Faculty of Arts and Sciences

Bachelor of Science in Actuarial and Financial Mathematics (Open for Admission)

English
126 credits
For students entering the program at the Freshman level
(Please click here for more info on the Freshman program)
96 credits
For students entering the program at the Sophomore level
(holders of a recognized Baccalaureate or Freshman diploma - equivalent to 30 credits)

Courses

General Education Common Core
MAC400Actuarial Mathematics
3 credits    |    Pre-requisite: MAT312 And STA320
The purpose of this course is to introduce students to the reality of the actuarial calculation through essential mathematical tools, such as interest theory and the theory of probabilities. At the end of this course, the students will be familiar with mortality tables, actuarial notation, force of mortality, the calculation of the expected value, the calculation of the pure premium of certain types of insurance contracts as well as with the calculation of reserves.
INF217Applicative Programming
3 credits    |    Pre-requisite: INF216 Or INF214 Or INF219
This course introduces many techniques used to organize, search, sort and manipulate data, after completing new ideas in the Visual Basic language (multidimensional arrays, procedures, functions and files). It emphasizes sorting methods, recursion, linked lists, stacks and queues.
MAC421Demography and Actuarial Science
3 credits    |    Pre-requisite: MAT312
The course introduces the quantitative longitudinal and transverse methods of analysis, and how to apply them in the actuarial risk models and demographic tables construction. Topics covered: Lexis diagram (study of nuptiality, fertility, morbidity and mortality); construction of demographic tables; theories of mortality; practical methods for the estimation of mortality from census data, construction of mortality tables, case studies; and survival models and implications on actuarial practices.
MAT220Differential Equations
3 credits    |    Pre-requisite: MAT213 Or MAH220
In this course students will study differential nonlinear equations of the first order and linear equations of the second order, with some electrical and mechanical applications. Students will also study the transformation of Laplace and apply it to solving differential equations and linear differential systems. This course covers the concepts of power series and Fourier’s series and their applications.
CSC211Discrete Methods
3 credits    |    Pre-requisite: MAT202
This course introduces the discrete methods used in computer science and applied mathematics. The topics that will be covered are regular languages, regular expressions, finite automata and non-regular languages. It also discusses the basic elements in number theory and introduces graph theory. It introduces induction proof and recurrence relations.
FIN421Financial Markets
3 credits    |    Pre-requisite: BUS211 or MAT312 or MAH312
This course enables students to understand the concepts, terminology, instruments, and investment strategies when dealing with money. This includes the introduction of the broad and closely related areas of financial markets and investments, including the various tools used to determine the value of different investment vehicles. The risk inherited with investing as well as the risk return tradeoff will be considered. Accordingly, the principles of modern portfolio management, including diversification, will be addressed. Particularly, common stocks will be analyzed and valued using multiple valuation techniques. Within the context of fixed income valuation, the concept of bond duration and the yield curve will be examined. Financial derivatives, including options and futures, will also be considered as a hedging tool in the overall investment strategy. Practical application will be emphasized throughout the course using Thomson Reuters Eikon.
MAC315Insurance Contracts
1 credits
This course is designed to familiarize students with the different types of life and non­life insurance contracts as well as with accounting and their application in various types of insurance companies. In addition, by the end of this course, the students will have acquired the practice of life insurance. All these concepts will be addressed through workshops so students will be able to understand theoretical and practical information.
INF216Introduction to Programming
3 credits
This course provides students with a practical method for resolving problems using the programming language Visual Basic. It covers: methods for problems analysis; an introduction to the Visual Basic language, basic concepts of the language, types, expressions, control structures (selection, repetition), one dimensional arrays, two dimensional arrays, strings, procedures and functions; and writing and executing programs.
MAT310Linear Algebra
3 credits    |    Pre-requisite: MAT213 Or MAH213
In this course students will study the concepts and the basic results of matrix calculus and linear algebra, a very useful discipline in many other fields. The subjects covered are: matrix algebra, linear systems, determinant, spaces and vector subspaces, scalar products and orthogonality, eigenvalues and eigenvectors; Euclidean spaces, scalar product; and linear transformations.
ECO222Macroeconomics
3 credits
This course gives insight into macroeconomics, portraying the economy as a whole. It is by developing an understanding of fundamental economic terminology, concepts and principles that we are able to interpret economic changes and their impact on a country’s situation.
ECO221Microeconomics
3 credits    |    Pre-requisite: BUS210 Or MAT206 Or MAT213 Or MAT310 Or MAT217 or MAT216
This course gives insight into microeconomics, which is a key component to designing and understanding public policy and an essential tool for managerial decision­making, while giving insight to the operation of the modern economy.
MAT313Multivariable Calculus
3 credits
Students will study: parametric curves and curves in polar coordinates; concept of surfaces, gradient; plane tangent, normal right to a surface; optimization; Lagrange multipliers; triple integrals; change of variables; theories of fields and Vector calculus (curl and divergence); line integrals; Green­Riemann formulas; integrals of surfaces; formulas of Stokes and divergence theorem.
MAT213Single Variable Calculus
3 credits
