I am currently a underclass man in college. I am currently a econ major and waiting to decide what major I want to declare. I was not ready for how difficult econ is and am wondering the best major for RE development. I am interested in marketing and construction management. Is there other majors that are good for RE development?
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I went the construction management route, I would recommend doing finance or real estate (if your school offers). Internships are what will set you apart.
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Civil engineering will probably teach you more information that is actually useful for development than any other major you could do. Finance will also teach you some useful info, but if you're smart enough to graduate with a civil engineering degree, you're smart enough to learn how to do a DCF model in a lot less time than four years.
As someone with a CE background, DON'T do this unless you really want a more holistic view of how buildings are built. I hear this a lot, but I think my path would have been way more straightforward if I just majored in Finance. I think that from an overall perspective it's better, but you have to go out of your way to learn a lot of the finance, which in the beginning stages of your career are more important than the building understanding portion. It's way easier to just plug and play an analyst in excel and design/construction/execution is a higher level skillset, which would be just learned over exposure and time.
I'd say that your overall quantitative chops and understanding of building buildings as a whole will be much stronger, but they're not necessarily applicable and you'll have to do a lot of work outside of your courses to learn the specifics. Your recruitment will be much less straightforward than if given the resources from a finance perspective.
The question of what's the most straightforward path to the career and the question of what teaches you the most that would be useful for that career are distinct questions.
This is the way. My undergrad roommate liked civil engineering so it was a breeze for him my other friends didn’t like CE and suffered all 4 years especially with soils, and dif-eq
I did econ but suggest finance. More important than your major is the internships you do. Getting something in real estate finance/repe/brokerage would be a huge leg up and real estate isn't rocket science at the end of the day.
Agreed, I did accounting at a top accounting program and totally wish I would've done finance. In the end, RE finance isn't rocket science though, so any business major will help a bit when it comes to learning at work. Sometimes I wish I did construction management too....
Could I send you a PM to learn more on why you wish you did Construction Management
Straight path to development, probably an analyst role.
In my experience, development attracts people with mixed and varied experience. There are more analyst positions in development today then there were before.
Accounting vs Finance major? I think accounting with electives in finance and real estate. More optionality. Accounting principles, if you understand them, they are a technical skillset and versatile - since your path might not be straight.
Focus on getting internships in real estate while in college.
Alternatively, graduate as an Econ major (don’t switch majors unless maybe Political Science/Sociology/or some other Social Science major captures your eye, then power through and try to get by, take intro accounting and a real estate elective, and maybe a corporate finance elective, while an undergrad - try to graduate undergrad in 4 years or less) and then do a part time Masters of Accounting program (get straight A’s, club leadership positions). Save your business core classes for your future Top MBA after you figure out your path several years later. I did something like this. You’ll graduate in 5-6 years but with a masters and good work and extracurricular experience.
Why I like humanities/ social science majors with a hard skill like Accounting, is you mentioned you enjoy construction management AND marketing. It is a rare and valuable personality and mindset to have high level creativity combined with hard skills. This is a great tool kit for development. Plus, writing and research skills are an important skill that will help you write an Investment Thesis, Investment Committee Memo, or advocating for a deal or investment. The work is not all financial modeling. The evaluation of soft and hard trends are important - Econ, Sociology, population analysis - you want to get Long View perspective.
Civil Engineering and a Business degree have too much core requirements that are going to make you graduate in 5-6 years with only a bachelor’s.
Short answer: finance. If they offer a concentration in real estate, do it.
CM and CE are both great as well but for entry it’s better to have an understanding in finance rather than construction.
Also note: if you are a 1st year you may change your major as you find new interest (I changed mine twice). You need to think down the road if you were to graduate then decide you no longer are interested in development, CM probably wouldn’t be your best bet. If you are interested in other avenues in finance such as banking, PE, HF, etc. then finance will be great given the range. CE also poses good opportunity if you are interested in the industry and work of engineers.
Think - this is why advisors ADVISE students to not major in polysci to go to law school, especially if they are not interested in the political science field - they advise other routes in the case you change your mind upon graduation and no longer want to pursue law school.
Read as many books as you can over development and take courses in your free time. This is the quickest indicator to see if you are genuinely passionate about the space. Best of luck.
Short answer is that there is no best degree - lots of different paths to get into development. It’s a generalist field.
Finance I think would be most straight forward way in. As other mentioned internships will help more than the degree here though.
I think a route that would help create long term success for you would be to get a construction management or civil engineering degree, work for a GC for a few years then get and MBA, and then go to work for developer. It will be a much slower progression but you’ll probably be the most successful in your career doing this. GCs typically have really good project management training.
Last piece of advice - go into something you enjoy. What ever interests you the most will probably help propel you towards success the fastest.
I’d say you can never go wrong with majoring in Finance.
If you’re 1000% sure you want to do RE long-term, then major in RE or something that’s closest to RE (Civil Engineering, Construction Management, Urban Planning).
My school had a Finance RE concentration but I went ahead and opted for the general Finance degree option since I wasn’t sure if I’d actually end up with a career in real estate. I figured I would keep my options open by not having the Finance RE concentration as my degree.
Either way, it didn’t hurt me. Now I’m interning at an institutional dev, and fingers crossed, I’ll find out this month whether I’m staying on FT.
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