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This fall, the University of Tampa’s Sykes College of Business began offering two new minors. AI applications is open to all students, and real estate is an option for business majors.

AI Applications

The new AI Applications minor is available to students across the University without any prerequisites to enroll.

“AI is affecting everyone from students in art to entrepreneurship and cybersecurity,” said Alper Yayla, professor of information and technology management. “We all need to upskill.”

The minor helps students prepare for an AI-infused future with two new courses: AI Fundamentals and Responsible Applications followed by Generative AI and Design of AI Agents. The first course filled up immediately for the fall, Yayla said, and the college plans to offer more sections in the spring to keep up with demand.

Students in the minor also choose two courses from other disciplines, and they are encouraged to incorporate what they’ve learned about AI into each.

“The minor is designed so that students can ease in and then end up having a finished product they are excited about and can share with recruiters,” Yayla said. “Just having courses is not enough. We want every student to have a story they can use to showcase their unique knowledge and skills.”

Real Estate

Student demand inspired the development of the real estate minor. It started with students staying after class to ask Dean Koutroumanis ’89, MBA ’91, associate director of the Lowth Entrepreneurship Center, for advice based on his real estate career. That led him to create the Real Estate Club, which survived a Covid year on Zoom to bloom into a student organization with more than 100 members.

“I walked into our first in-person meeting, and the place was packed,” Koutroumanis said.

Seeing sustained interest in the club, Koutroumanis created an elective that is now the capstone of the minor: Real Estate Venturing. That course exposes students to the breadth of real estate careers from residential and commercial brokerage to title insurance, land development and law. Students get real-world exposure in those areas during required internships from the management or finance departments, which collaborated with entrepreneurship on the minor.

Students who are eager to pursue a career in real estate are encouraged to take the pre-licensure course for the state where they want to practice, with a free option for students who want to practice in Florida. Students who pass their state’s pre-licensure exam can forego the final exam in Real Estate Venturing.

For the capstone course, Sarah Daniels ’16, adjunct professor and real estate development project manager, identifies a local parcel of land and challenges students to find the best use for it and outline the process to make it a reality.

“At the end of the semester, that classroom is packed with real estate professionals who want to see what our students are doing,” Koutroumanis said.