A Stroll Around Campus

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A Stroll Around Campus The long-term strength of any industry is dependent upon attracting the best and the brightest talent produced by our university system. So I thought I would check into how real Estate is faring during these very uncertain economic times. I connected with David Funk, head of the Cornell Real Estate Program, and he reported that applications for enrollment in the MBA program are down, as they are with all top MBA programs. However, notwithstanding the skimpier application pool, the Cornell program is filling up, and these days students are very serious about pursuing a career, versus a “flavor of the month” approach to their career. Cornell has also experienced a strong undergraduate focus on a real estate “minor” program. On another front, we connected with Lynn Gray, CEO of Campus Scout, an organization that provides real estate companies with campus recruiting services, to find out what the outlook is for the next generation of real estate talent. Lynn reports that interest in investment banking and consulting is way down (surprise, surprise). On the other hand, student focus is on buy-side opportunities, especially within flatter organizations where they can learn faster and add value quickly. This also implies that smaller, more entrepreneurial organizations will also benefit from the current turmoil in the market since there is skimpy competition from investment banking.