Tristan Bates, a teacher at Ellsworth High School waits to coach his students on any issues they may have with the scenario practice on Wednesday, Nov 2, while attending a program at University of Maine Farmington. Brian Ponce/Franklin Journal

FARMINGTON — On Wednesday, Nov. 2, University of Maine Farmington collaborated with the Actuarial Foundation to participate in the national actuarial competition “Modeling the Future Challenge”. Over 100 high school students from four different high schools in Maine joined to take part in the competition.

Students from Machias Memorial, Mt. Blue, Ellsworth and South Portland high school made their way to UMF to join in on the national competition hosted in the Olsen Student Center on campus.

UMF is the only college in Maine and New Hampshire that offers a bachelor’s level program in actuary science, a rapidly growing field of math studies. Actuary science, according to Professor Lori Koban, is a field utilized by large firms to do risk assessments and management.

The competition began in 2017 and features high school students from across the nation. Last year’s winner was “The Supermodel-ers” from Stevenson High School in Lincolnshire, Illinois.

The event started with a few words from members of the Actuary Foundation, then the competition began. Two challenges were held with the winners taking home a box of whoopie pies.

The first challenge called for the students to guess how many universities had a bachelor level program for Actuary Science in the state of Maine. The answer was one and the winners were Team B and K from Mt. Blue High School

The second challenge was scenario practice, where students had to work through a series of possible scenarios using actuary math practices. The winners were The North Face from Ellsworth High School.

Afterwards, the students were taken to a panel od six actuary science majors. The students opened up about their path into the actuary science major, what their college life was like and internships they had participated in.

Senior Clare Granquist speaks about how she got into actuary science as a major on Wednesday, Nov. 2. With her are fellow actuary science majors, from left to right, Erica Sanderson, Maegan Martin, John Manzo, Jimmy Reel, and Marc Mayo. Brian Ponce/Franklin Journal

Senior Clare Granquist was a panel member and provided the story of her career path. “I was a sophomore in business economics, and I just wanted more math in my major, and I was really looking at which classes I wanted to take. Some of my peers in those business classes were actuarial science majors,” she said.

After graduation, Granquist is planning to transition into her full-time role as actuarial associate for Gen Re Life Corporation, a place she had interned for the year previously.

“They have hired her to start full time, so that’s not an uncommon thing which is why we highly value internships,” Koban said.