of the society is two years after graduation. This is probably because the last paper is the toughest and most comprehensive, lasting six hours when the student would have to resolve real-time problems with some actual work experience.<span class=\"apple-converted-space\">\u00a0<\/span>\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n<p style=\"text-align: justify;\"><span lang=\"MS\">She pointed out that UKM\u2019s actuary science students were a cut above the others because their entry points were higher.\u00a0 \u201cSometimes, they get bored with us if we are slow,\u201d she said.<\/span><\/p>\n<p style=\"text-align: justify;\">UKM was the first to offer\u00a0 actuarial science at the degree level since 20 years ago.<br \/>\n<img decoding=\"async\" src=\"https:\/\/www.ukm.my\/news\/images\/stories\/Icon\/ukmnewsportal.png\" alt=\"\" border=\"0\" \/><\/p>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>THURSDAY, 02 SEPTEMBER 2010 20:03 By Kuah Guan Oo BANGI, 2 September 2010 \u2013 A final-year actuarial \u00a0science student of<a class=\"tukm-readmore\" href=\"https:\/\/www.ukm.my\/news\/archive\/year-2010\/september-2010\/ukm-student-bags-coveted-us-actuarial-scholarship-award\/\">Read More<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":7816,"parent":1404,"menu_order":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"open","template":"","meta":{"footnotes":""},"class_list":["post-7815","page","type-page","status-publish","has-post-thumbnail","hentry"],"aioseo_notices":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.ukm.my\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/pages\/7815","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.ukm.my\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/pages"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.ukm.my\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/page"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.ukm.my\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.ukm.my\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=7815"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/www.ukm.my\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/pages\/7815\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":7817,"href":"https:\/\/www.ukm.my\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/pages\/7815\/revisions\/7817"}],"up":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.ukm.my\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/pages\/1404"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.ukm.my\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/7816"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.ukm.my\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=7815"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}