Having been a practicing actuary for 26 years, I see the need for actuarial students to not only have the educational background to pass actuarial exams but to also have the "first principles" knowledge foundation to be effective problem solvers. We can't expect newly graduating students (either with a Bachelors or Masters degree) to know all the issues surrounding the actuarial problems they will be faced with in their new jobs. But we (as employers) should expect that recent graduates have a solid foundation of the "first principles" that drive the majority of the types of analyses that actuaries do. I propose a design of upper level courses that would expose students to skills and knowledge necessary to build this solid foundation.