Latest / Clear Admit MBA Admissions Podcast / Episode 490: From Classroom to Career–Experiential Learning at SMU Cox

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Episode 490: From Classroom to Career–Experiential Learning at SMU Cox · Clear Admit MBA Admissions Podcast

• 0:00
  Speaker A: Foreign. Welcome to the Clear Admit MBA Admissions Podcast. I'm your host, Graham Richmond. And today's episode builds on a recent conversation we had with SMU Cox Dean Todd Milbourne. In that episode, we talked about the momentum around Dallas, the future of management education, and the broader vision for SMU Cox. Today we're going to go a layer deeper into the student experience itself with a focus on experiential learning, leadership development, and career readiness across SMU Cox graduate programs. And to help bring that to life, we're joined by Joseph Cahoon, who leads the Folsom Institute for Real Estate at SMU cox. Joseph joined SMU's Cox School of Business in 2014 as director of the Folsom Institute, where he leads the institute's academic research and industry outreach efforts. He also teaches real estate courses for MBA and undergraduate students. And before smu, he led the Real Estate Finance and Investment center at Texas McCombs and earlier in his career worked in real estate, investment development and acquisitions in both Dallas and Houston. So welcome to the show, Joseph. I'm so glad you could make time to join us today.
• 1:24
  Speaker B: Thank you so much for having me. Me, it's great to be here.
• 1:26
  Speaker A: So I want to dive right in. And, you know, I say dive in, but I kind of want to actually zoom out a little bit and just ask for you to comment on, like, the graduate student experience at SMU Cox. Like, how would you describe the school's overall approach to preparing students for their careers?
• 1:41
  Speaker B: Yeah, and I love the word that you just led with careers. Right. SMU Cox is not about getting students a job. It's about helping them find the job. Right. It's about building a career through a combination of academic rigor, real world exposure, and close connection to the industry. I mean, you think about building your career is it's embedded in our student experience. It's not something that's separate from the classroom.
• 2:11
  Speaker A: Yeah. And we actually, I don't know if our listeners remember this, but many moons ago, we did an episode with some folks in admissions and careers at SMU Cox. Where. Where. Because the school is so unique in that those offices are kind of embedded and combined. Right. There's a single oversight over the two. And it's something that's quite rare. And we actually did a whole episode about how you guys are doing things because we just thought it was such an innovative way to approach things. And this idea of sort of the same person or group of people keeping an eye on folks as they come in the door and as they go Out?
• 2:43
  Speaker B: Yeah, absolutely. I mean, I think about the life cycle of a student and how the school really does think about taking you from an input to an output. For lack of a better way of putting it. I see Cox as a very customer service friendly school. Right. If you have a desire, if you have a goal to take your career to the next level, COX will help you do that. And it's because of our size and our culture. I mean, when you look around our staff and our faculty, I mean, we really are a family. And that family extends to our students and frankly it extends to our alumni. And so it's all about that highly personalized experience.
• 3:25
  Speaker A: And I will say, I think that that is, you know, as you say, when you have a program that's not kind of a giant school with hundreds and hundreds of students in every year of kind of MBA graduates, et cetera, you can really provide some of these services. We talk a lot about that on this show, actually, about some of the benefits of smaller programs where you get that almost concierge type. One of the themes that we've been hearing a lot about is experiential learning. I mean, it seems like lots of MBA programs talk about this and I know it's a real focus point at smu, Cox. So I just was kind of curious if you could walk us through how does that show up in practice for MBA and specialized master's students at Cox and maybe just for some of our listeners who hear these kind of words a lot but don't necessarily know because they're just beginning this process of thinking about business school. If you could just sort of explain like what is experiential learning? And yeah, how does that kind of play out within the curricula at smu?
• 4:16
  Speaker B: You sure? It's the whole concept about how you're moving from concept to application. You and I both know life is not a multiple choice question. It is about how we learn to work on real problems, deal with ambiguity, how to function in uncertainty, work with people, communicate people to help make and inform better decision making. And we do this through a myriad of different ways, right? Like whether it's case study learning, whether it's working on live projects, whether it's consulting style assignments, whether it's participating in case study competitions, taking on internships. It's all about how do we infuse application while you're in school? I like to say it's all about getting hired and not fired. Right. Like this is the opportunity to frankly, in a somewhat risk free environment, right. Like grades are Important, but it is about taking risks so that you can learn how to iterate, modify, adapt, so that you can be more successful in the future.
