Exploring Postgraduate Horizons:
Insights into Opportunities with CUHK

On 26th September 2025, the Malaysian Actuarial Student Association (MASA) hosted an online sharing session featuring Professor Johnny Li, Tan Bingzhao Professor of Actuarial Science from The Chinese University of Hong Kong (CUHK). The session introduced Malaysian actuarial students to CUHK’s MSc in Actuarial Science and Insurance Analytics programme and provided an overview of the structure, curriculum and opportunities available through the programme.

 

Following the event, on 17th November 2025, a small MASA delegation consisting of President Lee Han Yang, Vice President of Communications Allesya Sofea as well as Operations Executive Lim Li Ying had the opportunity to meet Professor Johnny in person for a more in-depth interview. Building on the foundation of the virtual session, this meeting offered a deeper discussion about CUHK’s Master’s programme, including its curriculum design and module alignment with Society of Actuaries (SOA) credentials. The conversation also explored practical considerations for Malaysian students, including admission requirements, scholarship opportunities and career pathways.

 

The conversation began with an overview of CUHK as an institution, highlighting its academic environment and campus facilities before shifting to a deeper discussion on the postgraduate programme.

 

Q1: Before we dive into this interview session, maybe we can talk about the facilities in CUHK?

Prof. Johnny: In CUHK, we have a water sports centre where you can do canoeing, and we also have one swimming pool. There are also eleven tennis courts, two sports field, one jogging trail, two golf practice course, climbing wall and twelve fitness rooms (gym). The campus itself is quite large in size, so within the campus, students may commute by bus. From one class to another, it is common for students to take the university provided bus. The campus is not just large, but it’s also built on the mountainous area. So, even though the distance is just 800 metres, it can be very physically demanding to walk, hence students will take the bus.

 

Q2: For the Master’s programme, and since CUHK also offers Bachelor’s level qualification in Actuarial Science, are classes conducted in one faculty building?

Prof. Johnny: Most of the classes will be conducted in the same building, but some classes might also take place in another building. Since students may take electives taught by another faculty, they will have to commute to the other building. For our undergraduate students, they have to take sports (P.E) lessons, so they also have to commute to the respective locations. It basically depends on the subject that they are taking.

 

Q3: Since you mentioned that students may take elective subjects offered by other faculties, is it completely optional for them to take courses outside of the actuarial science programme? Also, considering that CUHK’s Master’s programme is Society of Actuaries (SOA) accredited, does that mean students may need to take a certain set of electives to obtain the exemptions?

Prof. Johnny: For our Master’s programme, most of the electives are offered by its own faculty (CUHK Business School). The electives offered may be by the programme (Master’s in Actuarial Science and Insurance Analytics), or by other departments in the Business School like Accounting, Marketing and others. Very occasionally, students may also want to take an elective offered by other faculties, for example, an AI course from the Computer Science faculty.

 

We have a list of elective courses, and of course students cannot take every single course available. Often, students will need instructors’ approval, especially at undergraduate level. For certain courses, there will be prerequisites, and we need to make sure that you are qualified to take that course, hence instructors’ approval is required.

 

For the Master’s in Actuarial Science and Insurance analytics programme, since it is SOA-certified, students do need to take specific electives in order to obtain the exemptions.

 

After gaining an understanding of CUHK’s campus environment and student life, the discussion naturally shifted towards academic structure of the Master’s programme and what students can expect from the curriculum.

 

Q1: At the topic of SOA exemptions, what are the percentage of students who managed to get all of the exemptions by the time they finish the Master’s programme?

Prof. Johnny: Because the UEC (University Earned Credits) is a rather new thing (SOA Exemptions is called UEC, SOA-UEC), and was launched only around 3 years ago, we don’t have a large enough sample to give you a credible answer. But, on an individual course basis, around two thirds of the students typically get the exemption. Also, these students will also usually receive exemption for all courses, performing on top of the class.

 

Q2: Is there a certain benchmark (grades) that students have to achieve in order to get the exemption?

Prof. Johnny: For every course, there will be a grading scheme, in which students may need to obtain a total of at least 60% out of the 100% for the final score.

 

Q3: On the CUHK’s Master’s programme brochure, it says that a maximum of 5 SOA exemptions is available. After the 5 preliminary exams, how many papers left do students need to clear?

