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B.S. in Actuarial Science

General Education Requirements

    
    Oct 09, 2025  
2025-2026 Undergraduate Catalog

     Mathematics

A. Experiential Core (4-6 hrs)

I. First Year or Transition Year Seminar (2-3 hrs)

The First Year Experience program guides your transition into Otterbein University classrooms and communities. Through a network of supportive resources, including a First Year Seminar, FYE nurtures your academic skills and passions, and immerses you in the life of the college. The program encourages you to explore yourself and world, your beliefs and values, and your educational and professional goals. It also asks you to think about what it means to be responsible to yourself, to Otterbein, and to local and global communities. 

We also offer distinct sections for students transferring to Otterbein from another institution, called Transition Year Seminars (TYS). Students qualify for a TYS if they: (a) have 30 or more hrs of transfer credit or (b) have already taken a First Year Seminar or are an adult student entering college for the first time. The goals of the program are the same: to introduce you to an Otterbein education and ease your transition into our academic community. However, the course speaks to students with previous college experience and allows transfer and adult students to meet other students in similar situations. Adult and transfer students may select to take traditional FYS or TYS sections. It is recommended that FYS/TYS be taken in the student’s first year.

II. Otterbein READY

Otterbein READY is a purposeful 4-year program, designed to help students create a personal plan, set intentional goals, and be confident, prepared, and READY to tackle their post-Otterbein journey. Otterbein students are required to complete four required elements of the READY program prior to graduation: 

  • Completion of a First Year Seminar or Transition Year Seminar course 

  • Attendance at READY Day 

  • Completion of an Immersive Experience 

  • Completion of a Senior Year Experience course 

READY Day Conference 

Students are required to attend 3 of the 4 annual READY Day conferences that are held annually each year. The READY Day requirement for students admitted as transfer students will be determined based on the number of earned credit hours at the time of entry:

  • Entering transfer students with 59 credits or less: 3 of 4 READY Days 
  • Entering transfer students with 60 credits or more: 2 of 4 READY Days 

Immersive Experience 

Students are required to complete one Immersive Experience prior to graduation.  An Immersive Experience may be completed through completion of an Immersive Experience approved course  or by completing a co-curricular experience that meets the definition of an Immersive Experience. Completion of a non-credit bearing Immersive Experience is granted when a student has successfully completed the Immersive Experience reflection. Transfer students who believe they have already completed an Immersive Experience can have their prior experience evaluated by completing the Prior Immersive Experience form for review by the Immersive Experience committee. The Immersive Experience must be completed prior to or concurrently with the Senior Year Experience course. 

III. Senior Year Experience (2-3 hrs)

The Senior Year Experience guides your transition out of Otterbein classrooms and contexts. Through a network of supportive resources and formative experiences, SYE nurtures your academic skills, passions, personal growth, and professional development. Our courses and co-curricular elements encourage you to explore yourself and world, your beliefs and values, and your life path and work path. They also ask you to think about what it means to be responsible to yourself, your communities, and your world. 

Students must have earned a minimum of 90 credit hours to be eligible to register for an SYE. Students may complete the SYE requirement through the following courses and allied immersive experiences:


B. Integrative Core (21 hrs)

To fulfill the requirements of the Integrative Studies Program, all students need to take one course from each of the following 8 “threads”. It is recommended that INST 1500 be taken in the student’s first year. The 2xxx-level courses can be taken in any order. Students must have junior standing and have taken at least one course from four of the INST 2xxx courses before before taking INST 3000. All courses meeting INST requirements must have an INST-prefix or be cross-listed with an INST-prefixed course. They must all must address the issues outlined in the thread description, and must engage with the assigned learning outcomes. Courses must be open to all Otterbein students, and must have no prerequisites. Departments may cross-list an INST course with a DEPT prefix, or may simply allow their students to count an INST-prefixed course toward a major or minor.

I. Freshman Year Requirement

Identity Projects: Writing and Literature (1 course required)
This requirement area invites you to explore the self in dynamic and critical terms. You will consider the interplay of individual and social identities, and study the self as a catalyst of voice, action, and purpose. In the process, you will engage with questions that are central to personhood: How does the self relate to others? How does the self change across time, culture, and circumstance? How does the self find its place in the world, and know its impact? How does one find one’s identity and shape one’s core commitments, both as an individual responsible for one’s own life, and as a participant in the wider world with a shared responsibility for the public good? Courses in the thread will emphasize critical inquiry and foundational expository writing skills.

