Loan Officer,
Lifetime Financial Partners
Nessa, a Dean's List student, was the only junior in her FIL 360 course. She scored the highest semester point total, beating the closest senior by 23 points.
Area of Finance specialization: Real Estate Management
Hometown: Channahon, Illinois
FIL 240 Business Finance, FIL 260 Real Estate Principles, and FIL 360 Real Estate Investment and Financing. The intro Finance course taught me the importance of getting started early in investing, and I've done that! The real estate principles class was very informative and relevant. It covered conceptual issues from legal descriptions to contracts and investments, and it provided a good foundation for the real estate finance class, which deals with the secondary mortgage market and a lot of computations. I also liked my chemistry course, and golf, which helps you understand a lot of business etiquette situations, and is important for professional networking and finding clients.
Every Thursday evening my friends and I would get our favorite meal from one of the many fine food establishments in Normal and gather around to watch Friends. It would always be nice if a group like Mike & Joe or Bottle of Justice played somewhere near campus later that night, too.
I started out as a mortgage loan underwriter, then became a packaging specialist, and am now a senior loan consultant. I work with individuals to evaluate their financial situations and find financing to fit their needs. I network each day with CFPs, CPAs, Realtors ®, and insurance agents to generate business. My general finance and real estate studies have helped me to understand clients' financial goals and the roles these other professionals play, and to understand the laws that apply to real estate financing. I know how different types of mortgage loans work, and how risk affects lending.
The course work is challenging, but very rewarding. Studying finance helps you learn things that relate to many careers, as well as many life situations. The faculty are sincerely there to help you succeed. And they try to make it fun; my professor in the real estate principles course was a former appraiser who rewarded the class one day with his “Top 10 Weird Things I Saw in People's Houses.”
