DENVER—Students graduating from university commercial real estate programs vary greatly in the types of jobs and careers they are looking to have, faculty members of these programs tell GlobeSt.com. We spoke exclusively with several such educators to discover which careers graduates are seeking and obtaining after completing today's university-level CRE courses. For a more in-depth feature article on the evolution of university commercial real estate programs, stay tuned for the July/August issue of Real Estate Forum.

GlobeSt.com: What types of real estate careers are the students who take university commercial real estate courses looking to have?

Jeff Engelstad, CCIM, clinical professor, Burns School of Real Estate & Construction Management, Daniels College of Business, University of Denver: The field of real estate has become more sophisticated, from small entrepreneurial firms to the very big firms, and the need for specialized education has increased. Graduating students are either entrepreneurial minded and want to work with a small firm or start their own, or they are looking to get brand-name recognition experience at a big firm. They either will go out as an analyst for a REIT or pension fund or they might go out as a development assistant. Surprisingly, very few students in university programs see themselves doing brokerage. I absolutely concur with some of them that brokerage is a fantastically interesting occupation, but there is a stigma attached to brokerage of someone hawking deals. But I always tell them, “If you're good at brokerage, you can buy and sell all these analysts.” Pretty much everybody in a university program in real estate wants to be a developer—and these days, not only a developer, but also an urban-infill, mixed-use, green developer, which is totally OK when you're in a university program; they should be thinking about the coolest thing they can do.

Shawn D. Howton, PhD, Villanova University faculty director, Daniel M. DiLella Center for Real Estate, Associate Professor of Finance, Villanova, PA: The most common careers for real estate students in business schools are real estate investment analyst at both public (REITs) and private (PE mostly) firms, real estate services such as property management and brokerage, real estate finance with commercial banks and valuation and consulting services, generally with big-four accounting firms. Real estate careers for students in broader programs are almost endless in their description.

Morris A. Davis, academic director and Paul V. Profeta chair of the Center for Real Estate at Rutgers Business School, Newark, NJ: The beauty of the Rutgers Business School Center for Real Estate is that our very active and involved advisory board is composed of top professionals from every corner of the real estate industry—from development, ownership and investment, to sales, brokerage and leasing, to architects, lawyers, construction executives, planners, accountants and bankers. If there is a career with a concentration in real estate—either commercial or residential—we will be able to structure a program that provides not only academic training, but real-world, hands-on experience.

Margaret McFarland, JD, clinical professor, director, Colvin Institute of Real Estate Development, University of Maryland, College Park, MD: Careers vary depending on the emphasis the student takes typically. They take on owner's rep during construction; they do financial analyst for development, consulting and asset-management companies; they work in corporate real estate for companies large and small, and in facilities management for large organizations; and acquisitions manager for development companies, community relations/entitlements, etc.

Rosemary Scanlon, divisional dean, Schack Institute of Real Estate, NYU School of Professional Studies, New York: Our graduate students have a wide range of career options in the finance area, in development projects, in construction and in geographic choice. In finance, the careers can range from commercial or investment banking to real estate portfolios in the insurance industry or in the private-equity or hedge-fund sectors. Our graduate students in development can choose careers in large development firms/projects, in medium-sized or smaller firms or branch out to launch their own company. There is considerable interest in building affordable housing, increased interest in developing senior housing, always a wide range of choices in commercial, office, hotel and retail. Sustainability issues are threaded throughout these career choices. We also have some very entrepreneurial students who want to start their own business and some from real estate business families.

In addition, since 30% of our graduate students are from other countries, many return to their home countries with their newfound knowledge and skills, often with some New York work experience form internships or the permitted one year of work following graduation. A recent graduate from Costa Rica is back home beginning development of a major resort project; another graduate in construction management is back home in Shanghai working for a New York developer on a major mixed-use development. A graduate in the MSRE program from Colombia is now in Mexico on a significant assignment in equity investment in REITs.

Albert Saiz, director, Dan Rose associate professor of urban economics and real estate, MIT Center for Real Estate, Cambridge, MA: I can't speak about students in other programs, simply because some programs focus on design/development only or on finance/economics only, but in MIT's program, students come from all areas of the industry: design, development, asset management, finance, economics, architecture, law, consulting—a wide range of disciplines. Some students come to the program to gain more knowledge and take the next step forward—from analyst to senior analyst, project manager to director. Some students come as a means to make a career change. We regularly see students come in from design and want to transition into investment, or students in finance want to take on a role in development. While a vague answer, it's also the best, I think—the beauty of such diversified courses and students means the industry is getting midi-career professionals coming back from a graduate program with an understanding of a large part of the industry and the ability to apply it. The real commonality among the professional path of the students in MIT's program is that students regularly take on a leadership position in their corner of the industry.