Coordinator:
Pamela Goldberg, The Gordon Institute
A minor in entrepreneurial leadership is available for all arts, sciences, and engineering undergraduate and graduate students interested in leadership positions at start-up companies or entrepreneurial segments of the corporate or social sector.
Students are required to take four courses plus one elective course from the lists below. All courses must be taken for a grade. Students will attend lectures, discuss relevant issues with guests from the real world, complete homework assignments, take tests, participate in focused discussions of relevant current events, and complete a course project on a topic central to the theme of the course.
Undergraduate engineering students may not count any of these courses toward foundation and concentration requirements. A maximum of two courses may be used toward social science requirements.
After meeting the necessary requirements for the minor, students complete the minor certification form and return it to The Gordon Institute.
Required Courses
101 Entrepreneurship and Business Planning. This course focuses on investigating, understanding, and implementing the process of founding a start-up firm. Elements of searching out new venture opportunities, matching skills with a new venture, financing, competitive strategy, intellectual property, and operating a new venture will be explored. The focus of the course will be the development and presentation of a business plan created by teams of students with various academic backgrounds.
103 Entrepreneurial Finance. This course focuses on understanding how to construct the data and find appropriate financing for a startup venture. Various forms of financing are introduced: vendor financing, factoring, etc. Through a medley of tests, case studies, and team exercises, students exercise basic financial skills such financial statement formulation, NPV analysis and scenario analysis. The course focuses as much attention on how to reject a bad idea as support a good one.
105 Entrepreneurial Marketing. This course focuses on institutional and product marketing methods used by start-up to medium-sized companies. After an overview of basic marketing principles, the course will cover the spectrum from day-to-day marketing activities of the entrepreneurial business to positioning and strategy. Students will learn to analyze, formulate, and implement marketing strategies, explore concepts for understanding customer behavior and creating entrepreneurial marketing strategy, and learn the fundamentals of market research, pricing, and reaching and selling to customers.
107 Entrepreneurial Leadership. This course is designed to help students develop the knowledge, confidence, skills, and self-image necessary to pursue entrepreneurial ventures in such domains as business, government, and public service. It provides a foundation in the fundamentals of entrepreneurial leadership, as well as a source of inspiration and energy in the art and science of taking visions and bringing them to reality.
Elective Courses
199 Entrepreneurial Field Studies. This course enables students to apply the learning and skills acquired by other courses on entrepreneurship. Students have the option of starting a new business based on an actual business plan or consulting in an actual start-up operation. Students who select the new business option will be expected to submit a project-scope paper that outlines the elements of the launch that could be accomplished within the term limits.
American Studies 140 Innovative Non-profits. This course explores entrepreneurship within for-profit and non-profit organizations. It covers elements of integration of innovation, development and management of a business within an existing corporate culture, and focuses on the benefits and limits of adapting business practices to the operating environments of the social sector.
Economics 3 Principles of Accounting. This course covers fundamental accounting principles, including theory, revenue determination, and interpretation and preparation of income statements and balance sheets.
Economics 6 Business Law.
This course focuses on the legal issues pertaining to
business associations and operations, and includes such topics as contract law,
business organization, antitrust law, and government regulations.