University of San Diego Burnham-Moores Center for Real Estate Undergraduate Program Review

USD holds monthly Real Estate Society meetings, which are open to society members, as well anyone else who is interested. The society brings in industry leaders to discuss how they got to where they are today, and they answer questions from the audience. This is a great way for anyone, whether they’re previously interested in real estate or not, to get an impression of the many paths that a real estate career can take. They also offer multiple site tours throughout the year, which is a great way to get out of the classroom setting and see real estate transactions in person. Many of the programs that are offered to the MSRE students are open to undergraduates, as well, which is a great opportunity to network with people who are just getting into the business.
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The competition was a bit of a wake-up call . While I felt that we were better prepared than a lot of the teams, no classroom setting could have fully prepared us for the competition. The advantage of being able to do the competition was to see how valuable real world experience truly is for this field. The competition also allowed us to see what classes and projects were beneficial for real life, and which ones didn’t have real-world application. After the competition, I can confidently say that USD’s program greatly prepared us for the financial aspect of the project. Our calculations and final numbers were very accurate to the “correct” model that we were given after the competition. We worked really well as a team, which I know came from our countless group projects that we undertake in all of our classes. The most helpful class for the competition was probably my Real Estate Law class, because we spend an entire semester on a development project for a real parcel of land in San Diego. This was the closest experience to a “case study” that we had come across. The area in which we were lacking was the presentation, which ultimately came down to us running out of time to properly prepare for it. The business mind that USD instills in us made us all want to examine every possible outcome before coming to our solution, but this mindset didn’t help us very much when we had only three days to prepare. This year was our first year in the competition, and it was definitely a learning process. The competition offered a lot of great take-aways for us as students, and for the USD program as a whole. After the competition, the team met with the school’s executive committee and discussed ways in which USD could begin offering a class similar to the competition so that all students could experience realistic case situations before graduation. What I did take away from the competition, however is that the relationship between USD students and its professors is second to none. Almost every other school consisted of teams that had never interacted with one another before. Our professors are so involved with us inside and outside the classroom that they were able to select students personally for the competition, while most of the other schools had to use quantitative measures to compile their teams. After seeing how the real estate programs function at other schools, the sense of community within the real estate program at USD is something that I will never again take for granted.
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Our career counseling program offers a wide variety of ways for students to receive assistance. Every business student is enrolled in our “Passport” program, which requires us to attend at least three career-related functions on campus each semester. Each student also has an academic advisor, who helps us through the process of declaring our major and making sure that we are graduating on time and with the proper classes for our career goals. The school also has Torerolink, which is an online system available only to students and alumni, which allows employers to post job and internships that they want specifically filled by someone from USD. Members of the Real Estate society also receive direct e-mails from the Real Estate Department about jobs that employers present to them. These jobs usually come to us before reaching Torerolink, so it gives a competitive advantage to those in the Society. There is also a program that offers free assistance for drafting our resumes.
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I ultimately want to work in commercial real estate, ideally as a broker. Because of the wide variety of classes that USD requires of its business students, I was able to sift out areas in which I wasn’t interested, and focus my classes to my specific interests. I initially thought that I wanted to be in the residential field, but after taking my Principles of Real Estate class, I discovered that I am much more interested in larger scale projects and transactions. The abundance of out-of-the-classroom opportunities that are provided to us have given me the chance to see exactly how my interests can apply to long-term careers.
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How many classes are required to complete the program?
The real estate major is within USD’s business department. The pre-requisites for it are identical to any other business major. There are 15 required units that are upper division classes that are real estate-specific. They consist of 2 required introductory classes, and one financing class, in which students can choose either residential or commercial financing depending on their area of interest. Additionally, two real estate electives are required; one of which can be a real estate-related internship. There are four suggested paths that prepare students for either residential or commercial real estate, asset management, or finance. The real estate minor hold similar requirements, with the same classes but fewer required units. The school also offers real estate emphases for other majors within the school of business, such as Accounting.

Rate the various aspects on the program 1-10, 10 being the best:
Professors – 10
Career Counseling – 8
Outside Opportunities – 9
Overall Rating – 9