Prof. Johnny: The exemptions available from the Master’s programme are for Financial Mathematics (FM), Fundamentals of Actuarial Mathematics (FAM), Advanced Short Term Actuarial Mathematics (ASTAM), Advanced Long Term Actuarial Mathematics (ALTAM) and Statistics for Risk Modelling (SRL). After obtaining all 5 exemptions, students will have to sit for the Probability (P) exam, since there is no exemption for the P paper worldwide. Then, they will have to take the Advanced Topics in Predictive Analytics (ATPA), which is not an exam, but rather a take home-thing. For this assessment, students will have to do some predictive analytics exercises.

 

There are also some e-learning modules that you have to complete, where you just have to pay a certain fee to SOA to obtain the e-module, and you may go through the e-learning on your own. That is basically it after the 5 exemptions. After completing everything, you have to attend the Association Professionalism Course (APC), which happens physically and on-site. APC happens in different locations every year, and once in a while it is held in Kuala Lumpur. But if you don’t mind travelling, you may even go to Singapore or Hong Kong. When attending the APC, you will listen to the presentations and participate in the discussions happening there. At the end of the APC, you will be given the Associate of the Society of Actuaries (ASA) certificate.

 

Q4: Given that students may obtain 5 exemptions from the Master’s programme, and they will only need to take another 2 exam papers and attend the professional course, that is quite fast-tracked. Can we know usually how long does it take for graduates from the Master’s programme to attain the associate level?

Prof. Johnny: It is one year of Master’s programme, and an additional one year of clearing the rest of the papers, as well as attending the professional course. Provided that they have obtained all exemptions by the completion of the Master’s programme, it will only take 2 years in total to attain the ASA designation.

 

For Fellow of the Society of Actuaries (FSA) level, it depends. Fellowship exams are not just textbook-based, and often they are career related. For example, FSA exams are divided into different tracks like individual life, group life, and so on. So, depending on your career, you may choose the track you are most comfortable with. A lot of the materials will be related to your chosen career. Hence for FSA level, the timing will be quite different.

 

As I mentioned before, since our Master’s programme is relatively new (at the point of interview, CUHK just started enrolling their 4th cohort of students), so we don’t have the exact number as to how long students graduating from the Master’s programme will obtain the FSA designation. But, for our undergraduate programme, on average, they may obtain the FSA designation between 3 to 5 years post-graduation.

 

Q5: Can we get more details on the Master’s programme and its structure?

Prof. Johnny: The Master’s in Actuarial Science and Insurance Analytics is a one-year programme, with 12 courses to be completed. 10 out of the 12 courses are compulsory and is related to the SOA exemptions. There are elective courses available, where students typically need to take 2 electives to graduate. The electives may be chosen from the list of elective courses offered by our own teachers (Actuarial Science lecturers) or by other teachers in Business School, or even by teachers outside of Business School.

 

The programme has three semesters, and in each term you take on an average of 4 courses. Some students do prefer to take more coursework in the earlier semesters, so that they can spend more time on their internship in the later semesters.

 

Q6: You mentioned that in final semesters, some students may choose to focus on their internship, how does that work?

Prof. Johnny: Many of the Master’s students managed to secure internships quite early, sometimes as soon as early September, which is when our programme begins. This usually happens for students who already have an actuarial background, for example they have done their undergraduate degree in actuarial science or insurance, or maybe these students have passed papers like Exam Probability (P) or Financial Mathematics (FM), giving them stronger profiles when applying for internship.

 

For Master’s students, internships are typically part-time and completely optional, although highly encouraged. Depending on how their timetables and electives are arranged, students usually have one free day during the work week, and some may have even more. This allows them to work part-time while remaining enrolled as full-time students.

 

Students completing the Master’s programme but coming from non-actuarial backgrounds, maybe from engineering or other disciplines may need more time to focus on coursework before initially starting internships. So, these students might begin their internships later in the programme or even after completing their studies.

 

For our undergraduate students, internships arrangement is completely different. Internships at undergraduate level are mandatory and usually conducted on a full-time basis, and the university actively assists in securing internship placements for our undergraduate students.

 

Q7: For the Master’s programme, how up to date with the industry is it? Is it integrated with rising topics like Artificial Intelligence (AI)?