• 5:27
  Speaker A: Yeah, I think that makes a ton of sense. And the mba, I would argue, is, you know, a very practical degree. And it's got, you know, so many different ways that it could be applied. But I do think there's that key moment where you've got to take what you learn in the classroom and put it into practice. And I, you know, I know I've heard countless MBA grads talking about their experiences, you know, doing a project for a local company during the mba. Right. So these things just seem to be increasingly valuable in the current environment. So I do want to also ask you, though, to kind of. It's rare that we get someone on the show who can speak to, you know, the kind of day to day of leading initiatives within a program. And, you know, not only are you teaching, but you're leading the Folsom Institutions for Real Estate. And I just wondered, for listeners who may not be familiar, can you just explain, like, what does the institute do? What's the role that it plays within the Cox School more broadly?
• 6:17
  Speaker B: Sure. So real estate at SMU Cox is a little bit odd in a way, right? Because real estate's not an academic discipline. Real estate's an industry. And so what the Folsom Institute is doing is providing that connection point between the commercial real estate industry in the classroom. We have to bring the best of the industry to bear in everything that we do, both inside and outside of the classroom. And so you could say that we are, for lack of a better term, a center for networking and knowledge. Right? And that's networking and knowledge for our students, but it's also networking and knowledge for the industry. And we, so we, we create that collaborative and convening atmosphere to bring those two together. And we've been fairly successful at it. I mean, look, Dallas is a real estate city. SMU is a real estate school. When you think about our alumni and parent base in the industry, it's just unbelievable. So we can gather those resources together, gather those relationships together to have just such a huge impact on our, our students. So we are backed by an advisory board of over 200 executives in commercial real estate who are providing their time and their resources to improve outcomes for our students. Like I like to say, look, nobody likes cold calls, right? And as you try to go out and start building your career, you do, you have to get off campus. You have to start making that, making those first moves to network, to build your understanding, but also build connections. Well, the Folsom Institute is not about cold calls. It's about warm phone calls. Right. Like, it's about engaging people who want to have a connection with this institute and with this institution. And so we just really are trying to put those two together and we're seeing the success and outcomes. Right. I'm so excited. U.S. news World Report actually just came out with their new rankings around graduate programs and the real estate program. We just received that we're number 21 in the US for real estate in our MBA program. And that's a huge move for us. And it's only the beginning.
• 8:33
  Speaker A: Yeah, that is terrific. And I will say one thing that's fascinating about real estate. And you know, I've no, I'm not an expert at all, but when you and I were speaking before we came on air, I remember, you know, you're kind of talking about how it's not, you know, there's obviously finance is a critical component of real estate, but you know, so are things like operations and management and you know, the intersection of, you know, kind of regulation and government and business. Right. So there's all these different facets. So I'm guessing that, you know, there's so many ways and probably you talk about these 200 people that are, you know, kind of advisors to the institute. I'm guessing they come from all these different areas of expertise. Right?
• 9:08
  Speaker B: Absolutely. Right. Like real estate is the ultimate experiential asset class. Right. We have to have real estate for everything we do. It's the key input in all economic development. It informs everything around what we, how we live, how we work and how we play. And so yes, absolutely. I have to find resources who can help inform our education around whether it's acquisitions, development, asset management, government relations, everything you're talking about. Right. It's how do we think about this industry from a holistic standpoint?
• 9:43
  Speaker A: Yeah, that makes sense. And that's a perfect segue because I wanted to ask you and this a little bit putting on the spot, but I'm just wondering whether. Can you think of any examples? I mean, we know that SMU Cox connects students with industry in a kind of hands on way. I mean, you've sort of described that, but I'm just wondering any projects or internships or engagement with professionals in Dallas that kind of comes to mind or how does that normally happen? Where does the rubber hit the road here?
• 10:07
  Speaker B: Oh my gosh, in so many ways. I mean, I could take it from the Simple. We have a mentoring program which we call our links program, which where we are connecting our students, usually in small groups, three to four students with one of our members of advisory board for lunch or breakfast. And it's really just about providing an atmosphere where students can ask those friendly questions. Right. Before you can ever get to an opportunity meeting, you have to have the friendly meeting where you can have that environment where I can ask any question, I can try and explore any topic. And so those LINCS mentoring programs are all about that. Then you take it to industry conferences. We take 20 students every single fall to one of the largest real estate conferences, the Urban Land Institute fall meeting. Right. Where we've got three to five thousand industry professionals gathering and we're all about trying to connect our students at those, those events we had here on campus this weekend, we had someone come in and teaching our students a whole two day session on the fundamentals of market analysis. And it's applied learning. This is someone who is putting his research to work every single day in the industry and he's teaching those tools to our students. I like to say it's all about this combination of soft skills training, technical skills training, engagement, whether that's through conferences or competitions. And then I'll take the ultimate in it. It's our SMU Real Estate Impact Investment fund. So I've gone out and raised $5 million from donors to allow our students to make direct investments in real estate projects.
