Where do people with such diverse majors as theology, finance, and international studies wind up? If you were in Devlin Hall on a Thursday evening in October, youād think it was real estateājudging from the ĀŅĀ׊”æÉ°® alumni who populated two panel discussions at a forum titled āLaunching Your Real Estate Career.ā
No fewer than a dozen alums offered their advice to undergraduate students eyeing the profession. At the start of the Oct. 6 forum, sponsored by theĀ Joseph E. Corcoran Center for Real Estate and Urban Action, Carroll School Senior Lecturer Ed Chazen shared his assessment that the current real estate cycle is nearing its latter days.
Carroll School Senior Lecturer Ed Chazen introducing the forum
āWeāre in the 6th or 7th inning of a ballgame, not the 2nd or 3rd inning,ā said Chazen, a former real estate financing professional, looking ahead to the stage at which the market begins to cool down. At the same time, Chazen said the āunderlying fundamentalsāāincluding compensation and job growth in the industryāshould encourage those seeking to enter the field.
Immediately following Chazen, a panel of seven recent graduates offered a range of advice to the 50 students who turned up for the early evening event in Devlin. Much of the conversation threw light on why graduates with degrees in a broad spread of academic areas are finding their way into and around the real estate field.
Striking a common theme at the forum, Joseph Launceford ā15 told students that the characteristic well roundedness of a ĀŅĀ׊”æÉ°® education would prepare them well for this highly diverse industry, in both good and not-so-good times.
āWhatever field of real estate youāre entering, youāre going to have to be multi-dimensional,ā said Launceford, who majored in theology and economics at the Morrissey College of Arts and Sciences and works as a project engineer at Suffolk Construction. He was alluding to such facets of the work as data analysis, financing, communications, and face-to-face interactions with diverse groups of professionals and clients.ā
Panelists at the āLaunching Your Real Estate Careerā forum
āItās the organic knowledge thatās so valuable,ā added Nicole Napolitano ā14, a commercial real estate analyst with CIT, a financial holding company. She studied finance and marketing at the Carroll School of Management.
Likewise, Sergio Ferreira, Morrissey College ā89, pointed out that real estate involves āa blend of both the hard skillsā such as Excel and what he underlined as āsoft skillsā including analysis and problem solving. Ferreira, who majored in economics, is chief underwriter and director of rental operations at MassHousing, a quasi-public agency that provides financing for affordable housing in Massachusetts. He spoke at a second panel that featured alums with longer experience in real estate.
Emma Gleason ā16 drew a connection between the Carroll School curriculum and her current role in the profession. As an international studies major at the Morrissey College, Gleason took classes at the Carroll School including ChazenāsĀ , in which teams of students create development plans for sites in eastern Massachusetts, in cooperation with local officials.
During the spring semester of this past year, Gleasonās team fashioned a plan for a two-acre parcel alongside a Red Line āTā station in Quincy, Massachusetts. Largely on the strength of her work in that class, Gleason landed a job as an analyst with New York-based Emax, a women-owned real estate advisory firm that evaluates projects involving public-private partnerships like the one she helped propose to Quincy. Turning toward Chazen, Gleason said of her work at the firmāāItās basically what we did in your class.ā
Other panelists included Pheabe Chen, Carroll School ā16, of Clarion Partners; Jim McCaffrey, Carroll School ā14, of Cushman and Wakefield; Cliff Welden, Carroll School ā14, of Cantor Fitzgerald; KC Testwuide, Carroll School ā15, of Citigroup; Michael Greeley, Morrissey College ā08, of Newmark Grubb Knight Frank; John Maher, M.B.A. ā08, of Sun Life Insurance Co.; Lauren OāNeil Goff, Morrissey College ā03, of HFF (commercial real estate); and Chris Wholey, Morrissey College ā04, of Skanska USA Commercial Development.
Photo Credit: Stefanie Tracey