Top maths award for Longford DCU student

Twenty-three years old Olivia, who originally studied psychology at Trinity, dropped out and then worked for a year before returning to college to study actuarial mathematics.

Returning to study actuarial mathematics at DCU was the best move of her life, she said, and she has thrived in the analytical problem solving environment.

“There are forty people doing my course, so it is almost like a second school,” explained Olivia from Clooneena, Ballymacormack, Longford.

She learned about her award in an email from the Royal Irish Academy. The Hamilton prize is named after Dubliner William Rowan Hamilton, a renowned 19th century mathematician who, following an eureka moment while walking on the banks of Dublin’s royal canal, carved out the solution to a problem - how to represent movement of objects in 3D space - on the stone walls of Broome Bridge in Cabra.

After leaving psychology at Trinity, Olivia returned home to live with her family and she worked for a year in Dunnes Stores.

“I took a year out, and did a lot of research into jobs and careers, but thinking I was back at square one,” recalls Olivia who attended primary and secondary school at Stonepark NS and Meán Scoil Mhuire, Longford, respectively. “I was clueless about what I wanted to do.”

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“My mother, Mary, mentioned to me that she knew someone who was analytical, like me, and liked solving problems and would I talk to her about her job,” says Olivia. “She explained the job of an actuary to me, and how she got there - her career path, and I thought it was interesting.

“Up to that I might have heard of an actuary in passing, but thought it was just a glorified accountant. I had done accountancy in school and wasn’t interested in it.”

Caption: Longford's Olivia McLoughlin, DCU final year actuarial mathematics student, winner of the Hamilton Prize, pictured with Danny McCoy, chief executive officer of IBEC, the prize sponsor and Dr Mary Canning, President of the Royal Irish Academy

Olivia’s big love is travel and fits it in wherever she can. She intends to travel a lot more in the years to come.

“The job of an actuary sounded a lot more interesting,” says Olivia. “It involved pure maths and I thought it would be challenging and involve problem solving.”

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Olivia, whose father, John, is a farmer and her mother, Mary, is an assessment officer for the HSE, says that she has experienced a few similar eureka moments, though not as many as she would like.

“Sometimes I could spend hours working on a problem, then suddenly I might figure out what I have been doing wrong the whole time and have a lightbulb moment,” says Olivia.

“It doesn’t really happen to me as often as I would like, but when it does it is really satisfying; all those hours of hard work have paid off,” says Olivia whose brother Daniel is in Leaving Cert and her sister Grace is in third year in Trinity College studying speech and language.

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As part of her degree, Olivia did an eight-month Intra placement at Liberty insurance. “I worked on the pricing team,” says Olivia. “I had a really good manager who gave me lots of good projects to work on, like validating the mathematical models that are used there for pricing and insurance.”

Olivia has a job waiting for her at Liberty in July after she graduates.