The UCLA Anderson School of Management will introduce a real estate minor for undergraduate students next fall.

The new minor, housed in the School of Management, aims to provide students with the opportunity to develop real estate fundamentals across public, private and nonprofit sectors, according to the School of Management’s website. The minor will also include interdisciplinary topics such as finance, development and policy, according to the website.

Applications, which opened Monday, are open to current students until May 4. Transfer student applications will open during fall quarter and will close Oct. 12.

To apply, students must complete 90 units, have a cumulative GPA of 2.0 or higher and submit a one-page resume or essay describing real-estate-related experiences. Students are strongly encouraged to complete a Writing II course before the application, according to the School of Management’s website.

The minor consists of two lower division introductory courses and four core upper division courses – which cover finance, capital markets, analytics and case studies in real estate – as well as three elective courses.

Caitlin Froning, the co-president of the Bruin Real Estate Association, said she is looking forward to the addition of the minor. She added, however, that she was disappointed by how long it took UCLA to add it – especially given the number of students she sees in her club who are interested in real estate.

“BREA was the only way to really get involved at UCLA, because we didn’t have a minor,” said Froning, a fourth-year business economics student. “We (BREA) get 300 applicants every year. We only take around 30 kids … so it was really unfortunate that there was no way for them to pursue that passion.”

Froning said her peers in BREA, advocating for a minor to the School of Management’s Ziman Center for Real Estate, consistently complained about a lack of formal real estate education for undergraduates at UCLA.

Lucas Cozuc, a co-president of BREA and fourth-year economics student, said he was excited to hear his peers could pursue real estate education through the minor. He added, however, that he wished the same opportunity had been available to him before his June graduation.

“I wish I was able to do it, but I appreciate them taking the time and making it – taking a lot of time to find the best lecturers and plan it out to the best of their ability,” he said.

Mark Karlan, a continuing lecturer in real estate in the School of Management, has taught a real estate finance and investments class – which is now a required course for the minor – for undergraduates for the last 14 years. Karlan said he has seen the class grow exponentially in enrollment since he began teaching it, adding that it reaches capacity every quarter with over 400 students.

“The school has been underserving its undergraduate population,” Karlan said. “My course being 1,100 students is simply a tribute or a testament to the fact that there’s a huge demand – and the students want to learn about this very important element of not only the economy but also of their lives.”

Karlan – a global leader in commercial real estate finance – said having the minor on transcripts will make students more appealing to employers and firms who might have otherwise overlooked them.

Owen Keely, a second-year economics student who plans to apply for the minor, said he is excited to take classes specifically oriented to real estate – rather than economics as a whole.

“If you’re not going into education or research … what you’re learning in economics isn’t super applicable to a lot of things,” Keely said. “I was really excited and happy that I was going to get some more applicable learning.”