Students Win Instructor’s Salary in UCLA Program

Students at Southern California universities and colleges come up winners in the Shopping Center Game, a UCLA Extension seminar.

They win the coordinator’s salary.

Steven Soboroff, Soboroff/Moskowitz Co., Santa Monica, donates his salary to a scholarship fund he calls “Rent a Student.” The fund permits students to intern at real estate development firms. Rent a Student scholarships are worth up to $500 each and about 140 interns have participated.

Some firms pay interns, in which case the available money is used for other students.

One developer who found a real estate career by starting as a Rent a Student intern was Martin Moscowitz, now Soboroff’s partner.

Mark and Rosalind Schurgin, of Schurgin Development Corp., Los Angeles, have four interns.

Schurgin’s interns do market studies, demographics and assist in acquisitions. They work for at least two months with the longest working for a year and a half. All are paid by the firm. The Schurgins prefer interns who are majoring in business, law or real estate.

Cathy Enderwood, who now operates her own shopping center leasing and site selection firm in Los Angeles, the Enderwood Co., was a student at USC in 1979 when she interned with Soboroff.

“It was a wonderful experience. He’d take me to meetings and I’d listen to the negotiations and then he’d explain why things went as they did.”

Enderwood will speak at Soboroff’s Dec. 8 Shopping Center Game seminar on Career Opportunities for Women in the Shopping Center Industry .

Frank Mittelbach, director of the Housing, Real Estate, and Urban Land Studies Program at the UCLA Graduate School of Management, said the internships permit students to get a broader range of experiences than would otherwise be possible.

“They help make the transition from the university to the real world of real estate much easier,” Mittelbach said.

Soboroff said that firms seeking interns should contact the real estate department at a nearby college or university. Students wishing to be interns must first get their instructor’s approval.