Actuarial Science

Insurance may not seem like an action-packed field, but countless big-screen murders have been committed in the hopes of big insurance payoffs. The classic 1944 movie Double Indemnity gets its name from a type of insurance policy that pays double the usual rate if the policyholder dies. The murderous pair in Double Indemnity almost gets away with their plot. But an actuary suspects that something's up -- and uses statistics to solve the crime.

While actuarial students don’t learn to solve crime, they do learn to use statistics to create insurance policies. Classes in this major cover such topics as forecasting (predicting) theory and computer-assisted research methods.