Hands on a live REIT portfolio at Wisconsin

Another entry in our Meet Our Current Students series, this week from first-year real estate MBA student Kan Zuo:

In the last couple of weeks, the Wisconsin School of Business and the James A. Graaskamp Center for Real Estate both greeted many prospective students. One thing attracting them is the hands-on approach to business education that exists here at UW-Madison.

Specifically, the Graaskamp Center offers the AREIT (Applied Real Estate Investment Track) program in which students not only learn about real estate financial markets from textbooks and classes but also manage a live $1 million portfolio of real estate investment trusts (REITs) and real estate operating companies.

This semester, the Real Estate 740 class Real Estate Capital Markets: REITs and Other Equity Investments provides a foundation for the challenge. Students interested in the AREIT program can also take the applied security analysis class (Finance 535) offered by the business school as additional preparation. Last week, David Shulman, director of the AREIT program, also gave an interesting speech to both the Real Estate 740 class and the Real Estate Club about the future of the REIT industry.

Kan Zuo is a first year MBA student in the James A. Graaskamp Center for Real Estate. Originally from China, he completed his undergraduate education at Beloit College in 2006 with a double major in Economics and Management and International Relations. As an undergraduate, he interned with the U.S. Senate Committee on Health, Education, Labor and Pensions.

The first program of its kind in the country, the Applied Real Estate Investment Track (AREIT) allows a team of 2nd-year MBA students the opportunity to manage a real-world portfolio invested in real estate investment trusts (REITs). Learn more about this innovative program here.