This is the second part in a series called Diary of a Grad Student.  Our writer is a current Master of Science in Real Estate candidate at Baruch College in New York.  She will be chronicling her everyday experiences as a student in the graduate program.  Check back here each week for more!

The week before last I attended a workshop at Baruch in partnership with CREFC (Commercial Real Estate Finance Council).  The event had a lovely lunch and great discussion of updated market trends. I had had classes regarding structured products before, but the information provided here really opened my eyes. It was an exciting opportunity to develop stronger relationships with professionals and my fellow classmates – of course the pizza was also incredible!

Since the new semester has begun and I’m going to graduate next summer, the recruiting season has made me a little bit lost. I mean, I’ve always known what I would like to do is real estate finance. It looks like a narrowed down field in finance industry, right? But still, there are so many options, from commercial to residential, from origination to research, from buy side to sell side. Even I do have a specific interest, it’s never easy to break into. Trust me, the job market out there is cruel and it’s always an uphill battle for international students like myself.  Going to workshops like the Baruch-CREFC event helps me narrow down my options while making connections with people in the field.

The workshop was quite informative. The guest speaker, Constantine “Tino” Korologos gave some advice regarding career searching, which was quite insightful to me. He mentioned that a lot of people who started their career at rating agencies later moved to sell/buy side as their experience at rating agencies was appreciated. This made me think that keeping my mind open to different institutions and positions may be a good idea as long as the skills are applicable in what I want to do. Of course, who doesn’t want to get into big names upon graduation? But sticking to those large institutions could also limit my own choices.

The Department of Real Estate is going to hold a career panel in October and will invite four professionals in the real estate industry to help students regarding job search.  I think this will be a great opportunity to learn from and network with real estate professionals, and to keep figuring out what I want to do upon graduation.

I am very excited for the career panel and can’t wait to hear what insiders have to say about their jobs and how they got them.

– Shuo Wang, MS Real Estate