Wall Street Journal published an interesting article today called Entrepreneurship 101. Mind Petals advisor, Dan Putt, sent the article my way and boy was I glad to read it it made my day to hear that colleges are actually starting to wakeup and come to terms that entrepreneurship cant be ignored. They are starting to see the light, little by little.
Here are some excerpts from the article:
Small business is becoming a big deal on college campuses these days. The Arizona State program hands out $200,000 to student ventures annually, accepting about 15 to 20 of the roughly 100 submissions that are made each year. And hundreds of other U.S. colleges and universities also have awakened to the fact that many of their graduates are likely to work for themselves someday. Many are bolstering their courses and extracurricular activities for aspiring entrepreneurs and helping students create businesses before graduation.
Kudos to Arizona State! Now this is a college that appreciates young entrepreneurs and I hope that other colleges around the country will follow in their footsteps and start setting up similar funds.
So many of us have excellent, excellent ideas but dont have a dime to invest into the business. Sure, bootstrapping is great but if you can attain the support of your college and get some financial help, then even better.
It’s a far cry from just a decade ago, when most colleges ignored students’ entrepreneurial ambitions, or just offered basic business-planning courses in the business school. Now, many schools are adding entrepreneurship majors and minors, holding business-plan competitions for cash prizes and teaming students up with local entrepreneurs. And many campuses are teaching entrepreneurship beyond the business school, to get students in other disciplines interested in business development.
Duh yes, many of us are likely to work for ourselves one day. Im still so shocked to see that universities are just realizing this fact now. Why couldnt you see that 5 years ago? Ok, so its time to play catch-up. Well forgive your ignorance by starting some funds for our startups.
The University of Wisconsin at Madison, which launched an undergraduate entrepreneurship major last fall, wants to encourage its students to learn from one another. It plans to designate dorm rooms by the academic year 2008 so that students who have an interest in entrepreneurship can live together and network.
Right on! Stop wasting those dorm rooms for regular living turn some of those babies into incubator rooms. This is exactly what colleges should be doing providing housing specifically for teams of young entrepreneurs.
Why arent all colleges doing this? Believe me, I highly doubt money is an issues, especially with the rising costs of tuition. Each and every college should have a living wing for entrepreneurs who want to live together no excuses.
If your college currently doesnt offer this type of dorming, you should do something about it! You should rebel.
Overall, about 2,140 two-year and four-year colleges now offer entrepreneurship courses, up from about 1,400 in 1998 and fewer than 300 in 1980, according to research from the Kauffman Foundation, a Kansas City, Mo., resource center for entrepreneurs.
Hallelujah! Hallelujah! Hallelujah! Lets keep it going. Now that colleges are jumping onboard, lets hope no, lets demand that the momentum keeps up.
Some skeptics might question the value of teaching entrepreneurship in the classroom. After all, some of today’s most successful entrepreneurs — including legends like Steve Jobs and Bill Gates — dropped out of college or never attended at all, and learned their business through trial and error.
But supporters and academics counter that while the drive and high risk tolerance natural to most successful entrepreneurs indeed can’t be learned, there are helpful skills that can be taught. Entrepreneurial curricula include courses on identifying good opportunities, cash-flow management, handling growth, intellectual-property law, venture capital and marketing. And many courses are now geared toward entrepreneurship in particular fields, such as engineering, science and technology.
Well you cant teach us to be innovative, creative, and hungry to succeed thats for sure. But you can provide us the necessary tools to succeed. You can teach us laws, intellectual property, how to get funding, etc
Young entrepreneurs, this is great news! We are bringing about change and the world can no longer ignore us. This is just the beginning and well soon see more and more universities stop playing dumb and wakeup from their long naps. Kudos to us!
Update: Here’s a video from Robert Shedd’s blog:
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entrepreneurship is being embraced because people are seeing the potential benefits – for themselves and the greater good, for the most part
entrepreneurship is just basically your traditional business courses.
what makes traditional business switch to entrepreneurship is the drive, ambition, innovation etc etc that the person can derive out of him/herself.
it’s like leading a horse to a river, but you can’t make him drink it – if that’s how the saying goes.
you can only do so much as to lay the foundation. beyond that – the person has to really have drive and initiative to make something out of nothing.
it’s not really worthwhile focusing on a 100% entrepreneur college or course when a significant majority of those will fail – as opposed to traditional business courses that groom you to get a job