1. What do you do with an MBA focusing on Real Estate?
2. What do I need to know?
3. What if I want to change careers?
4. Should I focus on more than one area?
5. Is financial support available?
6. What if I am a foreign student, is it harder to get into the program?
7. What activities are available outside of the classroom?
8. Can I get a job when I'm done with school?
9. How does the University of Cincinnati stack up to other Real Estate programs?

• The generic answer is: investigate, research, analyze, negotiate, plan, market and work in an interesting and challenging industry. Successful Real Estate professionals often work over 40 hours per week. Real Estate is a competitive industry, and therefore, Real Estate is not for everyone.
• Our alumni work in various fields. They do site analysis for companies like Krogers, NCR, P&G, Property Advisors, or appraisal for firms such as Arthur Andersen. Some work in development for firms like Al Neyer, Inc., Corporex, Hines, or Bradley or IDI or Prologis, others lease shopping center space or office space for firms like West Shell, General Growth Properties or Faison Associates, others make construction loans or mortgage loans for PNC Bank, Firstar, Triad, Fifth Third or Bank One. Our alumni also work for small rehabilitation development companies, some are entrepreneurs and start their own firms while still in school, others work for property management firms like Koll, LaSalle, or go on to graduate school. Whatever you choose can prove to be lucrative and rewarding. Graduates work in the following areas: appraisal, brokerage, leasing, property management, site analysis, mortgage lending, development or consulting, institutional investment and some go on to law school.

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• Real Estate involves virtually every field of business. The tenant who wants to find a certain type of space is better served when a developer or broker knows their needs. These needs require some knowledge about every aspect of business, for example: demographic trends, market analysis, financing, law and more. Real Estate professionals must be equipped to deal with a variety of challenges like how location affects distribution costs and what to do if environmental hazards are discovered. They must be able to answer complex questions such as will the lease be long enough to make the financing work?, and what criteria will a lender use to determine if they should make a loan?
• Real Estate people can never know too much. They must constantly strive to stay abreast of business trends, and think about how issues concerning tax law changes, new highway routes or zoning proposals affect their clients, investments or business. Above all else, Real Estate people must be entrepreneurial, which means they look for opportunities and better ways to do business. Good Real Estate people can succeed in any field of business, and many do own other businesses outside of the Real Estate realm.
• Beyond general business knowledge, employers also expect our students to be computer literate with spreadsheets, word processing, graphical analysis and geographic information systems. In addition, students should be able to write well and to give effective oral presentations. Negotiation skills are also an important aspect of the Real Estate industry, and students practice these while in school. Global business awareness and international experience along with second language skills are becoming increasingly valuable.

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• No problem. Most of the curriculum necessary to succeed in Real Estate is not unique to the Real Estate industry. The MBA is a fairly general and generic degree. We make sure that our students can speak the lingo of the Real Estate industry, and understand common and hot topics, but the skills are generally applicable to any business field.

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• This depends on your interest area. Other programs like International Business or Marketing or Finance may add to your marketability after graduation.

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• For outstanding academic students in need, financial support is available through a myriad of scholarships including the Segal, Devitt and Selonick Scholarship programs which are awarded solely for the support of UC Real Estate Majors. (See the scholarship program information.) General MBA tuition scholarships are also available for some students.

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• Not any harder than for anyone else with the exception that you must take a TOEFL exam and be fluent in English. We encourage foreign students that ad an important global dimension to our class discussions. We have had MBA students from Russia, the United Kingdom, Germany, China, Singapore, Korea, and other countries.

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• Real Estate MBAs are encouraged to participate in a wide variety of student group activities. Among these, Alpha Rho Epsilon, the Real Estate business association that shares information on jobs, sponsors industry speakers, provides career days and the 'Spend a Day with an Executive' program, conducts the annual golf outing with Real Estate professionals, and much more.
• MBA Students are also assigned an outside Mentor who they meet with at least once per quarter for an outside perspective and career advice. See The MBA Mentor Program for more information.
• Alpha Rho Epsilon members often attend the UC Real Estate Roundtable breakfast meetings, seminars and conferences. The Real Estate Roundtable, a 150-member group, includes top-level professionals in every area of the Real Estate industry from a 100-mile radius of Cincinnati. Speakers are brought in to address this group each month, and students participate in these programs, networking with Real Estate professionals in the process. Students are also invited to participate in the annual Real Estate Program Banquet, attended by almost 1000 area Real Estate professionals, with speakers like Sam Zell, Roger Staubach and Tony Downs.

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• That's up to you. First, you must do a good job in your course work, and not shirk the tough classes which provide the skills that employers value. Next, you must plan your education to include exposure to many professionals in your area of career interest. Alpha Rho Epsilon, the Mentor program and the Roundtable programs are just three of the ways this can happen. Demonstrating some leadership along the way is also important, so making time to be involved with student organizations should be a goal.
• Employers in the Real Estate industry do not recruit on a large scale or through personnel firms for entry-level jobs. That is why networking is so important while in school. Many employers, however, do call the UC Real Estate Program's office looking for employees, and this information is passed along to students and members of Alpha Rho Epsilon. Each year, more employers seem to call UC's Real Estate Program, as our alumni spread out around the nation.
• We have developed a national computer network called Real Jobs for exchanging our students' resumes with employers all over the nation. This web site is very active with over 1300 resumes and 500 jobs. As soon as you know that a career in commercial real estate is for you, please consider adding your resume. See www.real-jobs.com.

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• We are the largest Real Estate program in the Midwest, and the only AACSB (accredited) program in the region. Our MBA program in Real Estate, launched in 1991, is doing well. While small, we still have more faculty teaching an array of Real Estate courses than any accredited school in Ohio, Indiana or Kentucky. Our faculty have Ph.D.'s from some of the most respected business programs in the country and are involved as research writers and editors for several national and international journals in the Real Estate area. Real Estate faculty are also involved in a variety of industry programs which often provide opportunities for student involvement.
• We are confident that in the Real Estate area, we are one of the best business programs in the nation. If you are a solid student with an entrepreneurial spirit who is willing to work hard, then we encourage you to apply to UC.

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