AREC Completes Rewarding West Coast Career Trek
During ULI Live!, the Urban Land Institute’s annual Fall Meeting and Urban Land Exposition, which was attended by PRE students and faculty, as well as several Johnson MBA students in Los Angeles over October 25th to 28th, Cornell’s Associate Real Estate Council (AREC) organized one of its signature “Career Treks”. The trek took a contingent of Cornell students to the offices of three different southern California companies: (i) Colony Capital in Santa Monica; (ii) Westport Capital in El Segundo; and (iii) JP Morgan in Century City. Later that evening, students attended a Halloween party in Los Angeles that was hosted by their colleagues from the University of Southern California’s Masters in Real Estate Development Program.
AREC organizes several career treks each year in order to provide its members with the opportunity to meet industry leaders and gain first hand exposure to a variety of real estate companies and industry roles. It is just one of several career-oriented programs that AREC has implemented in recent years.
At Colony Capital, a major private equity firm that focuses on real estate and real estate-related debt instruments and operating companies, the group met with two of the firm’s Vice-Presidents, who described their acquisition philosophy and fielded questions from the students regarding a wide range of real estate and finance topics.
At Westport Capital the group met with firm principal Sean Armstrong, who walked them through the dynamics of the company’s deal making process. Mr. Armstrong also provided students with an in-depth perspective on how aspiring real estate private equity professionals can best position themselves for the job market, stressing the value of developing strong modeling skills and having a genuine passion for the industry.
The group finished the trek at the offices of JP Morgan, where they were treated to a fascinating exposure to the equity side of the firm’s business. AREC members were very pleased with the trek. Said first-year PRE student Victoria Zoghbi, “The AREC leaders organized another great trek. The level of access that we had with high-level decision makers in these firms was incredible and we had a very rare opportunity to ask whatever questions we wanted of them. You don’t get that type of experience every day.”
During the remainder of the academic year, AREC has career treks planned for Brazil, New York City, Boston, Chicago and Toronto. For more information regarding AREC and its career trek program, please visit www.realestate.cornell.edu or contact AREC Co-Presidents Tim Shaughnessy (tcs82@cornell.edu) or Dylan Fonseca (dff29@cornell.edu).