Degree Requirements

The one-year three-term Master in Real Estate (MRE) degree program teaches students the foundational knowledge, technical skills, and methods of thinking required for successfully investing in, developing, owning, and managing real estate as well as creating well-designed real estate that advances beneficial spatial, social, and environmental outcomes in cities and metropolitan areas worldwide.

For nine on-campus months from late August to the end of May, students take a mixture of required and elective courses that together reflect the multidisciplinary, interdisciplinary, holistic, collaborative, and transactional environment in which real estate projects are successfully created. The nine-month in-residence portion of the degree is followed by a two-month off-campus summer term Practicum that places students in a cooperating private for-profit, private not-for-profit, or public real estate organization where they participate in the realization of a socially and environmentally beneficial real estate project. Students subsequently return to the GSD for two days at the end of August to reflect upon their Practicum experience and finish the degree program.

MRE students are required to take 60 units of courses over three terms to graduate. A standard course is four units, a module course is two units. The fall term (20 units) consists of four four-unit required courses and four units of elective courses. The spring term (24 units) consists of a four-unit required course in January as well as four four-unit required courses and four units of elective courses from late January to early May. The summer term consists of a four-unit required course in May and the 12-unit required two-month off-campus Practicum during the months of June, July, and early August. A required Practicum Prep seminar conducted in the fall and spring terms counts as part of the 12 units of the Practicum. At the end of August, students return to the GSD for two days of presentations and discussions about their Practicum experience and complete the MRE degree.

Students possessing superior knowledge of material covered in the following required courses may take a waiver examination and, if successful, substitute four units of specially created MRE electives for each required course during the fall or spring terms (see list below for specially created MRE elective courses). Waiver examinations are administered during Orientation Week (end of August) for the following courses: Real Estate Finance, Development, and Management; Urban Economics and Market Analysis; and Design for Real Estate. Waiver examinations are administered in January for the following courses: Advanced Real Estate Finance, Development, and Management; Public and Private Development; and Real Estate Law. Students interested in taking a waiver examination should contact Sarah Hutchinson, Assistant Director, Academic Administration, Department of Urban Planning and Design, who serves as coordinator for the MRE program.

With program director permission, students may take an additional four units of elective courses in the fall term and an additional four units of elective courses in the spring term. There is a wide range of eligible GSD elective courses as well as the possibility of cross-registering in courses that permit cross-registration at the Business, Law, and Kennedy Schools, as well as at the College and MIT. Please consult my.Harvard for information on cross-registration at other schools. Under GSD policy, cross-registration course units may not represent more than one half of the student’s total number of units taken in any one term.

The MRE degree is not eligible to be part of a concurrent or joint degree program with other GSD degrees or other degrees at Harvard. Note that MRE degree requirements are subject to change based on ongoing assessments by the faculty. For further information about enrollment, cross-registration, attendance, grading, academic integrity, and other matters of relevance to students, please consult The GSD Student Handbook.

For more information on specific courses, go to the Curriculum page on this website

• 4 units SES 5204 Real Estate Finance, Development, and Management
• 4 units SES 5495 Urban Economics and Market Analysis
• 4 units SES 5249 Design for Real Estate
• 4 units SES 5250 Real Estate, Society, Environment
• 0 units ADV 9850 Master in Real Estate Practicum Prep
• 4 units Elective(s)

• • 4 units SES 5253 Project Management, Construction Management, New Technologies (January)
  • 4 units SES 5205 Advanced Real Estate Finance, Development, and Management
  • 4 units SES 5103 Public and Private Development
  • 4 units SES 5251 The Development Project
  • 4 units SES 5252 Real Estate Law
  • 0 units ADV 9850 Master in Real Estate Practicum Prep
  • 4 units Elective(s)

• 2 units SES 5254 Negotiation
• 2 units SES 5255 Leadership, Entrepreneurship (May)
• 12 units ADV 9851 Master in Real Estate Practicum