2008 Woodie Awards
Sy Syms' New Real Estate Minor Proves Popular With Students
Eric Adelman
Issue date: 3/8/05 Section: News
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Sy Syms' newest minor is off to a running start. The field of real estate has long been a favorite among investors in general and orthodox Jews in particular. With its new real estate minor, Sy Syms aims to enable its students to compete with graduates from other top-notch universities in this highly competitive marketplace. The university has taken numerous steps to ensure that students receive hands-on instruction, and each and every professor teaching real estate courses possesses a large amount of personal experience in the field.
According to Charles Snow, Dean of the Sy Syms School of Business, the impetus for the establishment of a five-course minor was student based. "I saw that there was a large interest on the part of the students to go into real estate as a career." Snow recruited Stuart Verstandig, YC '80, FGS '83, RIETS '84, a real estate professional with extensive experience in property management and brokerage. In addition to assisting in drafting the program of courses for the minor, Verstandig says that he was "involved with recruiting professionals with certain expertise to teach the courses. They had spoken in my courses before, and they are top-notch guys."
In structuring the courses that would comprise the new minor, Snow acknowledged the need for a combination of broad-based information as well as specialization. "The goal is to give people enough core knowledge so that if they decide to specialize within the real estate industry, they have the tools to go out and launch a career." Associate Dean Ira Jaskoll commented that "it's not just book knowledge; you're going to learn practical applications and make contacts."
Last semester Sy Syms offered a course in Real Estate Law for the first time. The course dealt with basic principles of real estate property law for investment, lending, leasing and development for both residential and commercial transactions. Additionally, two sections of Principles of Real Estate were taught on the Wilf Campus. The offerings this semester include Principles of Real Estate, Real Estate Investment and Real Estate Management.
According to Charles Snow, Dean of the Sy Syms School of Business, the impetus for the establishment of a five-course minor was student based. "I saw that there was a large interest on the part of the students to go into real estate as a career." Snow recruited Stuart Verstandig, YC '80, FGS '83, RIETS '84, a real estate professional with extensive experience in property management and brokerage. In addition to assisting in drafting the program of courses for the minor, Verstandig says that he was "involved with recruiting professionals with certain expertise to teach the courses. They had spoken in my courses before, and they are top-notch guys."
In structuring the courses that would comprise the new minor, Snow acknowledged the need for a combination of broad-based information as well as specialization. "The goal is to give people enough core knowledge so that if they decide to specialize within the real estate industry, they have the tools to go out and launch a career." Associate Dean Ira Jaskoll commented that "it's not just book knowledge; you're going to learn practical applications and make contacts."
Last semester Sy Syms offered a course in Real Estate Law for the first time. The course dealt with basic principles of real estate property law for investment, lending, leasing and development for both residential and commercial transactions. Additionally, two sections of Principles of Real Estate were taught on the Wilf Campus. The offerings this semester include Principles of Real Estate, Real Estate Investment and Real Estate Management.