Growing beyond my expectations: The Kellogg-GSB Real Estate Challenge

This past quarter I got selected to work with a team on a Real Estate Competition between Kellogg and the GSB. Essentially both schools come up with a proposal for a plot of land which is for sale by the City of Chicago. For Kellogg which has a phenomenal RE program, it is actually run as a independent project and counts as a class. For us, just a competition; it has been held every year for the past 6 years. Having barely any Real Estate background, except for a project I worked on in Lao P.D.R., I felt it would be a great way to learn more about the industry. Our team had one 2nd year who had a RE background so she really helped lay the groundwork for what needed to be done.

Ironically, our project proposed developing a student housing development with a retail component, and so did Kellogg’s. I didn’t get to see their presentation but given the fact that the judges deliberated for an hour and a half to decide the winner, we as a team with no Real Estate coaches to guide us through felt we had really accomplished something! We have only won this competition once before and lost 5 times, but despite the chips stacked against us, we felt we could give them a fight, so our goal had certainly been accomplished.

In fact, we have one of their faculty joining our school next year to develop the real estate program. I have really developed a love for Real Estate through this project and by far have found my macroeconomic skills most applicable in terms of understanding market dynamics and the correlation with trends in demand forces. In a month I leave for a summer in investment banking and am hoping I shall get my top group preference, which was real estate.

When the judges came out with the result, the GSB had won for only the second time ever and the first time in the past 4 yrs. It feels great to have accomplished this, and while the win is the icing on the cake, all value had been added much before.

For someone with a macroeconomics background, to be able to work on a Real Estate project, learn from colleagues, who have had experience in the field, and with an architect who helped in adding color to a vision, is another testament to what an oyster of opportunity business school is.

The Fountain…

A few years ago I remember being asked whether I think I control my destiny. I looked at the person and said, “No One else can”. He went on to tell me that apparently no one controls their own destiny, bu those who think they do are more often than not more successful that those who believe they don’t.

I looked in amazement confused, but wrote it off to yet another one of those paradoxes of life you never quite understand but just accept. But now that I think back upon it, I wonder if in some remote indirect way, does this reflect on my own innate subservient subconscious disposition? (cant find a better way to articulate that …my apologies)

I recently watched a movie called The Fountain, I had never heard about it but Hugh Jackman was reason enough… I think he is a brilliant actor, who’s true ability is yet to be realized. This movie was gives us a glimpse of his versatility and acting repertoire. Made by the same director who did Requiem for a Dream, the movie is three stories which run parallel, and find a common ground. The beauty of this movie lies in it allowing you to define your own interpretation. 5 years ago, while having my portfolio evaluated by my photography professor, I was asked how I developed this passion and what I sought from my photographs. I paused a moment trying to find words to describe it and then realized there were none. I wanted to see things from my own perspective and capture them yet I wanted the composition to be malleable enough to be interpreted by anyone in the way they wanted to. This is one of the few movies I have come across, which seems to provide the same fabric, maturing one’s own interpretation of life, our beliefs, desires and vices.

For me the movie was not really 3 different stories but one which was experienced across different levels of the subconscious. Life as an idealistic desire, as a purposeful existence and a harsh reality. Now I think back on things and I remember 5 years ago sitting answering the question about controlling destiny, i wonder if that was phase one of a journey i have embarked upon unconsciously to figure out who the hell I am and what really the purpose of my life is.

A friend of mine called me the other day, distraught cause he felt his life was going no where and he saw to light at the end of the tunnel, no idea of what he really wanted but only knowing that he didn’t want everything he had right now professionally. This was certain a place I found myself in a couple years back. In fact I think everyone has phases and periods in life where we feel we have hit rock bottom and there shall be nothing that shall be the catalyst in galvanizing our existence. How do you go through persevering? How do you present things in the best way possible? and most of all why is it so bad to be uncertain?

I came in convinced knowing what I wanted out of life and how I would get there… I had big ambitions and a charted course I was all set to follow. Now I sit in a precarious position, wondering if all that I have wanted professionally in the past is really who I am. This realization is something quite vividly shown in Hugh Jackman’s portrayal of his character also.

While I have no answers, I do realize having questions is still a start. Ultimately life is not about knowing the truths of who we are or even having an idea about them but realizing them for what they really are. We learn most from situations we fail in, and the reason for that is, we only live life when we suffer, happiness is a temporary pause in our existence during which we reap the benefits of all we learn as we suffer through our failures.