Finance senior Ngoc Nguyen ’23 is celebrating $10,000 in scholarships from the Commercial Real Estate Women Network (CREW). This funding will help her pursue her academic and professional future in real estate.

“For me, these scholarships represent a fresh start in life,” says Nguyen, who reflects on returning to college after taking a break for three years in 2015 to financially support her mother and sister. After her sister earned a degree, Ngoc Nguyen found a job with a family friend who bought and sold apartment complexes.

“That is when my life shifted,” explains Nguyen. “I got a job as a property manager, and I discovered I really liked finance and real estate and wanted to one day have my own portfolio and assets.”

Encouraged by her boss to resume university studies, Nguyen began pursuing her finance degree at Cal State Fullerton in 2021, where she has been active in Titan Capital Management, the Student Managed Investment Fund, Real Estate Association and Finance Association.

Nguyen shares her experience, the impact of her scholarship awards and her plans for the future.

What have been some of the highlights of your Titan experience thus far?

At first, I was scared because I didn’t feel I was good at school. The thought of coming back to the classroom again was intimidating. 

But I started to get more engaged in the materials inside the classroom and asking the teachers more questions about the things I didn’t understand. I understood that thinking I couldn’t do it prevented me from achieving those extra milestones when I was younger. 

And by being involved in the Real Estate Association and going to their Career Day, I secured my current property management administrator role at Link Logistics.

What was your path to receiving the CREW scholarships?

Last semester, I started applying to every scholarship I could possibly obtain. I never thought I would receive $10,000 in scholarships. Because I was up against 300 other applicants to their global chapter. The applicants were all from big names, such as Harvard, Stanford and UC Berkeley.

And as far as the local chapter, there were 20 applicants, and I was a finalist with others from Chapman University and UC Irvine.

One of my management professors, David Obstfeld, wrote an outstanding letter of recommendation for me, which helped me get the scholarships.

When I made it to the finals, I told the advisory board, “Just being here proves to me that someone saw that I really did make the effort to change my life around. This gives me hope that I’m walking on the right path.” 

Like many of our students, Titan Capital Management has been pivotal to your professional growth. What have you gained from the program?

Working with outstanding instructors, such as Marcia Lucas, Shane Kim and Kelly Ko, I’m getting real feedback, as if I worked in an investment company. If we did something that was off, they would give us constructive criticism, which is what I like, because I want to know how to do it better. 

They teach me to think at a higher level. How to look at an investment with a broader perspective and how to filter out all the noise to get the information you need. 

I chose to focus on fixed income because I knew nothing about it, so I wanted to learn about it. It’s a lot of piecing the puzzle together and creating your own understanding of the big picture. The students in Titan Capital Management are taught critical thinking, which also helps to build relationships with your roommates, advisors and clients, and develop the soft skills you need to connect with another person to increase your chances of being hired in the real world. 

Why are you especially drawn to a real estate career?

I love investing in real estate because it is something real that I can work with. You’re actually buying an asset that will appreciate over time. You don’t have to hold it forever. You can buy it, hold it for a while, make some capital improvements, and then refinance it or change it to another asset.

Where do you see yourself in years to come?

I still see myself working within the commercial real estate industry, hopefully as an asset manager. Currently, I work with Link Logistics, an industrial company that manages and owns a portfolio of plants for companies, such as Amazon and Space X. Even if I’m not going to end up in the industrial side, I want to explore commercial real estate and perhaps become an investment analyst of some sort.  

Real estate is a fast-paced industry, there’s a lot of movement going on, and that’s what I love about it. I love doing different things every day.