Big Data Qualifications and Jobs

Hi everyone! I was curious to see if anyone on the boards was able to provide some personal experience and suggestions when pursuing a job revolving around Big Data. I figured some people at Riot might be able to provide some information since they have positions like this, but if anyone else can help it would be great.

Just for a little background about myself, I'm a senior in college who is planning on graduating in May with degrees in Mathematics (Statistics focused) and Actuarial Science. I have done applied research during the summer between my sophomore and junior year involving big data analysis using data mining techniques on company churn rates and I found the practice behind it fascinating. Additionally, during the summer between my junior and senior year I had an actuarial internship, but most of my internship involved me rewriting code and managing extremely large data sets that involved actuarial properties so the company can run some trend analysis.

I do have an actuarial career lined up for when I graduate and I'm super excited for it! However, I'm afraid that I liked my internship last summer so much because I worked with big data again and not for the actuarial practices. So I was curious about the choices other people made when pursuing a career in Big Data just in case my suspicions are true. My basic understanding is that it's becoming a growing job market due to it being the "data age" and it would require at least a Masters degree to be even considered for a position. Oh and a pretty good knowledge of programming.

Thanks to anyone who can help! It is appreciated. (: