 We'd like today to give you some insight into the exciting dynamic of the program. I'll help you out with a few of the details that are involved and answer a few of the general questions plus some of the specific questions which you've raised with us. Firstly, just a bit of an overview. The program is a one-year, three-semester program. So it starts in June and finishes in the following May. It is full-time. It is impossible to work at the same time, even part-time. Well, you know, a little bit of support here and there, but definitely you need to be full-time devoted to the course. We have classes all times of the day. And then the other thing is that it's a group. You come as a class. You get to know your classmates. You do teamwork together and so on. It makes for a very comprehensive cohort experience in which you build a great network both with your current classmates and with people who've gone through the program before. You'll be in a class of approximately 130 to 140 students and that is the class on mass. There are some classes that are done all together, but mostly classes are broken up into smaller groups where you study specific things in detail. Over the three semesters, you start with a very detailed introduction and some of the learning of the technical skills with respect to real estate. That's important to get everyone on the same page regarding ability to analyze and evaluate and understand the challenges of real estate development. The second semester then becomes a little bit of a deeper dive looking into some of the things that you find are particularly of interest to you and that you hope to pursue in your career. At the same time, you're gathering more depth of knowledge about the core things that are involved in real estate across the board. And then in the third semester, what's very important is to pull together all of those things that you've been learning ranging from design, the urban planning, the construction issues, the legal issues, the way in which a project is actually responding to a market analysis and of course the financial analysis of the whole thing to make sure that it can be paid for and that it will produce a return on investment. So that's the third semester and we do a number of classes that involve comprehensive projects but most importantly, there's the capstone project which is like a final thesis. It's a project where you really prove to yourself and to everyone what you're capable of in terms of a whole real estate development proposal. So it's a deal book. It's really something that you're able to take out there and it feels very much like the things that they are seeing every day except that I promised yours will be better than what they're seeing most of the day. So that's generally how the program breaks down over the three semesters. It provides you with all of the various aspects that are comprehensive for real estate across the board ranging from development through to finance through to acquisitions to asset management and property management. What it also enables you to do of course as I say is tailor it specifically to your interest so that you're able to have some exceptional skills in a certain area that you're passionate about and you can go out and pursue that professionally. So that's the general overview. I'll start with answering some of the questions now. Of course people are always concerned about what is important in their application. Writing a good personal statement is very important. We do not have specific checkboxes of skill sets and so on. Real estate is one of those professional activities that incorporates a lot of different skills. So therefore it's really about what you are capable of as an individual in really solving problems because that's really what it is at the end of the day. So what I suggest you do with your personal statement and so on is give a good description of who you are. Talk about the trajectory of your life or how you wish it to be and your professional development and tell us really how you think what you'll learn in this program and your experience in this program will be part of that and will set you up to do that successfully. Really point out to us if you can what difference you want to make in the world and how doing this program is going to give you the skills, the approach, the background, the support and so on. You need to do it. So that's the way in which the personal statement forms I would say the core part of your application. In terms of the profile of the students and the types of prior experience you've had, it's very, very open. We have students coming from all sorts of backgrounds, finance, accounting, architecture, urban planning, communication, psychology. We even had someone who was an actor. So a really good range of people and that's what's important both for the, I believe, the real estate industry because it needs people coming with very interesting frames of reference and also I think it provides for the student body a wonderful combination of attitudes and perspectives and ways of dealing with the world. So we have students in all of those fields. We also, you know, people say I may be a little nontraditional in terms of having a lot of experience and wanting to pivot my career. That's absolutely possible with us. In fact, you know, we treat every application holistically. As I say, it's about where you are intending your professional trajectory to go and how this will help you attend to that no matter what you've done before. Hopefully some of what you have done before has created an ability to be mature about coping with professional situations, solve problems, be rigorous in your analysis and so on. So we're interested in, you know, also how you will fit within the program. It's not the experience of being altogether in a full-time program is really part of the learning experience. It's not just that it happens to be the case. So we're very interested in understanding what you will bring to the program as well as what you will get out of it. People ask about the GRE scores and, you know, the various technical requirements. We don't publish a minimum score requirement. It's not top of the list. The average score for admitted applicants tends to be within the 160, 161 for the verbal area and about 165 for the quantitative area. But once again it's put in as part of your whole package. Now the other thing about, of course, is your experience, your work experience, whether you've had too much, none, not enough, how much and so on. The average is about 18 months to two years of work experience, usually related somewhat to the real estate or the built environment. Some people have, as I say, a lot of experience and not in that field at all. Some people are coming straight from college. That's okay. It's not the usual, but just so that you know what is generally in the middle. But as I say, it's all about what you're planning your professional career to how you're planning it to unfold. So if you haven't had any experience in real estate for a significant amount of time, it is good to present some evidence of your ability to work in teams, to have been in areas of responsibility maybe during summer breaks and so on, some internship perhaps and so on that demonstrates that you've been in a work environment, you understand how that is all structured and you're indicating your ability to be serious about being a professional. The other thing is, you know, try and show that you've been involved in teamwork. It sounds like a bit of a cliche, but real estate is definitely one of those things that is not done alone. Whether you're hiring architects or you're hiring financiers, you are interacting with other people and being able to be part of the team and work constructively is a very important dynamic. Now some students, we would say that probably the typical age is around, the average age is around 28, but we have people younger than that and we have people significantly older than that. So the actual age, the actual quantum of work experience is not as critical, although do take it into consideration in guiding you as to when you might be best suited to attend the program. Just a couple of minor things. Some people ask if you're able to do some joint degrees or take courses in engineering or in other parts of the university, maybe combine it with an MBA. There are dual degrees, but only within the Graduate School of Architecture Planning and Preservation. Within this college, within this school, you're able to do a joint degree of the MSRED with either architecture, urban planning, preservation. What you will do is start a semester early in the summer in June with us and then you'll finish a semester later in the fall. But other than that, it's involved in the same program. Beyond our school, we're not able to offer joint degrees. You can of course enroll in some courses in other schools. Some of them will let you in, others may not, but certainly some people do tend to seek out some supplement courses here and there from other schools. We are not a STEM program and we don't accept any transfer credits from other programs and other schools. So that's probably about it in terms of general administrative questions that you've come through with. Just a little bit more about the Capstone project because it is a very important part of what you do. It's an individual project even though you do a lot of teamwork during the program and you even do some teamwork in leading up to your Capstone, in the end you produce something that is your individual production. Some of the, as I say, what you have to do is cover the whole of the aspects of joint development, everything from the site and what it's like and what the urban situation is through to what the market analysis is, what people wanting these days, do they want more apartments, do they want more office space and so on, through to what sort of construction is feasible, what are the building costs going to be, what is the timing of actually constructing and getting approval and then how are we going to finance it, how are you going to finance it during construction and then afterwards, how long are you going to own it for and then who are you going to put in it, are you going to be selling it as condos or putting in tenants and how do you market that. So it really is hopefully an inspiring piece of work, you get to be really creative but at the same time realistic and definitely very professional that's the objective. In the final semester also in the spring semester there's the opportunity to do the internship. Now that is for 20 hours a week, it is a registered class and it's overseen with your providing reports and specific achievements that you're to get and usually we have approximately about 40% of the class do a part-time internship in the spring semester. So that's how the the internship works. Someone said you know what is going to distinguish Columbia from the Columbia and Mesred program from other programs and that's my favorite topic of course because we really think that one where a fabulous full-time immersive experience where you not only learn rigorously and deeply but you also get to share attitudes and inquiries and explorations with your classmates you learn to become critical thinkers and to not take things for granted and to really think about how you're going to progress your career and also the built environment. We are located in New York City and you know what can beat that. Firstly we're able to go out and do events and look at things in New York City with respect to real estate. The other thing is the professors, many of the professors or pretty much most of the professors that you will be learning from are full-time working in New York so they're typically at the cutting edge of what's happening in their field, be it acquisitions or debt structuring or a law or construction or planning or architecture and so on. So that's very exciting to have these top-notch people come in and teach you. You are also able of course to be in touch with a lot of, well be in touch with a lot of alumni that are in New York and able to take part in various of our activities as well. So you really start to build your network with the alumni while you're here in the program. The other thing of course is that real estate I think is a very sort of holistic comprehensive, complex, messy type of activity. Who can define it? Developing a project, getting from a vacant site to a building that's out there making money for someone and housing other people and being an attractive site for other people and so on is a very very complex process. But we really go about it in a way that pulls all these pieces together and just isn't overly focused. We don't say one, there's only one thing that's important, that's finance or there's only one thing that's important, that's design. What we believe is that all of these things merge together to be comprehensively important. So our program really, really does that. All of the courses that you are required to take get everyone onto that same page about that comprehensive and holistic approach. We really think that the graduates of these programs come out very very well rounded and very very social. Truly the events that students put on here and the events that they follow up with once they've graduated and so on just shows them to be continuingly inquisitive and exploring and affable and fun loving. And we really like to see that and I think you get that feeling as soon as you start. But I'm going to let our students now, our current students help you out on some of these insights. So Lizzie, what do you think about that? Did you get the feeling from the beginning? Oh yeah, definitely. My experience in general in this program has been fantastic. It definitely started off with an intense summer and now that we're well into our second semester we are looking into internships and looking towards our careers which is fun to experience because we're meeting a lot of people in the field, a lot of alumni the network here is extremely tight and not just among the students who are in the program with us are cohort but also the alumni network which really opens up a lot of doors. So even within just a semester and a half you're already engaged really well with your alumni. Absolutely and a lot of our professors who are alumni as well they describe their years out of graduation and they describe having still such a close knit community with the people that they graduate with and kind of contacting each other whenever they have, they need more information or they need a partner or they need advice. Exactly, well you know you're always going to be asking someone, so what's the office vacancy in Minnesota right? And you're going to know someone who's there. And also the professors you come across must have been pretty exciting when you started, Steven? I agree, thanks Patrice. I would say that one of the questions you said is what really sets our program apart. And when I was making my decision there were a few things. One was it was a one year program. The other was that the faculty are mostly adjunct professors who are professionals in the field in New York every day. Some are entrepreneurs that run their own business, others work for them, and kind of being a sponge absorbing their knowledge and working with them and working on their projects and receiving feedback from them has actually been really rewarding. That's great. And now what about the dual degree and some of your classmates who've been working with this? How do you think they're managing? Sure, we actually have quite a few dual degree students. Most of them are in the masters of architecture program as well. It is an intense program but it's interesting to see their pursue especially as their coursework is kind of staggered so that they can manage the workload over the I think it's like a three year time. Three and a half year. And actually it's quite nice to have dual degrees as well as single degrees students in the program because a lot of our projects are kind of mini capstone projects where we work with different groups and so having kind of the architecture knowledge as well as then also having people from various different backgrounds, people who are brokers, people who've worked in debt and you have so many different people coming together and it really creates a holistic view of real estate development. If I could actually just add on to that. I would say that I noticed in a lot of the questions it was asking things like do architects struggle? Do finance people struggle? And I would say that one of the things I've actually enjoyed the most about our large group is getting to know everyone and the diversity of backgrounds, the backgrounds you had mentioned as well as the large number of foreign students we have and people who are from all different geographies of the United States North America and being able to work with everyone and kind of combining and meshing all those different perspectives to achieve our group projects has actually been it's interesting here especially coming from a CPA background and hearing from my friends who are architects or construction folks and they just bring an insight that I never had before. That's right so you're up against people with real skill set that's totally foreign to you and now you're going to learn about it and so on and the pain is really shared right? It's not as though someone coming in from finance doesn't need to really work hard to understand planning and zoning requirements and how to resolve design issues and what construction basics are about and so on and similarly people from the architectural side will pick up the finance concepts and some of our best students, some of our top students have come in as architects former architects and so on and put the time in that first semester and you just get very capable with excel and modeling it's a tool that you can use to be even more creative so it's definitely not something for people who don't have a finance background to be a friend of. Absolutely. For me personally I know one of the questions was what was the class that people most struggled with I would say for a good portion of the people finance one in the summer was definitely a very rigorous class kind of learning the basics of these sometimes complex concepts that now seem very basic to us for others it might have been the more development focused or kind of architecture focused classes architecture made more development than architecture but one thing that was really helpful is that we have great professors we have extra tutor sessions that are scheduled into the week weekly and then we also just have as we all mentioned such a great cohort of classmates that someone might be really good at this concept or teaching it and I might help them on that other more urban planning or architecture focused concept in a different class Absolutely, exactly and see people put their hand up for impromptu explanations of things which is really fabulous so on if a good group of the folks are struggling with latest finance concept then but someone knows it really well and has been working with it they just say I'll teach it in the café so it really works very well I think that's great. Some people who are thinking about coming and they make the decision and then they're preparing before starting in June and they say what sort of things could I read or complete or so on before I start the program and I think do read some interesting books about real estate, anything you like quite frankly, it's all informative and if you're not very capable mathematically with Excel modeling then do just try and start with some of the simple formats on that you certainly don't need to come in being able to build real estate models but some facility with financials calculations in Excel is probably pretty good and know your way around an Excel spreadsheet. What about other things do you think Stephen? You know another one is the course work is very interesting. There's some courses that are your traditional academic test driven courses but then a lot is presentation and project based and where I'm really strong in Excel every bit is weak in PowerPoint and so I would say to focus on areas like that. That's true, even get your PowerPoint skills or sketch up. If you don't have an architectural design background, sketch up is quite an easy little program to master and have fun with and you can do your own little illustrations and cartoons for your friends and family as well with that. I would say just kind of keeping up on current events in the real estate world is always a good way to prepare for the program with a basic knowledge and some good questions to ask. You are kind of going to be around professors who are at the cutting edge of a lot of real estate development so it's always good to kind of be in the know and then for me personally because I didn't have a finance background per se, I definitely looked at online courses. I think there's breaking into Wall Street, there's a couple other courses available online and I did spend a good amount of time kind of refining my Excel skills or even just build them up from the ground up and that will prove very valuable once you get here. That's actually a great point about the periodicals, get into the habit of checking the real deal and biz now commercial observer every morning because things change rapidly, especially in New York and the conversation comes up with our professors. That's right, the real deal is online, it is a very good course of real estate activities in North America, it's not just New York, but it's a great overview of everything from deal structuring to development issues and so on and a lot of good gossip too. And then Lizzie, you managed the online course called Breaking Into Wall Street and it is very good, I suggest you do the model that is on basic financial analysis, corporate analysis, not the one on real estate analysis because that is a template that's really probably not as great as you could get, but definitely if you do the Breaking Into Wall Street introduction to financial analysis, that modeling skill is a very competent program and really helps you step through things. So I do suggest that that's a good way of getting those involved. So we need also to talk about how focused the project, we've said how fantastic it is to be in New York, but we don't want to think that it's not, we're just New York centric and we don't care about anything else and what happens anywhere else, the program is full of people from all over the world and they're going to bring questions and things in those other parts of the world, so we can't be New York centric. On the other hand, there's a lot to learn in New York and a lot of things that unfold in other parts of the world are sort of started in New York or tried and tested in New York and so we do use New York zoning and New York urban planning and the U.S. financial structures and the U.S. to be the basically the framework with which you learn about all of those things in a way that's about their essential dynamics, not just with reference to New York. What do you think? Do you think plus we also have in the spring global trips, so you do get to study about and learn about doing cross-border or doing real estate in other parts of the world, so there's definitely that opportunity. Do you find that it's not to New York centric? I completely agree. I would say that most of, I think I probably taken 20 courses now across all the disciplines of real estate and most disciplines from construction to finance, architecture, those are universal disciplines. You know, more zoning, urban planning type of courses maybe geared more towards New York and oftentimes New York will be a case study but I think most of the concepts can be applied most places and I think you find, especially in something like an affordable housing class that Lizzie and I are taking right now affordable housing is probably so much more complex in New York than it is in most places that if you can do it here you can do it anywhere it probably gets easier. Yeah, I agree as well. I think in some of the classes or a good amount of the classes we do use New York as a laboratory but that's not to say that these concepts are not translatable to the US and the world we have students from all over the US and students from all over the world a very good amount so it's also very interesting to hear kind of the global perspective from our students as well as our professors because we do have a lot of global classes we do have these global trips we have students who have taken their own initiative to go on trips to Toronto or different places so there's definitely a global vibe I would say. Absolutely and a club that definitely has people from all over the place and explores their own and so on so I think it's just a lovely rich group of all different perspectives New York's just a good test case as you say a case study in which we can kick it around and see what's good and what's not so good in New York now a lot of people will be of course considering this as very relevant and core to their careers and have some questions about how the program is going to work in with your careers and getting a job and so on and the question is of course what programs are in place to assist students in finding employment upon graduation now we're an educational program we're not a placement centre and so on so we don't actually place students and we don't actually mediate in hiring because that's really beyond our capability but what we do have is a dedicated associate director who that's Rebecca and I think some of you have already been in touch with her and she's the career advisor to students and she is with you from the beginning from summer when you start right through to working with you on getting jobs so what she does is she meets one on one she helps you prepare your packages in terms of where you are thinking of going how you approach that area of the real estate industry what the network is you know and some of our alumni who are out there in that area you get to talk to and basically she'll help you give you advice, she'll give sessions quite a few sessions you've already had some I'm sure on how to present yourself with your resume properly how to do cover letters how to actually articulate your passion and your interests and what you intend to be contributing to a job or to the company that you join she you know teaches you how to put your package together I would say and present yourself accurately also she's very involved in with industry engagement so she's always meeting with those people and understanding what they're looking for and how they judge and assess potential candidates so you know she knows what those companies are looking for what's peculiar about what's interesting or unique about them and so on so she can give you feedback in that as well the type of projects that the type of jobs that people get right across the board we as I say we really believe that real estate is a very broad industry has fascinating aspects right across it but what you learn here is the core fundamental aspects that you can then take and hone to your interest at some point across that spectrum so therefore we have people who really go out and do very different things upon graduation including development some people do development globally other people do just investing globally other people have done structuring financial structuring workouts, asset management managing huge portfolios of properties all over the world and so on so we tend to have companies people from all of those areas we a recent alumni have been employed in related companies Tishmanspire, Oxford properties Credit Suisse, Goldman Sachs Blackstone DDG Partners Alloy Development which is a firm of architect developers the absolute combination of architecture and development by the practitioners themselves RxR, Realty the Durst Corporation Heinz, Excel Development the CIM Group Kyrian Partners and so on so many many types additionally we we have quite a few students who wish to go into the public sector and my background has been back and forth between the public sector and the private sector and I really encourage that so we have very strong relations with a lot of public entities and graduates have found jobs with the New York City Economic Development Corporations, I have someone just getting a job over in San Francisco in one of the planning departments housing authorities all over the world School of Construction and then on some of the public development projects like the Brooklyn Navy Yard and things like that so we have basically great opportunities in all of those fields now do realize that real estate is a very cyclical industry so it is sometimes developments on sometimes developments way off and we have had a very upward particularly in America North America we've had a very booming economy for quite a while and a lot of development has occurred and probably the outlook is that there's not going to be so much development in the next few years as what we've currently done gets absorbed however there's always things to do in real estate and that is managing the existing assets very well to create really good value to reposition them to rethink how they're actually working operationally there's always going to be financial structuring and loans rolling over and all of that type of thing so there's always things to do but just do realize that you've got to be realistic regarding the real estate cycle and so how about you know Stephen your interest in your career and are you seeing that you're able to tailor this and work out how to best ready yourself? Absolutely so I really came here to the big four public accounting arena for a while and I'm looking to transition my career from the back of house back of office to more of the front of office development side and so you know just the experience that we're getting in the classroom and the introduction to certainly course loads that I've never seen before from architecture construction is kind of open my eyes just starting really the career now putting out applications for internships and seeing a lot of different opportunities whether they're development related or finance related I will say that I'm for someone with a finance and accounting background I'm trying to do a little bit something different I'm moving more towards development where I know we had a few people ask questions you know what do finance and accounting people usually do and I think the most important thing for me is to be able to take that role and that's a strong selling point but I'm feeling that in this program it's been good for me to take to retool and to transition and basically be able to make both those possibilities opportunities for myself. Absolutely because you know if you can work out how to finance construction projects and get those fabulous influence from your left. Exactly plus you build a lot of great buildings so and Lizzie how about you? So my background I studied architecture and undergrad since then I've kind of mostly had a career as a professional dancer actually but I've done consulting work in real estate development and I've also worked for the low line organization which is an organization in New York City. So kind of from this background I realized that my passion was not in architecture per se but more in kind of the multi-layered complex large scale development projects where you deal with public private partnerships and just those various different layers of policy and approvals and zoning and all those things that really get me going so I kind of came here with an interest in transit oriented development in infrastructure and public private partnerships and I've definitely I know there was also a question about that specifically and you know it's been great because I've you know since I've been here just through my professors and alumni network and the mentor that GSAP or the MSRI program set me up with I've been able to meet people from the MTA from the EDC from real-estate advisory firms that work in on the public and the private side I just did a site tour at Moynihan Station which is kind of an extension of Penn Station into the old US post office in Midtown, Manhattan and so I've met people from Economic Development excuse me the Empire State Development Corporation and so yeah that's where I'm hoping my career path will lead me. I think it's good you know you decide what you want to do what difference you want to make in the built environment and you know we help you prepare the skills to go out and make it happen I think that's you know that's really what we're able to pull together for you as you come through and you know students often come from we have a lot of students from foreign countries and you know some of them want to go a lot of them obviously want to go back some of them want some experience in New York and ask about how easy it is to get jobs in New York and in America post graduation it is going to be obviously more challenging particularly in the current sort of political environment but you know and that is what it is but you know I think if you get started early you understand that things like doing internships working even during the break over December between mid December and when you come back in January there's a good five weeks and I've had some great students do internships during that time which really set them up well for being able to demonstrate that they've got capability and they know how to be you know effective in an office and so on. So you know it's definitely a challenge but you do have a visa that allows you to do some work experience. The other thing is people ask what sort of housing is here there's a housing lottery that you can enter but it certainly isn't a guarantee so what about job career how people are looking at their careers and you know how they're settling into the city here in New York from other countries maybe we sort of will finish up with a few words on that. Sure so I know a lot of my classmates they have housing through the lottery or they secured housing privately in apartments usually on the Upper West side some in midtown and a lot of them are rooming together so they found each other had a good living relationship there I would say from a career perspective it's really interesting to get to know people and this is all part of the networking and getting to know the classmates is some of our overseas classmates want to stay in New York and others actually have family offices or family buildings or aspirations to go back home and do big projects there so it's an interesting mix it's a very diverse group but I feel like everyone really has an idea of what they want to do and they're following their ambitions which is great. And Lizzie are you seeing people sort of getting more information as they learn more about you know and sort of assessing and building what they want to do oh yeah absolutely that's for all of the students as I've gotten here I've refined what I want to do even more and you know for international students who I know many of I think a lot of them really take advantage of the networking opportunities and they kind of go out of their way to go to site visits go to office visits speak to professionals in the field sometimes they offer to help professionals in the field kind of just on the side just for their own learning experience and I know a lot of them are looking towards internships as we are too to kind of give us extra credentials for when we go out into the the job hunt in the summer. Very good anyway last few words your words of advice from being all of this you know few months in to prospective students why should they come you should come whether you are making a transition or you are trying to retool and improve yourself in the industry I will say the questions that were submitted were really interesting there were a lot of very common themes if you are concerned about a certain mold here at Columbia if you are not financial enough or you are not architectural enough don't worry about it it actually I think adds to the richness of the experience everyone's different background if you have an interest and a passion in real estate and you have an ambition or a dream that you want to follow come here immerse yourself in the program learn from these great professors and you will be better off for it Lizzie? Agreed I also saw that kind of and just to go off on that also as far as age we have so many people who have just graduated we have people who are well into their other careers who are looking to transition so there are people from all walks of life and it is just a great program I am super happy here frankly and glad to be here it's intense it's rigorous but in the best way you are going to learn so much so quickly great well thank you we do hope you will join us if you love the built environment if you love real estate if you love thinking about it creating it, building it, financing and so on we are here we are going to make sure that as a professional you are smart strong and socially responsible thank you look forward to seeing you