Actuarial Internship & Thesis Procedure

The internship of 6 months have to be co-supervised by an academic ,professor of ESSEC & member of CREAR, or a professor of ISUP, the main supervisor being a professional from the company or institution where the internship takes place.

The choice of the supervisor as well as of the topic of the study must be validated by the ESSEC Risk & Actuarial Track Director. Contact information (including email) of the company's internship supervisor are needed and have to be sent to the track assistant at the beginning of the internship. A meeting between the two supervisors (academic and professional) is highly recommended. 

During the internship a 2 to 5 pages work-in-progress report should be sent every 2 months to the academic supervisor of this internship (with cc to the track assistant).

This internship leads to the writing of an actuarial thesis. Instructions to write the thesis are available at the bottom of this page in the IA document enclosed (cf. recommendations IA - document in French). The final thesis version has to be sent at the latest 2 months before the defense to the academic supervisor and the track director (with cc to the track assistant). It should include the cover page (enclosed at the bottom of this page).

The ESSEC Risk & Actuarial track Director must validate the thesis in order to organize, according to the IA’s rules,

 the defense with a jury constituted by IA members and the track director.

The defense will take place at ESSEC La Défense (CNIT) at the end of December / beginning of January or mid-June of each year. It is composed of 40 minutes of oral presentation by the candidate followed by questions asked by the members of the jury.

The defense must take place at the latest 2 years following the validation of the ISUP Courses, unless there is in an exceptional authorization of delay granted by the ISUP Director and the ESSEC Risk & Actuarial Track Director. 

After the defense, the ESSEC candidate will be awarded (or not) the title of Actuary of Institut des Actuaires. To make it effective, some IA administrative procedure (explained at the end of the defense) will have to be followed by the candidate.

The ESSEC Risk & Actuarial Track Director will assign a grade to the thesis and the defense , for the ESSEC diploma.

Several possible Cases following the thesis defense:

1 - The thesis is bright and pioneering; It deserves to be published (if not classified as confidential). The candidate awarded of the title of Actuary of IA, should  apply to the SCOR actuarial price.

2 - The thesis and the defense are satisfactory to the IA jury. The candidate is awarded of the title of Actuary of IA.

3 - The candidate is required to do some modifications to her/his thesis within a short time (in general 3 months). It is requested to the candidate to review and correct the thesis. Jury can ask the candidate to do a second defense, or only to examine the corrected thesis before validating (or not) the work. 

4 - The IA Jury judge the level of the thesis too weak, thesis or the defense  too unprofessional. The candidate is not admitted as a member of IA.

Confidentiality Request of the Thesis 

The work done within the company are the company property. That is why companies have to sign an 'authorization of online publication of the thesis'. 

This element is taken into account in templates (cover page and other thesis documents).

The general rule is that the thesis is published online, as soon as the candidate has  successfully passed her/his defense, unless the company asks for some confidentiality (because of the use of confidential data, or because of competitive reasons, or …) during a given time (generally 1 or 2 years).

To avoid such issue, it is possible to change the data or to do a separate appendix composed of confidentials items whenever the main body of the thesis keeps consistent. 

If not possible, the study can be declared as confidential for 1 or 2 years if accepted by the IA jury.

If these confidentiality duration is too short to the company, it is possible to ask a longer period, but it cannot exceed more than 5 years.

Request will have to be sent to the Actuary Track Director, with a document explaining the motivation

The company request, will have to explain the motivation , dated and signed by the director of the company, that will be transmitted to the Scientific Committe of IA.

In case the IA Scientific Committee allows for this temporal confidentiality, this agreement does not interfere with the authorization of defense. Only the track director is empowered to assess the quality of the thesis and decides if it worth being presented to the jury. 

Even under confidentiality, the thesis has to contain enough information (data, algorithm, etc ) for the jury to be able to judge the work done.