II. Sophomore/Junior Year Requirements

Self, Power and Difference (1 course required)
In this requirement, you will use the perspectives and methods of social science to explore the self in a diverse society. The social sciences deepen our understanding of how identities such as race, ethnicity, social class, gender, and sexual identity intersect and inform our relations to power. You will consider the ways in which individuals and groups navigate relationships while examining the cultural, economic, geographic, political, psychological, and social structures that make up complex and diverse societies. Together, we will discover how the social sciences inform our understanding of the public good and the collective behavior necessary to develop the larger goals of social equity and justice.
Reflection and Responsibility (1 course required)
Drawing on the disciplines of philosophy and religious studies, this requirement area encourages you to reflect meaningfully on your own values and explore the ethical dimensions of human existence. You will investigate and examine such important issues as individual and collective responsibility to the public good, the notion of a “good life”, and the nature and significance of personal and civic engagement.
Natural Foundations (1 course required)
In this requirement, you will draw on the disciplines of the natural sciences to explore our modern understanding of nature and the physical world and how we have arrived at this knowledge. Courses in this thread examine scientific developments, natural phenomena, and how science provides data that is crucial to addressing many of the issues facing society today. You will consider how the objective findings of science fuel the development of many advancements that are making the world a better place to live. At the same time, you will be challenged to consider your role individually and collectively in using scientific advancements responsibly in the modern world.
Creativity and Culture (1 course required)
This requirement area explores how human beings find and create meaning in our world, particularly through creative inquiry in the arts. You will engage with knowledge that encourages deeper understanding and appreciation of the role of the arts across a diversity of human cultures, including how the arts engage questions of human meaning and purpose. You will explore how the Arts contribute to the public good by suggesting and creating new possibilities for communities and cultures, as well as consider questions of responsibility - individual and collective - for maintaining and preserving cultural heritage from around the world. 
Global Cultures (1 course required)
In this requirement, you will draw primarily on the disciplines of history and modern languages to understand the world’s histories and cultures through an intercultural lens. You will see that there is great variation in how and why people have organized their societies, and you will come to a stronger understanding of these societies, past and present, on their own terms. As a result, you will better understand how our modern world has come to take its current shape, including how competing notions of social and public responsibility interact on a transnational and global scale.

INTEGRATIVE STUDIES WAIVER FOR STUDY ABROAD OR OFF-CAMPUS STUDY

A student who participates in a University-approved study abroad experience has the opportunity to waive INST 2800 (Global Cultures). Students who complete one semester of a University-approved study abroad experience and complete the Immersive Experience Reflection as a result of that experience, may request a waiver from the Study Abroad Office. Upon receipt of completed waiver paperwork, the IS Program Director may waive the INST 2800 requirement.

Integrative Seminar (1 course required)
This culmination of the Integrative Studies program allows students to see how different disciplines can work collaboratively and integratively to respond to vital topics and issues. Recognizing you have a life you are responsible for, these team-taught courses will encourage you to explore, confront, and clarify your core commitments. In the process you will better understand yourself as an educated, engaged, and critically reflective citizen with a responsibility to contribute to the public good. 

 


C. Disciplinary-based Skills Development (12-13 hrs)

I. Mathematics (3 hrs)

Select any one of the following courses unless a specific mathematics course is required for your major as noted below. Except where indicated, these courses have a prerequisite of a C- or better in:

  or qualification through Otterbein’s Mathematics Placement.

II. Lifestyle Fitness and Wellness (1 hr)

1 hr of Lifestyle Fitness and Wellness is required for all undergraduate majors.

III. Skills Development Options (8-9 hrs from any combination of the 3 categories below)

a. Language Proficiency 
b. Oral and Written Communication 
c. Experimental Design/Laboratory Skills 

 D. Writing Intensive Requirement

The Writing Intensive (WI) Requirement at Otterbein seeks to build and sharpen students’ writing abilities in both general education and disciplinary courses.  Students are required to take three WI courses from the list below. Courses must be taken at Otterbein University to fulfill the WI requirement. Any exceptions to this rule are determined by the department.

The first course, which all students take as part of the Integrative Studies requirements, is selected from the following options:

The second and third courses are either housed in the major, or may be selected from the following list: