Phillip Owens, who holds a bachelor's degree in business administration from the University of Southern California in addition to his MBA, previously worked as a corporate finance analyst in the Global Investment Banking Group at J.P. Morgan Chase & Co. in San Francisco. After coming to Haas, he decided to shift his focus from investment banking to real estate.

Discovering new opportunities
Being at Haas allowed me to step back and really think about what I want out of my career. I assumed that I would move to the buy side in investment banking — one of the most likely options for someone with my career background.

But when I learned about the real estate certificate program at Haas, it was like a whole new door had opened up. I found that many of my quantitative skills were transferable — after all, so much of what you do in real estate involves investment analysis.

Real-world real estate experience
A highlight of being at Haas was winning the 2003 Bay Area Real Estate Challenge sponsored by the National Association of Industrial and Office Properties. Together with four other graduate students (two from Haas, one from the landscape architecture school and one from city planning), I spent two months designing a three-phase development project for Showplace Square in San Francisco that featured affordable and market-rate apartments and ground-floor retail space.

I did my summer internship at Steadfast Companies, a real estate investment, development and management company based in Newport Beach, and worked there after graduation as a Development Associate.