{"id":12696,"date":"2025-07-25T09:30:56","date_gmt":"2025-07-25T14:30:56","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/wwwtest.wisconsin.edu\/all-in-wisconsin-new\/?post_type=campus_story&p=12696"},"modified":"2025-07-28T09:33:48","modified_gmt":"2025-07-28T14:33:48","slug":"uw-whitewater-math-alum-chris-bitz-finds-his-fit-in-actuarial-science","status":"publish","type":"campus_story","link":"https:\/\/wwwtest.wisconsin.edu\/all-in-wisconsin\/story\/uw-whitewater-math-alum-chris-bitz-finds-his-fit-in-actuarial-science\/","title":{"rendered":"UW-Whitewater math alum Chris Bitz finds his fit in actuarial science"},"content":{"rendered":"

\"Photo<\/a><\/p>\n

University of Wisconsin-Whitewater alum Chris Bitz has always enjoyed numbers, whether it was calculating them in a classroom, punching them into an Excel spreadsheet, or seeing them displayed after his latest pole vault attempt.<\/p>\n

Bitz, who earned a B.S. in\u00a0mathematics<\/a>\u00a0in 2023, was a four-year member of the\u00a0Warhawk men\u2019s track and field team<\/a>. Now he is thriving as an actuarial analyst for Nationwide in downtown Milwaukee.<\/p>\n

He\u2019s been with the company since starting there as an intern in November of 2021, just under halfway through his junior year. He remained an intern through his senior year, focusing on manual group processes, before earning an offer to stay on full time.<\/p>\n

\u201cThe internship helped with using Excel on a day-to-day basis,\u201d Bitz said. \u201cOnce I got further into the internship, then it was about how I can make the right decisions based on the data, which is something UW-Whitewater helps to get at through a couple classes.\u201d<\/p>\n

The experience has come full circle for Bitz, who has been managing one intern for each of the last two years. (Nationwide currently employs an intern from UW-Whitewater who doesn\u2019t report to Bitz.) Day to day, he is concentrated strategically on where the best areas of business exist and what areas the company should be targeting.<\/p>\n

The textbook definition of what an actuary does is assess financial risk for businesses, including insurance companies, but Bitz believes it\u2019s much more than that.<\/p>\n

\u201cI think there are a lot of areas within actuarial science,\u201d he said. \u201cFor example, I work on our first-year pricing team, so groups coming to us for the first time looking for health insurance, we\u2019ll price them as a group to see where they should be at. There\u2019s a bunch of different fields within actuarial sciences.\u201d<\/p>\n

\"Chris
Chris Bitz is a UW-Whitewater alumnus and former Warhawk pole vaulter who is applying his mathematics education and athlete\u2019s discipline to work at Nationwide in Milwaukee. Bitz, who earned a B.S. in mathematics in 2023, graduated cum laude. Photo taken on Tuesday, May 20, 2025. (UW-Whitewater photo\/Craig Schreiner)<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

 <\/p>\n

A fulfilling Warhawk experience<\/h3>\n

Bitz took an accounting course as a freshman at Brookfield East High School and said he didn\u2019t love it. His mother, Maria, who attended UW-Whitewater, asked him if he had heard of actuarial math and science and suggested that as a career path.<\/p>\n

By his junior year of high school, he knew he wanted to become an actuary.<\/p>\n

\u201cI knew very early on that math was my thing,\u201d Bitz said. \u201cFrom a young age, I was always very good at math \u2014 I like the numbers part of it.\u201d<\/p>\n

Bitz\u2019s desire to continue his athletic career as a pole vaulter in track and field \u2014 along with the university\u2019s reputation for the actuarial science emphasis \u2014 led him to UW-Whitewater. He connected to pole vault coach Nathan Wells and head track and field coach Mike Johnson before making his decision to join the Warhawk family.<\/p>\n

After a period of adjustment and learning, UW-Whitewater felt like home to Bitz.<\/p>\n

\u201cIt takes a lot of time to settle in \u2014 being on your own for the first time, living in a dorm, having a roommate, all those kinds of things,\u201d he said. \u201cI think I finally got to a point where I was comfortable, and the campus felt like where I should be, and the team felt like family.\u201d<\/p>\n

Bitz found a high level of comfort \u2014 and success \u2014 as a student-athlete. He placed among the top seven in the Wisconsin Intercollegiate Athletic Conference four times, including a sixth-place finish at the 2022 outdoor conference championship meet, and recorded his personal best mark at his second-to-last collegiate competition.<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

