[jp2010]

"a startup." is the ending of that poll (it was cut off).


There's a Technological Entrepreneurship minor at my university, but I've noticed it hasn't been very entrepreneurial. There are some glaring concerns I want to express to the dean of the school.

• The classes are almost exclusively lecture-based with few opportunities for students to share their past experiences, current market needs/concerns or technologies to the class.
• Students hardly know each other. In all of the courses I've taken so far, we only know each others names and perhaps their major. We haven't had times to share our interests, past work experience, or our talents we could potentially offer to a startup.
• The curriculum focuses almost exclusively on manufacturing products and neglects service companies. As many of you know, service businesses are typically more common and more attractive since there is less concern of capacity, operations management, and the complex calculus of decisions that come between the company and the customer. In fact, our university has a telling tradition of creating successful startups before completing the degree. Most of their products or services exist either exclusively online or only have to orchestrate transportation to reach clients.
• The "final" course in the course seems to be the catch all class that teaches students how to make business plans, incorporate, reacher investors/mentors/VCs, which arguably are more important at the outset of idea generation.
• The courses have no "hands-on" experience such as creating websites, surveys, drafting mission statements/values, the steps to incorporate, how to choose a good law firm for intellectual property protections, etc. Many practical concerns have been egregiously overlooked. The courses don't commonly promulgate any entrepreneur guest speakers, events, or ways to network with students or other successful parties outside of class.
• Some of the concepts and methods we've learned in the class are at disjoint from what the majority of guest entrepreneurs (that did visit). When I brought these examples up in class, I was corrected saying that what the book said was the correct way of approaching certain processes. How much of the processes require to become an early stage startup were "by the book?"

These are a few of the concerns that I and others have discussed after classes but we would like to communicate these important weaknesses in the curriculum to the dean amicably. These are not unreasonable requests for a "technological entrepreneurship" minor.

What are some of your reactions to the concerns in the list? What are some suggestions that you think I should include in my letter? If you can provide examples of ways of interaction, learning more about fellow classmates' interests, bolstering networking, or had your university help you or others start companies, please let me know.

Your feedback is appreciated.

-JP

[jasaunders]

Well, thankfully my entrepreneurship program is the exact opposite of yours.

But based on what you wrote above, I don't think "how to incorporate" or "how to find a lawyer" have any business in the ciriculum.

[Yusio]

I think some people may be confused by the poll question, or maybe i am?

It is asking if any of you believe the course if helpful to entrepreneurs. Am i correct, and due to the great lack of group discussion, etc in the class i put "Strongly Disagree", stating that I believe the class is not helpful.