The Center seeks to ignite passion for entrepreneurial action, to develop entrepreneurial self-efficacy, and to cultivate a growth mindset for entrepreneurship.
The entrepreneurship minor can be coupled with any liberal arts major and gives students valuable skills for their future careers, including risk and uncertainty management, interpersonal and networking management, innovation and product development, and opportunity recognition.
The minor requires a minimum of 19 hours in core and elective courses.
Core Course Requirements
The core courses include ENT 105, 200, 201 and 205. Nine elective hours should be selected from the relevant courses across the curriculum listed as options for fulfilling the minor.
Elective Hours & Restrictions
No more than six of the elective hours may be counted from a student’s major. No more than six hours can be taken under the pass/fail option and used to meet the minor requirements. No more than six hours can be taken abroad. All students may fulfill three of their elective hours by taking the Summer Management Program (BUS 295).
Our courses are in high demand. Since spaces fill up quickly, we encourage students to take ENT 105 and ENT 200 as quickly as possible. Spaces already filled? Take advantage of the several electives offered. These courses do not have prerequisites and they count towards the minor.
Have a Major
You must have already declared a major before declaring a minor.
Did we answer all of your questions? Are you ready to get started? We look forward to hearing from you!
The Entrepreneurial Experience:
An exploration and analysis of the entrepreneurial lifecycle from ideation, concept development, launching and building a company, and eventually exiting, with specific focus on developing an entrepreneurial mindset and forming an entrepreneurial identity. The course features guest speakers who have founded companies in various industries. (1h)
Foundations of Entrepreneurship:
Examines and cultivates the notion of creativity from the perspective of value creation, inquiry, opportunity recognition, and idea generation. Topics examined through writing and design assignments, group projects, and discussions include awareness, empathy, risk, ethics, self-agency, and social engagement with the express objective of identifying and creating valuable ideas. Provides an introduction to the practice of entrepreneurship and design thinking, along with the development of an entrepreneurial mindset. (3h)
Examines how individuals use entrepreneurial skills to craft innovative responses to societal and market needs. Using customer discovery and other evidence-based entrepreneurial methods, students participate in the progression of ideas into validated concepts. P-ENT 200. (3h)
Scaling the Entrepreneurial Venture:
Explores the stage in the entrepreneurial lifecycle where validated concepts transition to established ventures. The course is designed to provide exposure to topics critical to success, such as how to scale the venture past early adopters to meet the needs of more mainstream customers. It covers key functional domains including entrepreneurial marketing, finance, fundraising, leadership and strategy. P-ENT 201. (3h)
Elective Courses by Our Faculty
Our team has grown and so has our course offerings. We’re thrilled to introduce our two newest faculty members, each bringing a wealth of experience, fresh perspectives, and innovative courses designed to inspire and challenge our students
ENT 304 A/B:
Explore and examine entrepreneurial marketing strategies that early-stage entrepreneurs with limited resources can implement immediately. This course was designed to provide exposure to a variety of marketing concepts and methods that early-stage companies can utilize to acquire and retain customers. Focus includes: digital marketing, branding, messaging, and a hands-on approach to develop an online marketing strategy for an entrepreneur/start-up company. (3h)
ENT 304 C:
Black Entrepreneurship in America
This seminar course is a survey of African American entrepreneurial activity in the United States.The purpose of this course is to identify a) the detriment stereotypes and deficit narratives have had on Black entrepreneurship b) historical and current challenges to Black access to a variety of capital across fields c) expose students to a variety of entrepreneurial possibilities while learning about Black entrepreneurs leading the way across various trending industries. The course is designed for students to engage the varied and complex nature of American enterprise in conjunction with the African American experience. (3h)
ENT 303 A/B:
Leadership and Character in Entrepreneurship
Leadership and character challenges go hand-in-hand with the entrepreneurial journey. In this course, we ask three questions as we traverse the entrepreneur’s path: What are the ways I see the world? How do they shape my views on character, opportunity and value creation? How will I lead the way? (3h)
Social Impact in Entrepreneurship
Being an entrepreneur offers a unique opportunity to creatively conceive alternate, more collectively impactful ways of being successful. In this course, we consider and envision ways of making an impactful contribution to an increasingly broader range of stakeholders-from building great team culture to embodying exemplary altruism – crafting a vision of impact appropriate for your own entrepreneurial venture. (3h)
The Lean Enterprise Institute describes Lean as “a way of thinking about creating needed value with fewer resources and less waste. And lean is a practice consisting of continuous experimentation to achieve perfect value with zero waste. Lean thinking and practice occur together.” In this course we unpack lean thinking, lean practice, lean character and lean leadership to answer the question – how can Lean help me to be a better entrepreneur? (3h)
Communicating for an Entrepreneurial Mindset
Exploration of communication in today’s workplaces and the expectations for leaders and employees to communicate “entrepreneurially.” Focus on communication across settings where teamwork is prioritized; newer, unknown ideas are being developed; ideas or products are developed in collaboration with customers, clients, users; and/or social media is significantly present or relied upon. Consideration of diverse arenas: startup, tech, or venture-backed firms, emergency response teams, “gig” workers, city planners, non-profit organizers. (3h)