MBA Real Estate Program Overview
The Real Estate Program builds upon the strengths of Columbia Business School’s top-ranking MBA program, providing students an unparalleled opportunity to expand their entrepreneurial skills while focusing on real estate finance and investment management. Global and local themes are woven throughout the curriculum, and many of the 65+ proprietary real estate business cases published by Columbia CaseWorks, are taught in the classroom by the very professionals who managed the transactions under discussion. The academic curriculum is further enhanced by the integration of industry leaders as guest lecturers.
To focus your studies in real estate at Columbia Business School, students should take Real Estate Finance, the gateway course into the Real Estate Program, plus at least three additional real estate electives (9 credits worth). As well, students recruiting for real estate internships and employment opportunities should identify themselves by remitting their resume to the Paul Milstein Center for Real Estate’s MBA Real Estate Resume Book.
01. Educational Mission
The educational goal of the Columbia MBA Real Estate Program is the advancement of professional business knowledge through research, curriculum innovations, and teaching excellence. A rigorous curriculum — combined with an expert faculty and a wide range of extracurricular activities run out of the Paul Milstein Center for Real Estate — makes Columbia unparalleled as the place for graduate business study in real estate.
02. Logic Behind Our Curriculum
We have deliberately designed a curriculum that aims to foster sophistication in critical thinking as well as analytical skills, and knowledge of the institutional structures of the real estate industry as well as its financial tools and frameworks for smart decision making. Real Estate electives, which build on the MBA program's rigorous core curriculum, reflect the demands of the industry, and its changing financial landscape.
03. Integration of Theory and Practice
We structure our real estate courses such that they integrate theory and practice. We accomplish the theory/practice integration in five principal ways:
- Use of Columbia CaseWorks real estate cases in each of our courses; since 1991, we have developed upwards of 65 proprietary cases
- Instruction by experienced industry professionals who serve as dedicated adjunct professors and innovators of curriculum materials
- Participation of industry professionals as guest lecturers in each of our courses
- Building upon the depth and diversity of the University's intellectual resources
- Leveraging the richness of New York City's real estate market as a laboratory for learning
