College Major

[joker]

Hey everyone ill be attending college soon but im still deciding on a major. Im going to start wholesaling this summer and move into residential and commercial real estate down the road. Im looking at marketing or business management but don’t know which will be more beneficial to my real estate career. Which do you think is the best choice and why?

[NoMoneyDown]

Every person has their own opinion about this.  I would either focus on one or the other, exclusively, or do REI and just take some of your core courses (i.e., english, history, communication, math) first and see where you're at 1-2 semesters from when you started.  I think you may have to declare a major at the beginning, but that doesn't mean you can't change it later.

[Rich_in_CT]

You can be undeclared and take classes from each as electives to get yourself as much knowledge as you can.

[fadi]

I would not focus on getting a degree with something related to real estate. Get a degree in something you can use if your real estate career does not work out. None of us have related degree, and none needed.

[propertymanager]

I agree with Fadiz.  I would get a degree in something that will allow you to make good money if real estate doesn't work out (or you don't like it).  A lifetime can be a LONG time and many people have several different careers.

Good Luck,

Mike

[cRod]

I am on getting my degree in Finance in hopes of being able to get a high paying job straight out of college and begin to build my real estate empire on the side.

Long term goal - have enough passive income to be able to quit my job and do real estate full-time.  Untill then I wiill need a source of income to live off of and also for inital investments.

[71tr]

Marketing and Business Management degrees are a waste of time.  As mentioned, get your first two years of core curriculum out of the way and then select a major that you enjoy.  Be it engineering, social services or accounting study what you love.  Real estate investing can be learned on the job as they say but I will suggest some finance classes as they are beneficial and will put you above the average RE investor and most of the gurus.

[jharris]

I spent more than 8 years in college if you count the times I quit and got a job for a couple of semesters then came back.  I've been in the real estate business for all of my working life and I've never had a regular job since college.  I didn't attend graduation and never picked up my degree, which is in Economics (Magna Cum Laude), but I sincerely wish I had paid more attention to:

Accounting: you have to get loans and you need to be able to read and explain your own finacial statements even if you don't prepare them. 

English/business communication: If you are in business for yourself you'll need to draft formal letters, business plans, deeds, etc.  I estimate that my company saves more than $10,000 per year by drafting our own legal documents. 

Spanish: I'm in Texas.  If I spoke Spanish I'd be much much richer.  Statistically, my Hispanic customers are more than twice as likely to pay their bills as their English speaking counterparts.

Speech: The day will come when you'll need to stand up and talk in front of people.  Practice is the only way to be able to do that without your knees knocking together. (joining a Toastmasters club may be better than a college class for this one)

Math: One day you'll be standing in a rehab wanting to put an arch over the doorway and wondering how to figure out the radius of a circle when you only have a short arc to start with.  Or you'll need to figure out (quickly) whether the tile guy is billing you for more square footage than you have in the tiled areas of the house.

I think that every young person should get a job in sales with a company that has a good training program.  This will be your most valuable education.

I hope this helps.  I've probably left out vital courses and added some things that you could easily hire someone to do. 

[MERRR]

Hey Joker, Im in your same position....Im currently a sophmore and I have spent the past 2 years getting my core classes out of the way....I am now majoring in Finance and the school that I attend (University of Dayton) offers many real estate classes as electives in this major....I am also minoring in entrepreneurship which I have found is going to help my out a lot....If your school offers an entrepreneurship program I would definately reccommend that...

Thats my 2 cents anyway...best of luck

[Bluemoon06]

Major in engineering work for a major company make them pay for your MBA and then leave to work for another major company and make them pay you gobbs of money and build your lifestyle on that income.  Then take real estate to replace that income house by single family house.

[marcus335]

Major in engineering work for a major company make them pay for your MBA and then leave to work for another major company and make them pay you gobbs of money and build your lifestyle on that income.  Then take real estate to replace that income house by single family house.

That sounds like me.  I wouldn't call it gobbs of money but my job is low stress and just 40 hours a week.  I can't really complain.  It gives you a broad range of experiences too.

[RP]

there certainly are worse decisions that going to college and i must admit i'm a college graduate but if i had it to do all over again i'm not so sure i'd even go to college.  all i ever learned was how to work for someone else which is something i never wanted to do in the first place.  check out jjluna.com he's got a book about going to college vs not going to college although the title escapes me.

[Funder]

     I have a bachelor's credential.  I am a Registered Nurse in angiography.  If I could go back and do it again, I would major in structural engineering or finance.
     Economic indicators, such as unemployment or business failure rates will give you and idea of economic conditions.
     Economic conditions will allow you to make decisions about the market, whether it involves real estate or stocks or business.
     Science has a formula: collect data, form a hypothesis, perform research, and decide upon a conclusion.
     Everyone seems to endorse a degree in finance or engineering.  Either one could help you if you went into real estate or land development.  A personal bias would be that if you apply a scientific formula to a business structure, you would be able to develop a system that would work over and over again to a model that was fasioned by prior business success.
     Personally, I think that a college education would prepare you for the real challenge in business; in the words of Donald Trump:
     "People often ask me the secret to my success, and the answer is simple: focus, hard work, and tenacity."
     Unless you are a very talented salesperson, I believe a degree in real estate would be a waste of time.

[gsuidiot]

Ok, here's my wasteful thoughts...

College vs. No College

Well, no you don't need an education to become successful in this country.  However, you do need to be able to understand what the heck you're reading and know whether or not the underlying data makes sense.  If anyone out there is smart enough to just run into a deal and get rich, it's because their trust fund gave them that option.  I think it's stupid to think you can do anything without an education.  If that were the case, you would be able to read this without your mother spending the time to teach you the abc's.  Brilliant, rich people all have a base to fall back on.  No one can develop something without some sort of education.  College is not necessary but you do need someone or something to teach you what the heck you're doing.

Which subject should you choose?  Does it really matter?  College is meant to prove to an employer that you're capable of learning and retaining information.  If you can't pass a test why would they want to pay you income to fail.  You can go to school for arts and crafts and learn how to function within a corporation. 

The comment about getting a finance degree to make a ton of money out of college is just ludacris.  A degree does not determine your success...your ability to communicate with other people and make conscious decisions will determine your success. 

Take the classes you enjoy and try to retain as much as possible.  Come back to this post 2 years after college and try explaining something you learned in class....it will be long gone.

Thank you for your time.

G

[cRod]

gsuidiot,

If you major in something useful (like finance) I am not saying you will make "a ton of money" but you will likely be able to find a pretty decent job straight out of college.  Now if you waste your time and get a degree in music or something like that... well you might be doing the same work after your graduate as you were during college.