Prof. Johnny: Because we want our students to get SOA exemptions, most of the courses related to the SOA syllabus have to be tailored closely to the SOA requirements. SOA will scrutinise our courses before the semester starts. We will show them our course planning and outline, to make sure our courses cover the learning objectives that are listed in the SOA syllabus. Even our exam papers are audited by them, and it has to be pre-approved by the SOA side before we give it to the students. This is all done to make sure we are not compromising on the quality. Likewise, after the exams, SOA will take some samples of our exam scripts to be audited. For the SOA-related courses, there is very little room for us to add additional contents, since we have to follow their syllabus very closely.

 

But then, there are other courses that we can have more control over, those that are not mapped to the SOA exemptions. Since you mentioned AI, we do have Predictive Analytics in our programme. We have a professor specialising in Predictive Analytics, and he is exclusively teaching the actuarial students only. That is something that we do to make sure that our students are up to date to recent topics like AI, data science and so on.

 

On top of these, we are also planning to add an optional research component in our programme, and that research component will cover rising topics like the Hong Kong Risk Based Capital (HKRBC), and other topical things so that it allows students to have exposure to different things that are regarded as very recent news.

 

Beyond the academic structure and professional alignment of the programme, the discussion then turned to the broader support system at CUHK and how the university helps students thrive both academically and professionally.

 

Q1: Does CUHK have an alumni network?

Prof. Johnny: Yes, we do. For our entire Business School, we have thousands of alumni distributed in at least 30 countries around the world. We also have a strong specific actuarial alumni network. CUHK has taught actuarial science at undergraduate level for more than 20 years, so we have a really strong actuarial alumni network. We have alumni ranging from student trainee all the way to the C-Suite Executives positions (CEO, CFO), so it is a wide spectrum of alumni. We often do alumni engagement events, in fact, in 2 weeks’ time (from the interview date) we will be doing a trip to Hong Kong Disneyland with our alumni. These are the kind of alumni engagement activities that we do, it’s not just career talks or company visits, but also entertainment events involving our alumni.

 

Q2: Is there like any additional support for the students in the master’s programme outside of academics? Maybe research programs, or volunteering opportunities they can get to know about the industry or even network with the CUHK alumni?

Prof. Johnny: As mentioned, we have industry connections or events like career talks, company events and entertainment events. On top of that, we have a very strong career development centre. At CUHK Business School, we offer one-on-one consultations. For example, if you see a job advertisement and you want to get your resume and cover letter polished for that particular job, you can book an appointment and they will spend time with you going through your resume, telling you how to brush up the resume so that it can best match the job advertisement.

 

We also have soft skills training like business etiquettes, even wine tasting and other things that you need to know in the business world. Additionally, we have our own platform for employers to post their job advertisements. We also hold career fairs, in which employers will come with their job vacancies so they can recruit students on-site. For students who don’t speak Cantonese, we even have free Cantonese classes. We do all these things to support the students, and all of the services are free of charge.

 

Q3: In terms of academic support, do you have in-house actuaries, say people working in the actuarial industry to teach in the courses?

Prof. Johnny: We do have in-house actuaries who teach our undergraduate students for some courses. However, we don’t have in-house actuaries for the Master’s programme. The reason we cannot have an in-house actuary for the Master’s programme is because the programme itself is very packed. Since 12 courses need to be covered over the span of 3 semesters for students to get the SOA exemptions, there’s very little room for us to add an industry FSA to teach additional stuff. The undergraduate level is completed over the span of 4 years; hence we may squeeze in additional stuff covered by industry FSA.

 

Q4: Does CUHK have any sort of actuarial clubs that additionally support these students?

Prof. Johnny: We do have a student society on actuarial science at undergraduate level. For Master’s students, again, since they are quite busy, they don’t have a student society. So, for additional support events, it is usually the admin staffs helping to organise it for the Master’s students.

 

As the discussion on student support and alumni engagement concluded, attention then shifted towards how these resources translate into real-world opportunities, particularly in terms of internships and career prospects in Hong Kong.

 

Q1: Taking a look into the job market in Hong Kong, how employable are the actuarial graduates?

Prof. Johnny: That is a very good question. I believe that not just in Hong Kong, but every actuarial job market including North America, Australia, even Malaysia and Singapore, the entry-level positions are very competitive. It is very difficult to get into the field. Hong Kong is no exception. But, once you are in the field, progression should be rather smooth and stable.

