Real Estate and Badgers Football

Excitement on campus is high as the UW Badgers football team prepares for its 2011 appearance at the Rose Bowl. As the semester winds down, alumni, students and fans are busily making plans to watch the game. Tickets may be hard to come by, but that hasn't dampened the enthusiasm. It's the seventh trip to Pasadena in school history, and the team's first time since 2000.

All the talk about Badgers football reminded us of Wisconsin Real Estate's football connection through real estate graduate and current Cleveland Browns tackle Joe Thomas. Thomas graduated in 2007 with a B.S. in Real Estate and Urban Land Economics and was subsequently drafted by the Browns.

We looked back in our news archives to June 2007 for an interview we did with Thomas talking about his interest in real estate, what he got out of the program, and his strong work ethic. Here is an excerpt:

What did you like about real estate?

“I think real estate is more hands-on than a lot of other majors. You’re doing a lot more stuff in the field, not so much sitting in a cubicle or at a desk. And just about everybody is affected by it. Anybody who plans on owning a house, it’s such a big advantage to take a real estate class, and to be able to know about a mortgage, what your best options are when buying a house or looking for property.”

What real estate classes did you take, and were they challenging?

“I took Real Estate Process, with Sharon McCabe; Valuation and Appraisal, also with Sharon; Urban & Land Economics, with Morris Davis; Finance, with François Ortalo-Magné; and Residential Development, with Tom Landgraf.

“To me, the whole real estate program just makes sense. A lot of people who are really good at math say that it makes sense to them, and that’s kind of how real estate is to me. It's like a puzzle; everything fits together. It’s not just memorizing it, you just understand it.”

What else did you like about the real estate program?

“The networking and connections that you make. That’s part of the reason why this is the number 1 program in the country: you are involved with different groups, you do projects with each other, you form great friendships. The people you meet here are the people who are going to help you get a job down the line.”

To read the rest of the interview with Thomas, click through to our News Archive.

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