• 11:53
  Speaker A: Wow.
• 11:53
  Speaker B: We run a year long course which we call our real estate practicum. It's an application based course where I allow 10 undergraduate students and 10 MBA students to come together for a full year to learn the principles of real estate investment management. But it's not just about lectures. It's about those students going out, finding opportunities, vetting those opportunities, pitching those opportunities to an investment committee. We actually just closed an investment last month and then those students actually have to go and manage asset manage those investments as they work for through the life cycle of those investments. I mean, you can't talk about anything more applied than that.
• 12:33
  Speaker A: Yeah, that's really, that's incredibly hands on. Sounds like a wonderful opportunity and kind of an interesting chance for MBA students to mingle with undergrads. And there's a lot of good learning that can happen there. I guess one thing I'm, you know, now you're kind of reminding me if someone tuned into the show is kind of weighing different degree options because we do hear from folks thinking about like, oh, I'm really interested in real estate or Something, and I want to do a master's in that. But then there are others who say, oh no, I just want to do an MBA and I'm interested in real estate, but I want an mba. What's the difference here? Because I think it's hard sometimes for people to really sort of grasp that.
• 13:07
  Speaker B: Yeah. So I get asked this question all the time, and I think it comes down to breadth versus depth for those students who really need to truly understand business education from the broadest level. An MBA is the perfect degree. Right. Where I have the opportunity to learn the fundamentals in depth, obviously around finance, marketing, management, entrepreneurship, and then add on industry specific knowledge around real estate. It's perfect. Right. An MBA is the way to go. I mean, that's what. That was the direction that I took in my own life. Right. I had a liberal arts undergraduate education. I had been working in real estate for a few years, but I never had that core business education.
• 14:03
  Speaker A: Right.
• 14:03
  Speaker B: And so for me, getting an MBA was about both having the knowledge of business and having deeper knowledge of real estate. Contrast that with, say, our master's of science in real estate. You're 100% committed to an industry and whether you're coming directly out of undergrad or maybe you have a few years of experience, but you just want to dive specifically into key aspects of an industry, whether again, investments, development, asset management, the legal side of the business. Right. We have that opportunity to give you just a fire hose of knowledge. Right. Over the course of one year. And it goes so quickly you don't have time to really, as we say, let the pot simmer at all. Whereas that MBA really does enable you to kind of allow you to rethink and reframe your life in so many different ways.
• 15:00
  Speaker A: Okay. Yeah, that makes a lot of sense. I guess you said something that kind of caught my attention earlier on in this discussion about life is not. It doesn't present you with kind of multiple choice kind of answers. There's obviously different. There's shades of gray, et cetera. Right. And so one of the things that we were talking about in an earlier conversation you and I had is how the school prepares students to operate and deal with ambiguity. And so I just wondered, is there anything that comes to your mind that SMU Cox is doing that helps students build the kinds of leadership schools that can thrive in those kinds of real world settings?
• 15:37
  Speaker B: Yeah, absolutely. I mean, look, teaching leadership is not an academic endeavor. It's an imperative for the future success of our students. And that's. It's all about judgment under uncertainty. Right. And Cox deliberately puts students in settings where they have to practice that business decisions rarely come with complete information. And so we try to reflect that reality in how students learn. It means learning how to listen well, it means learning how to work across perspectives and make more risk adjusted decisions. Right. Like we're never going to have an absolute decision. It's all about relative decision making. And so having that thought process, that lifeblood of risk adjusted decision making embedded in the program, I think is really what helps us push things forward.
• 16:31
  Speaker A: And I feel like from what you were saying earlier, this fits really well with experiential learning. So putting people into these situations where they see that, oh, it's not a multiple choice, you know, I've got to kind of just go with the best possible choice, even though there are several available to me that could, could very well work. So, you know, I'm thinking about the students you're talking about who are making investments in, you know, in real estate and, you know, kind of managing this fund. That seems like a, you know, a really great example of that.
• 16:59
  Speaker B: Yeah, absolutely. I mean, those are the truest sense of risk dollars. Right. Like, I mean, we have to turn a profit. Like, this is not about philanthropy. This is actually about generating returns for the school and for future scholarships.
• 17:13
  Speaker A: Yeah, that makes a ton of sense. So one thing that, you know, we've been kind of surfacing here a little bit, but I want to get into at a kind of deeper level is Dallas. I mean, you talked about Dallas being a great hub for obviously real estate activity. I know from talking with the dean of the school that, you know, there's a lot happening in Dallas with finance and, you know, obviously energy sector in Texas. There's so many different things going on. Tech. And so I wondered, like, how does being in Dallas shape the kinds of opportunities that students have in your mind and, you know, both during the program and even after graduation.
• 17:44
  Speaker B: Absolutely. I wish I had it on. So we have a T shirt that our MBA students came up with for their. Their real estate club T shirt this year. And it says, Dallas is our laboratory. Right. And it is, it's so true. Look, the. The entire real estate industry in all of its disciplines sits within a 15 minute radius of this campus. So I would be a fool not to go out and engage our city to gather those resources. And it's fascinating to me when you think about Dallas overall and the growth that we've seen here in this city. I actually did this for a talk a few years ago. So I took Bureau of Labor Statistics jobs data, and I mapped out jobs by industry at two different levels. Right. I first looked at jobs by industry across our nation, and then I looked specifically at dfw. And when you put them together in pie charts, they look exactly the same. Dallas truly has become diversified in its industry profile. And so you see the way then that we can go out and put our students in connection and in touch with every single industry.
• 18:58
  Speaker A: Yeah.
• 18:58
  Speaker B: Right. Like, I like to say that students have the absolute best business card in the world because it says student.
• 19:08
  Speaker A: Right.
• 19:09
  Speaker B: If you are willing to go pick up the phone and yes, sometimes they actually have to pick up the phone and call someone. They just can't text everybody. They have to pick up the phone or send someone an email. You can go learn about anything. Right. Because this is all about finding your own motivation. What's going to drive you to grow? Well, you can only teach so much in the classroom. You have to go out and find that. And because we're embedded in this dynamic market, it's so easy. I like to say that I'm a real estate kid in a real estate candy store. Right. And our students have that same opportunity. Right. Like, just to go out and engage and learn off campus. It's incredible.
• 19:58
  Speaker A: Yeah. And I know, I mean, I kind of keep an eye on stats with regards to just the size of metro areas. And over the years, and I've been working in higher ed a long time, and you do see Dallas, Fort Worth has just been moving up, up, up the list in terms of the largest metros in the US and obviously, as you mentioned, great diversity of employment opportunities and industries kind of represented. And that actually brings me to the next question I had, which is, you know, I want to know your perspective. I mean, you've worked in industry and now in academia. What do you think employers are looking for in grad students today? Particularly, you know, business grad students? And how does Cox help those students to develop qualities that those employers are looking for?
• 20:40
  Speaker B: Absolutely. So when students come and visit with me, I tell them, and it's kind of a, you know, a bad dad joke. It's really simple to get hired. It's really simple. All you have to do is answer three questions. Do I like you, Do I trust you? And are you going to make my life easier? Well, look, when you get to that first question, right, like, that's just a personality question. You're either going to fit with the person across the table. You're not. The second question and the third question, do I Trust you and are you going to make my life easier? Obviously, we can go build technical skills. We can help teach you the fundamentals, but really, at the end of the day, the answer to those last two questions is curiosity. It's the key marker of success. Remember I talked about finding your motivation? It is. Curiosity helps you find that internal motivation to succeed individually, but also collectively. It's not about being a good employee, right? Like, I think all too often people just go, oh, I'm going to go. I'm going to do what the job requires. No, this is about finding that level of curiosity, that level of motivation that no matter what you do, you have an ownership mentality that you want to see not only yourself succeed, but see others around you succeed and see the firm succeed. And that's how I think. That's a real differentiator in how I see our students again. It's crazy that I find how much our students as alums want to continue to be connected to our program. Right. How they want to help future generations of students succeed, I like to say. And again, bad dad joke. My evil plan to take over the world is extremely simple. All I want to do is help you find what motivates you, what drives you to succeed, and help you engage others to create that success. So you're going to go be successful in the industry, and then like the Godfather, I'm going to call you one day and you're going to say, hey, remember how I helped you get to the table? Remember how I helped you find that place? Now you're going to come back and help the students here. And it works consistently. I mean, take a look at our advisory board, right? I talk about those 200 execs. Well, 50 of those execs are young alums under the age of 35 who are specifically wanting to engage students weekly. Not just, like every once in a while. They are just at the forefront of helping our students succeed. And it's just that cycle of success, right? It's what's gonna make my job easier every single year, is when we help our students get better, become more curious, become more successful.
