WELCOME TO THE BLOG!

Howdy!

Welcome to this blog, which I have created for my FINC 371: Real Estate Decision Making class at Texas A&M University. My name is Tucker Pope and I will be your blogger-in-chief here for the next few months. 

I am a Senior Business Honors major originally from Lubbock, Texas. In addition to my degree in business, I am also taking all the undergraduate courses required to attend medical school. My short term goals are focused primarily on getting in to and succeeding in medical school, before hopefully moving on to specialize in radiology. Long-term, I intend to practice medicine for a while, probably in the region of 20 years, and then moving in to the business side of medicine and becoming a Chief Medical Officer or something of the like. 

My hobbies and interests include being an avid golfer and watcher of all sports, particularly college football and soccer. I am an especially avid supporter of my favorite soccer team, FC Bayern Munich. I also enjoy discovering new music, finding new food to eat, and watching far too much TV. Lastly, I am an avid learner, and often find myself reading Wikipedia articles for hours on end. As such, I also enjoy testing my trivia knowledge in any way I can, such as at trivia nights and on the website Sporcle. Besides the two linked above, some of my favorite websites include the webcomic xkcd, the sports and pop culture website Grantland, and Jeopardy study website J!-Archive.

I am taking this class because real estate is an area of finance that has always been a mystery to me, and one which I would love to know more about. Additionally, knowing the financial basics of real estate has a great deal of relevance to my personal life, seeing as that everybody, at least once in their life, must make some kind of real estate investment decision. And so, knowing what is a good deal and what is good financing on a home purchase will be very helpful to me. Lastly, I know many people who own rental properties and make supplemental income off of them, and that is something I would like to be able to do in the future. Therefore, it would be great to know at some of the ins and outs of doing just that. 

I would say that the most interesting fact about me is that I appeared on the Jeopardy! College Championship back in February, where, after three rounds and four games against some of the smartest students in the country, I managed to finish in second place. I always get asked how I got on Jeopardy!, so I'll just say it here: I took an online test and did well enough to get an in person audition. At this audition, I took a written test, played a mock game to ensure that I understood how the game worked and didn't curse every time I got an answer wrong or got out-buzzed, and did a personality interview to see if I was interesting enough to put on TV. I was then told to wait 7 months until I may or may not get a phone call from them. I was so nervous that I bombed my first audition, so I had to go through to whole process over again the next year. After almost two full years of hard work, I managed to make it on the show, and the rest is history.

Me with Mr. Trebek himself

Another interesting fact about myself is that I moved away from home at 16 to attend the Texas Academy of Mathematics and Science, where I was effectively a full-time student at the University of North Texas. I spent my last two years of high school at TAMS, living on a dorm on the UNT campus and taking full-fledged college classes. In essence, I did my last two years of high school and first two years of college simultaneously. As such, I consider myself a fifth-year senior despite this year being only my third at A&M.

The number one item on my bucket list is to climb Mt. Fuji in the early morning to be able to witness the sunrise from the peak. I hope to one day be able to play the Old Course at St. Andrews. Also, I want to see the Sagrada Familia in Barcelona once it is completed, I want to attend a Bayern Munich match in Munich, and I want to go to the Summer Olympics. Finally, I want to eventually eat at all of Texas Monthly's Top 50 BBQ Restaurants.

Thanks for reading my blog, and here's looking forward to a great semester of real estate decision making.
-Tucker