Hello BiggerPockets Community!

[Jay Hawlader]

Hello everyone!

I wanted to take the time to introduce myself to this wonderful community. 

My name is Jay and I am currently finishing up my undergrad career in New York City at CUNY Queens College. I was en route to Law School as recently as 2 weeks ago but varying circumstances has led me to decline that option as I believed it would ultimately slow down my true goal, which was investing into real estate rental properties as soon as possible. 

I've been on this website quite a few times and have started reading the introductory book by Brandon Turner, "The Book on Rental Property Investing". 

If there's anything you guys would like to suggest to me to help me move forward as a beginner, please feel free to!

*Side note for those who are willing to read beyond an introduction (also wasn't sure where to post this...is there a section for careers/schools?), while I'm introducing myself I figured I would ask a quick question. The reason I side tracked on law school was because I did not want to incur a large amount of debt, spend 3 years in school effectively allowing me to miss out on investment opportunities while not generating any income during that time period. This has led me to business school where I plan on taking a 1 year Masters in Finance which will only set me back 10k with a potential starting salary of 60k. This would be much more beneficial to my real estate endeavors. Having a solid 9-5 with minimal debt WHILE building my side hustle is exactly what I wanted to do. 

The question arises here: while I can do a masters of finance, would any of you recommend a masters in real estate from the same business school, with same tuition? The classes that are offered for that program look like they would be extremely beneficial to my goals. This includes courses such as real estate entrepreneurship, real estate valuation and market analysis, real estate investment analysis and etc. While those courses are wonderful I understand a masters in finance is much more versatile and overall more useful. I guess my question is, do you think the lack of versatility is worth the knowledge and connections I would make when you consider my big picture goals? 

Thank you so much to anyone that replies and I'm looking forward to working with and learning from each and every one of you in the upcoming decades!

Best,

Jay