• 23:47
  Speaker A: Yeah, that makes a lot of sense. And I think you're right. It's kind of a virtuous circle, right, where the grads are out there helping because they were helped. And so it just keeps going on, I guess. One thing I wanted to ask as well, though, is, you know, we talked a lot about real estate and, you know, experiential learning. But I just wondered, you know, students who are not Interested in real estate. Maybe they have some other industry that they're focused on. What can they take away from the way that SMUKOC structures its programs and, you know, as well as kind of
• 24:15
  Speaker B: its industry connections, I like to say that I am highly competitive with my colleagues in finance, specifically, my colleagues in that are teaching energy, as well as my colleagues in management who are working on consulting. Right. We are raising the bar across the board in business. Cox structures its programs around close connection to industry, practical learning and market relevance. And real estate's just one example of that model. But my colleagues across this school are doing exactly the same thing. Right. So if a student's not interested in real estate, they can still expect the same philosophy. Rigorous education connected to real opportunities and real employers. Right. It's just one of the strengths of Cox, combining academic quality with tangible business relevance.
• 25:08
  Speaker A: So I guess one of the things I'm kind of curious about is, you know, are there other kind of centers like the real estate center? You know, so you talked about you kind of like to get competitive with your colleagues over in finance or energy. So I presume there are. Are there kind of little centers like Folsom, you know, that are doing these types of things and connecting, you know, directly with industry and stuff?
• 25:28
  Speaker B: Absolutely. We have the Brierly center for Customer Engagement. We have the McGuire Institute that focuses in. On energy. Right. Like, we are there. There are a number of different groups. We have three, count them, three institutes that are focused on entrepreneurship.
• 25:45
  Speaker A: Okay.
• 25:45
  Speaker B: The triad of entrepreneurship. And it's incredible. So we are definitely working collaboratively, but also competitively.
• 25:55
  Speaker A: Perfect. Yeah. No, I was just kind of curious about that. And I will say, I think, you know, I feel like everything I've ever heard from talking to employers is they love when a business school has those kind of, you know, practical approaches to, you know, as you said earlier, like, real estate's not an academic department necessarily, you know, but when schools can make that connection between the academics and the practical industries, and employers love it because they know that those students are going to come out with the right skills. I guess another question, though, that I had for you, and this is kind of to wrap us up, because I recognize we're, you know, we've been having a great conversation and we're. I think we're just about at time, but I wanted to ask you what kind of student tends to thrive at SMU Cox, because we've heard a lot about experiential learning and kind of the ability to kind of really connect with all that Dallas has to offer. And. But I just wondered, you know. Yeah. What. Who kind of thrives, but also any advice that you would give to someone who's thinking about applying. Because I recognize, you know, you have a competitive admissions process and all that goes into it too. So any advice that you have as well.
• 26:56
  Speaker B: Yeah, look, it's a competitive market out there and just having the three letters MBA or any other of our spatula as master, just having the credentials alone is not enough anymore. Right. You have to be able to lean into those credentials. Right. You have to be able to. Willing. You have to be willing to really take what you are learning here in its fullest capacity. I mean, you have to seek a. The maximum return on your investment to be successful. You can't just sit back and absorb the education and expect that you're going to be successful. You go back to that idea around curiosity. You have to want growth and you have to have. You have to have that desire and willingness to take a chance to shape your career trajectory. So when you. I think about students who are applying again, it's about finding students who want to lean in. Right. I think that that's the key takeaway here. If you want to find a place where you are going to be faced with rigor. Classes are not easy. We're going to push you to your limits. Right. Like, this isn't about getting an A. This is about learning the material. Right. This is about really. And not just learning material, but learning life skills. It's about leaning into your technical skills, leaning into your soft skills, leaning into real world relevance, and then building connections. I think if those are your goals, then Cox, the right fit for you.
• 28:55
  Speaker A: Okay.
• 28:56
  Speaker B: Yeah.
• 28:56
  Speaker A: Terrific advice. I was already kind of thinking through like, oh, how does that translate to, you know, I'm writing an essay about wanting to come to a school and it makes a lot of sense and you know, obviously, hopefully that gives some guidance to folks who are out there thinking about applying. Joseph, I do want to thank you so much for joining the Clear Admit podcast today. I know you're a busy guy. You've got a lot going on between running the center, teaching in the programs, and being really active in the Dallas business community. So. So it's been an absolute pleasure chatting with you and appreciate all the great tips you've given and just insights into how things run at smu. Cox.
• 29:29
  Speaker B: Well, thanks. It's been a lot of fun being here.
• 29:31
  Speaker A: All right, so that's gonna be a wrap for this episode of the show. Please stay tuned for weekly episodes and remember to rate and review the Cleared Mint podcast wherever you list. Sam.