In the last ten years, the real estate indus-try has matured and real estate has become
accepted as a distinct asset class for investment. Subsequently, there has been a proliferation of graduate real estate programs in the
United States. When considering hiring a new
employee, which degree do you look for in a
candidate?
There are primarily three types of graduate
real estate programs: MBA,
MSRE, and MRED. The traditional Master of Business
The second type is the Master
of Science in Real Estate (MSRE)
degree that is typically also taught
out of a business school and most
commonly focuses on the finance and
investment side of real estate transactions. The University of San Diego has
such a program. In these programs, the
curriculums are more directly tied to
traditional business functions but the courses
are all focused on real estate rather than some
other product. Students are immersed in real
estate and primarily view it from the invest-ment/business perspective.
The last type of graduate program found in
the market is the one focused on development
or some other specialized part of the real estate
industry. This is the Master of Science in Real
Estate Development (MRED) program. With
MRED programs, the curriculum is focused on
the development process and bringing in all of
the players that go into creating or repositioning
a real estate project. In some cases, like Johns
Hopkins University, these programs are housed
in a business school, while in others, like the
University of Maryland, the program is housed
in a planning or architecture school. In a few
cases, the programs are a joint venture between
two colleges, like the program at Clemson
University. Courses are taught in six different
disciplines across two colleges, the College
of Business and Behavioral Studies and the
College of Architecture, Arts and Humanities.
If students are certain they have caught the
real estate bug and know they want to work in
this field, then the more specialized programs
are the better degree to pursue. The students can
hit the ground running and are able to help add
value to their employers from day one.
In most of these programs, all of the required
courses and many of the electives are taught
by teachers that have real estate or real estate
related expertise. The courses all have a real
estate focus and concepts taught in the courses
utilize exclusively real estate examples. In
many courses, the students have ‘live’ real
estate projects designed to apply the tools that
are being taught in the classroom.
Students are immersed in the issues and
problems that face the real estate industry from
the very first class all the way to the end of their
programs. Many of these programs recognize
the strong need for networking in the industry
and have been designed as cohort-based programs where the majority of students begin and
end the program together. In addition, many
of these more specialized programs will have
already established networks with large advisory boards and alumni associations creating local, regional and national
networks for graduates.
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