Iowa Real Estate Convention

I spent the other day at the Iowa Real Estate Convention hosted by the area CCIM chapter. It went fantastically! I really want to get into commercial real estate outside of college, and since we do have any kind of real estate education program at Drake like they do at UNI or even any course you can take, I've really just been trying to take the initiative to reach out to professionals and earn my our kind of education outside of the classroom. Which think I've kind of got an advantage in that sense over the UNI students. UNI has an excellent real estate program up there, but a classroom understanding of the industry is never as valuable as a real world, first-hand understanding of it. Plus, at the convention I was the only Drake student there, so I had reach out to people and build as many connections as possible, while a lot of the UNI folks there kind of stuck together at times. I have a fire lit under me, and you can't beat that.

Really, though, the whole day was just tremendously beneficial. If any students or prospect students read this post, my main advice for you, if you want the career of your dreams, you have to actively go reach out to the business community. They love to young faces there especially students. Many of the professionals in the area are more than happy to help you succeed, but they are not going to know about you until you take the initiative to introduce yourself.