The objective of this first analysis course is to give students of scientific fields the required foundations for understanding higher courses in mathematics, computer science, physics, economics, finance, etc. The subjects covered are the following: review of the functions of a real variable, simple integral and integration methods; suites and numerical series; functions of several variables, continuity, partial derivative, differential, the chain rule, Taylor expansion of 2 variables; introduction to double integrals, integration methods, change of variables, Jacobean, polar coordinates; and linear differential equations of the first order.
Specialization
MAC430Accounting of Insurance and Mathematical Reserves
3 credits    |    Pre-requisite: MAC400
This course is designed to enable students to understand the principles of insurance accounting and determine appropriate reserves according to the actuarial criteria. It enables serving the objectives of accounting standards adapted to the particular activity of insurance companies and integrates within it quality of sectoral plan, in the context of the general provisions and the system of national accounts.
STA320Applied Probability and Statistics
3 credits    |    Pre-requisite: MAT213 Or MAH213 And (MAT202 Or MAH202)
This course covers the following topics: probabilities, independence; random variables; expectation; two­dimensional random vectors, marginal, and conditional laws; probability distribution (Bernoulli, binomial, geometric, Poisson process, uniform distribution, gamma, distribution and normal distribution); multivariate random variables; the weak law of large numbers, and central theorem limits; statistics and sampling distribution; reliability; and applications.
ECO410Banking and Finance
3 credits    |    Pre-requisite: ECO222
This course aims at expanding knowledge in economics with an emphasis on accounting, financial intermediaries, banking and their public policies.
STA321Descriptive Statistics
3 credits    |    Pre-requisite: MAT213 Or MAH213
Descriptive statistics aims to quantitatively summarize data gathered on a concrete universe by means of an exhaustive investigation, such as the population of a country studied through a general census. Its purpose is not to explain but to describe, then create models using the numerical language. Statistical distributions of one and two characters, graphic representations, the main numerical summaries of a distribution, time series and theory of indices are studied in this course.
MAT312Economical and Financial Calculus
3 credits
This course enables the students to become familiar with the main tools and mathematical models used in economics, finance and actuarial science. The first part focuses on the theory of interest: discount and capitalization, different measures of relevance, equivalency rate, instantaneous rate, annuity, actuarial notation and use of tables, numerical methods. The second part deals with optimizing with and without constraints of functions of several variables, linear regression and application of matrix algebra. The last part focuses on differential and integral calculus and recurrence equations.
MAC216Ethics of Insurance
3 credits
This insurance law course begins with an historical overview and insight into the technical and actuarial foundations, as well as some important boundaries, particularly with regard to social insurance. The state of the business of insurance supervision is looked at, and the new law on this is commented upon. In private law, the course deals with the insurance contract and its essential terms. It ends with an overview of the reinsurance and insurance international business. The course is based on theoretical cases, as well as news articles, practice and jurisprudence and the links with the law of civil liability.
CSC416Graph Theory and Operations Research
3 credits    |    Pre-requisite: (MAH310 Or MAT310) And (CSC211 Or INF211)
The aim of this course is to formulate a wide variety of real­life problems and to solve them using methods based on graph theory and linear methods. Concerning graph theory, we will particularly study the following problems: shortest path, minimum spanning tree, maximal flow network, and finding a critical path in a project network. As for linear methods, linear programming problems will be solved graphically and by using the Simplex algorithm and duality. We will also see how to solve integer programming problems using the branch­and­ bound method.
MAT418Numerical Methods
3 credits    |    Pre-requisite: (MAT310 Or MAH310) And (MAT312 Or MAT220 Or MAH220) And (INF214 Or INF216 Or INF219)
This course will introduce the students to numerical computation allowing them to acquire the necessary tools to gain a better understanding of the modeling problems that they will meet later. The subjects covered are the following: introduction to numerical algorithms; non­linear equations, the bisection method, the fixed point method, Newton method, secant method, and systems of nonlinear equations; interpolation techniques of Lagrange, Newton, least squares, and splines; derivation and numerical integration, numerical solution of differential equations; and various applications with MATLAB (matrix algebra, linear systems, direct methods, iterative methods, eigenvalues).
STA331Statistical Analysis
3 credits    |    Pre-requisite: STA320 Or STS320
This course looks at: elements of descriptive statistics; concepts of probabilities, normal distribution, and sampling methods; point estimate and interval estimate; hypothesis testing, the risk of first and second case; comparison between two groups, the chi­squared test; correlation and regression; analysis of variance; and introduction to a statistical software package such as SPSS.
STA335Statistical Survey and Analysis
1 credits
Under the direction of the teacher, students will use a statistical survey on a small sample and prepare one or more documents that are a synthesis of the results. The methods will be adapted to the size of the sample. An attention will be paid to criticism and interpretation of the results as well as to the relationship between the statistical results and other sources (qualitative observations, literature).
Capstone
MAC438Internship Report
1 credits    |    Pre-requisite: MAC400
The students are required to undertake an internship in an Insurance company or a bank. He/she will work with his/her advisors to identify the internship of mutual interest and prepares a significant written document or other work of scholarship that outlines the learning and professional development experiences of the internship. Formal presentation of the results of the internship is required.

