A popular topic explored in Comm 101 is entrepreneurship. On top of that, I would have to say that 3 out of 5 people I ask want to be entrepreneurs after receiving their BCom degree at Sauder. However, can Sauder professors–or any business school professor– actually teach someone to be innovative and creative? Are we guaranteed successful entrepreneur status if we attend a business school of entrepreneurship? According to an unnamed entrepreneurship professor students  “need to go out and actually build a business to get a full education in entrepreneurship.” Compared to an accounting degree, where you are pretty much assigned a firm and automatically make liveable yearly income, entrepreneurship is a hit or miss: many companies struggle to break even, and some make millions quickly after starting up. You can’t place an average income or value on entrepreneurship.

“The value has to be a question of whether or not the degree helps a brand-new entrepreneur start her first business—and if it improves her chances of creating a business that either lasts or has a successful exit.”

While I don’t believe that learning entrepreneurship is a waste of time, I’m just wondering if it’s a waste of money. There are certainly advantages of learning entrepreneurship, especially the networking aspect of meeting existing entrepreneurs and learning the tricks of whatever industry; however, no matter how many courses of entrepreneurship you take, or how many entrepreneurs you speak with, you are never guaranteed success. Entrepreneurship is about being innovative, thinking out of the box, and being the creator of something that does not exist. Many successful entrepreneurs, Bill Gates, Steve Jobs and Mark Zuckenberg, didn’t even complete their degrees, and look at them now!  You can even google the list of billionaire drop outs, and the list goes on and on.

Getting personal with this article, sometimes I even question why I’m at Sauder. Of course, I love my faculty, but at the same time so far in my first year of university, I’m barely even taking any business courses. I would like to think of myself as more of an ‘Advanced’ arts student. As I reflect upon the students at Sauder, YES, everyone here is great at what they do, but for the most part, the best thing about being in a business school is not  the courses we take, but more of the opportunities that are given to us. Like what the article mentions:

“Any college degree is worth only what you make of it. An entrepreneurship degree might not have the intrinsic ability to help you found a successful company that much faster than you could figure out on your own. But a university is full of resources that are harder to access without a student ID.”

As I’m getting rather off track from the article I’m supposed to be focusing on, I’d like to redirect back to the whole question about entrepreneurship: Each new business is difference, so how can university professors teach their students to be successful in entrepreneurship? My question is: Are entrepreneurs born or made?

References:

http://www.businessinsider.com/should-you-consider-an-entrepreneurship-degree-2012-11?utm_source=Pulse&utm_medium=App&utm_campaign=partner&utm_medium=referral&utm_source=pulsenews
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