 

People these days are promoted relatively quick I’d say. I think it’s because mostly a lot of Hong Kong people have emigrated to other countries, so I see our graduates escalating very quickly on their career paths. Another thing is, because of the changes in regulations, where previously we heard things like IFRS17 and last year, Hong Kong just launched Hong Kong Risk-Based Capital (HKRBC), it created additional job opportunities.

 

Q2: Going back to when you mentioned that CUHK actively help undergraduate students secure their internship, how exactly does CUHK offer their support and assistance?

Prof. Johnny: For our undergraduate students, we have a list of employers who constantly offers the school internship opportunities. For example, AIA typically offer 5 positions in a year, so we help line the students up for these 5 positions. That’s how CUHK support students with their internship placements, through exclusive opportunities that companies offer to CUHK.

 

Q3: Since you mentioned that the job market is relatively competitive, what edge does CUHK students have against students from other universities?

Prof. Johnny: In Hong Kong, CUHK is not the only university offering actuarial science. Our strongest competitor would be the University of Hong Kong (HKU). HKU doesn’t offer Master’s programme; they only have an undergraduate programme. The major difference I see between our students and their students is that; since CUHK’s actuarial programmes are hosted in the Business School, our students are a lot more adaptable to the business world.

 

HKU’s actuarial programme has their strengths as well; their programme is housed in their engineering faculty, so students at HKU naturally are more technically strong, given that since their programme is housed in the engineering school, so they might take on more technical courses, like extra calculus courses for example, making them technically stronger. Both universities have their own advantages.

 

Q4: Right now, the dilemmas for Malaysian actuarial students after graduating is, should they study Master’s programme and get exemptions, or should they go to the workforce and take the papers separately. Maybe you can address this dilemma and give some recommendations on what they can do?

Prof. Johnny: For me, these two paths are not completely 180 degrees apart. Because in the end, whether you’re going for the Master’s programme or jump into the workforce, your objective is essentially the same, to get the ASA and FSA distinction, as well as to get a decent job. I think, the major difference (if you pursue CUHK’s Master’s programme) is that you get the studying abroad experience. It also opens the door to a job market outside of Malaysia (in terms of international exposure). It certainly opens up the job market in Hong Kong, or even Singapore or other parts of Asia.

 

Q5: For Malaysian students studying actuarial science in Hong Kong, since they are considered foreign students, do they have difficulty in finding a job in Hong Kong? Since in Malaysia (based on MASA experience) our fellow international students / classmates have trouble finding internships in Malaysia due to the fact that companies are only willing to hire local talents. How’s the job scene for foreign student like in Hong Kong?

Prof. Johnny: In Hong Kong, international students are completely free to find jobs or internships. There are no immigration rules preventing them from getting a job in Hong Kong, so hiring international students are as easy as hiring local students. From the employers’ perspective, they only want to hire the best students. The immigration rules in Hong Kong really facilitate employers in hiring overseas students. Companies in Hong Kong don’t even have a quota limitation on hiring international students, so it’s very inclusive. For CUHK’s Master’s  programme, a lot of our students are international students, but they can still find a job very easily in Hong Kong, so Hong Kong is really inclusive of international students.

 

With employability and career pathways addressed, the conversation then moved to practical considerations for prospective students, including admission requirements and the range of scholarships available.

 

Q1: A barrier that students face when wanting to pursue a Master’s programme is the fee structure. Since we know that CUHK have scholarships available to help students out, may we know what scholarships are Malaysian students eligible for if they wish to study in CUHK?

Prof. Johnny: We have multiple scholarships available for students. The most notable one will be the scholarship that is exclusive to students from Malaysia. The amount of scholarship covers 90% of the tuition fees, so it is basically almost free. This scholarship is one of our region-specific scholarships, and we do offer scholarships specific to other regions as well, for Thailand students in example. Other than region-specific scholarships, we also have the general admission scholarship which covers up to 100,000HKD, which covers around 30% of the total tuition fees. This opportunity is available for every applicant, regardless of the region they come from.

 

Q2: For the region-specific scholarship, will it only be eligible for one recipient in each academic year?