\"Student
Chris Bitz clears a height in the men\u2019s pole vault at the Midwest Elite Invitational on Feb. 15, 2020, at Kachel Fieldhouse in Whitewater. (UW-Whitewater athletics photo\/Michael McLoone)<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

 <\/p>\n

He served as a captain during his senior year in 2023 and was honored numerous times for academics and sportsmanship during his career. He was also recognized as a UW-Whitewater Chancellor\u2019s Scholar-Athlete and earned his third straight All-Academic award from the United States Track and Field and Cross Country Coaches Association as a senior.<\/p>\n

\u201c(NCAA) Division III was a perfect mix for me,\u201d Bitz said. \u201cI love my sport and wanted to put a lot of time into it, and I had the ability to do that while also focusing on academics.<\/p>\n

\u201cUW-Whitewater did a good job of balancing the two and making it clear, saying \u2018yes, you are an athlete for this track team, but you\u2019re also a student, and that matters more.\u2019\u201d<\/p>\n

Bitz said many of his current best friends \u2014 including his roommate, CJ Pfeil \u2014 were part of the track and field program. He regularly attends the program\u2019s Alumni Meet and currently coaches track and field at Brookfield East High School, his alma mater.<\/p>\n

While on campus, Bitz was also part of the university\u2019s Actuarial Club, which helps future actuaries learn, network, and develop skills necessary in the profession. As part of the group, he virtually attended the Wisconsin Actuarial Collegiate Conference, where he landed his internship that led to his full-time job with Nationwide.<\/p>\n

\u201cIt made it very easy to learn a lot more about the career and connect with people who know more,\u201d he said. \u201cBy the time I got to my junior and senior years, I felt much more prepared having been in that club.\u201d<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

\"Chris
Chris Bitz, a mathematics major from Brookfield, marches in the spring commencement on Saturday, May 13, 2023. (UW-Whitewater photo\/Fionnbharr Hartnett)<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

 <\/p>\n

Bitz, who was a recipient of the\u00a0Chancellor\u2019s Scholarship<\/a>, also shouted out mathematics faculty members Geethamali Samaranayake and Wesley Hough for positively influencing his time at the university. He served as a supplemental instructor for one of Hough\u2019s classes and was a math tutor in\u00a0Campus Tutorial Services<\/a>.<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

A promising path to career success<\/h3>\n

Bitz hopes to secure his certification from the Fellow of the Society of Actuaries (FSA) and continue building his career at Nationwide to a managerial level.<\/p>\n

He continues to put what he learned at UW-Whitewater into practice. He cited his preparation for exams \u2014 a critical part of an actuary\u2019s career \u2014 as something the university helped him with.<\/p>\n

There are 10 exams to pass to become fully certified as an actuary \u2014 Bitz has passed four and is waiting on results from a fifth.<\/p>\n

\u201cUW-Whitewater offers a couple classes that get you in the door for those exams and teach you the basics for the first two,\u201d he said. \u201cIt gives you a grounding of where to start, and you can build on that for the next eight exams \u2014 or however many you decide to do.\u201d<\/p>\n

\n

Written by Chris Lindeke | Photos by Craig Schreiner, Fionnbharr Hartnett , UW-Whitewater Athletics<\/p>\n

Link to original story: https:\/\/www.uww.edu\/news\/archive\/2025-7-chris-bitz<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

University of Wisconsin-Whitewater alum Chris Bitz has always enjoyed numbers, whether it was calculating them in a classroom, punching them into an Excel spreadsheet, or seeing them displayed after his latest pole vault attempt. Bitz, who earned a B.S. in\u00a0mathematics\u00a0in 2023, was a four-year member of the\u00a0Warhawk men\u2019s track and field team. Now he is […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":15,"featured_media":12698,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","template":"","institution":[84],"story_category":[],"class_list":["post-12696","campus_story","type-campus_story","status-publish","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","institution-uw-whitewater"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/wwwtest.wisconsin.edu\/all-in-wisconsin\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/campus_story\/12696","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/wwwtest.wisconsin.edu\/all-in-wisconsin\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/campus_story"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/wwwtest.wisconsin.edu\/all-in-wisconsin\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/campus_story"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/wwwtest.wisconsin.edu\/all-in-wisconsin\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/15"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/wwwtest.wisconsin.edu\/all-in-wisconsin\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=12696"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/wwwtest.wisconsin.edu\/all-in-wisconsin\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/12698"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/wwwtest.wisconsin.edu\/all-in-wisconsin\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=12696"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"institution","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/wwwtest.wisconsin.edu\/all-in-wisconsin\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/institution?post=12696"},{"taxonomy":"story_category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/wwwtest.wisconsin.edu\/all-in-wisconsin\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/story_category?post=12696"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}