Alums Make Contribution to PRE

The Cornell Real Estate Industry Seminar has been a treasured experience of students in the Program in Real Estate since its inception in 1996.  And now, a Program alumnus has recreated the seminar experience at Konkuk University in Korea which features Program in Real Estate alums as seminar speakers and brings together the over 50 Korean PRE alums.  The ten PRE alumni who participated in Konkuk University’s Real Estate Industry Seminar thus far are:
• Sungmok Ryu (2001)
• Charles Kwon (2002)
• Hugh Park (2003)
• Changhoon Choi (2003)
• Andie Kang (2004)
• Chaewook Im (2005)
• Suyong Son (2005)
• Juno Hwang (2005)
• Yuseok Kim (2005)
• Inhwan Lee (2006)

The Cornell alums spoke about current issues surrounding their specific fields and shared their industry expertise with current students and faculty at the South Korean University. Seungwoo Shin, PRE ’01, is the coordinator of the Industry Seminar and an assistant professor at Konkuk University. Shin modeled the Seminar at Konkuk after the Cornel Real Estate Industry Seminar. The weekly Industry Seminar at Cornell University is an integral part the student curriculum within the Program in Real Estate and is designed to provide practical industry experience from seasoned professionals. Justin Boon, PRE’12, describes the Industry Seminar as “a fantastic, hands-on approach to learning about different areas in real estate. It’s great to learn from the experiences of others – to see what has worked and what has not and why.” Students of Kankuk University will now have the opportunity to learn from experienced individuals and will benefit from the educational platform that these alumni have obtained at Cornell University. Chaewook Im, PRE’05, explains, “The motivation was very simple. We wanted to share what we have and do meaningful things for our community. We all volunteered to help the students of Konkuk’s real estate program as a way of sharing our experience and knowledge with them.”

In addition to the extension of the Seminar Series, the alumni made a generous monetary donation to the Program in Real Estate at Cornell University. Many graduates from the Program in Real Estate obtain jobs in diverse places around the world and are unable to visit campus to meet current students and participate in lectures. However, many alumni give back to the Program with gracious contributions, which go toward funds which are used for scholarships and events for current students. Mr. Im communicated to PRE, “You cannot imagine how proud we are of being Cornell alumni and intend to contribute these funds to benefit students and the PRE.”

The Program would like to recognize this charitable contribution and extend our gratitude to the generous alumni who participated in the Industry Seminar at Konkuk University.
The Program is proud to have such giving alumni and would like to extend a note of gratitude to all who have given back to the Program in any manner. This spirit of contribution stems from participating in a Program that focuses on team-work among all members of the Cornell Real Estate network, from the classroom to the workplace.