Prof. Johnny: There is no cap for how many students the scholarship will be granted, and it can definitely be for more than one student. Malaysian-specific region scholarship is quite flexible, since we haven’t had students from Malaysia in quite some time. So, we definitely do have the budget to allocate more scholarships for Malaysians. But in the case of, for example there are 5 very strong Malaysian candidates applying in one year, then maybe we will not be able to offer all of them scholarships. It depends really on the rolling number of students. But for the general admission scholarship, we do have a cap of at most 10 students every year.

 

Q3: What is the process of applying for the scholarship? Can student only receive one scholarship of the higher value?

Prof. Johnny: There is no separate application for the scholarship. As long as you file your programme application, we will immediately consider you for a scholarship or scholarships if you are eligible. We do have students holding more than one scholarship, and it is. Since most programme offer scholarships in the form of tuition deduction, if a student receives two scholarship that awards 90% and 30% coverage each, once the tuition fee is paid off, the rest of the scholarship will be given in cash form to the student.

 

Q4: For the scholarships, what are the requirements needed for a student to be eligible for it?

Prof. Johnny: You will need a first degree; of which you do not necessarily need to have received your graduation diploma at the time of application. You can still apply ahead of your graduation, but when we (CUHK) give you an offer, there will be a condition stated where you must send a copy of your diploma by a certain date in order to secure your position. We do have a GPA requirement as well, in general you will need to have a second-class honour and above. For English requirement, if your first degree is not taught in English, then CUHK will ask you to take either the TOEFL or IELTS exam. Then, we will require the students to have at least one course on calculus, probability or statistics.

 

Q5: What aspect of students do you put more consideration into when granting the scholarship? Do you look at the soft skills more, or does academic performance play a bigger part?

Prof. Johnny: We look at the whole profile. As one of the people who do the selection (for scholarship recipients), in a professor’s point-of-view, I would like to see academically strong students. But I also position myself in an employer’s point-of-view, so if your soft skills makes you stand out as more employable than others, then that will certainly also be a consideration point.

 

Q6: Are there any memorable examples of scholarship recipients whose qualities during the interview made them stand out?

Prof. Johnny: Very recently, we awarded a scholarship to an international student. To be honest with you, his GPA was not that spectacular. But I think he’s very employable and very presentable. The answers he gave during the interviews were very smart and well organised, and he also had two internships that are relevant to actuarial science. For me, the internships themselves were not the most important thing. What I appreciated the most is that he was able to tell me what he has learned through his internships. It’s a reflection of how he is truly interested in actuarial science. Which is why, although he is not academically super strong, he is a strong actuary because he can learn as he works. We gave him a handsome amount of the general scholarship admission.

 

Q7: For the application process, other than the interview, are there any other things that students have to prepare, like a personal statement?

Prof. Johnny: In the application form, there will be a section for you to write down your personal statement. But to be really honest, I don’t pay too much attention to the statements because it’s really your interview performance that matters, in my opinion. With AI, you can write whatever statement. But it is actually your interview performance that counts the most for me, because I really want to talk to a true person, and I want to make my decision on the basis of a true person’s answer.

 

As the interview drew to a close, Professor Johnny shared his reflections on student development and offered advice for those navigating the challenges of actuarial studies and early career planning.

 

Q: To wrap up the whole interview, what’s one thing that you hope all actuarial students remember after reading this newsletter?

Prof. Johnny: What I want to say will not only be applicable for students wanting to come to CUHK, but it is applicable to all actuarial students. I think, life is way more than studying and taking exams. An actuarial student, or an actuary in general, deserves a life. I really hate to see students being stressed out in our courses, because it’s completely unnecessary. The thing is, you need to know that different students have different paces of getting to their goals.

 

Some students, for some reason, can pass exams more quickly compared to the others. But if you pass exams slower, or you need more attempts compared to other students, it’s totally fine. You will get there eventually. You don’t have to compare yourself with other students, you don’t have to compete. You have your own path, and you will get there eventually.

 

Following the interview, Professor Johnny joined a group of MASA committee members for a casual dinner, where conversations continued in a more relaxed and friendly setting. The gathering provided an opportunity for casual interactions and light-hearted conversations, allowing both the MASA committee members and Professor Johnny to connect beyond academic discussions.

 

MASA would like to sincerely thank Professor Johnny Li for taking time to engage with the association and for sharing his valuable insights during both the online session and the in-person interview. MASA is grateful for the opportunity to learn more about postgraduate pathways at CUHK and looks forward to future collaborations that will continue to empower students in making informed academic and career decisions.