Accreditation

This program is accredited by the Applied and Natural Science Accreditation Commission of ABET, http://www.abet.org.

Mission

Dedicated to its institutional beliefs both at the human and spiritual levels, the Mathematics department seeks to form undergraduate and graduate students that excel in the fields of fundamental mathematics as well as in Actuarial and Financial Mathematics. This is fulfilled through comprehensive educational programs, research and development and collaborations with academic institutions and professionals.

Program Educational Objectives

1. Graduates will be able to bring in front the potency fundamental concepts of calculus, linear algebra, probability, interest theory, and statistics to empower themselves obtaining new skills as needed in their employment or future education.
2. Graduates will be able to perceive the ultimate practices and theories of actuarial sciences and their application that enable them to establish a career as an actuary and provides risk management expertise to insurance companies, consultancies, government, regulatory bodies, investment firms and banking institutions.
3. By acquiring computing skills & essentials of programming languages, graduates will be able to provide pertinent answers to advanced actuarial problems as well as to analyze big data using the most contemporary software technologies in use by the actuarial industry professionals.

Student Outcomes

1. An ability to identify, formulate, and solve broadly defined technical or scientific problems by applying knowledge of mathematics and science and/or technical topics to areas relevant to the discipline.
2. An ability to formulate or design a system, process, procedure or program to meet desired needs.
3. An ability to develop and conduct experiments or test hypotheses, analyze and interpret data and use scientific judgment to draw conclusions.
4. An ability to communicate effectively with a range of audiences.
5. An ability to understand ethical and professional responsibilities and the impact of technical and/or scientific solutions in global, economic, environmental, and societal contexts.
6. An ability to function effectively on teams that establish goals, plan tasks, meet deadlines, and analyze risk and uncertainty.
Holy Spirit University of Kaslik
Tel.: (+961) 9 600 000
Fax : (+961) 9 600 100
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