With the new Class of 2012 about to graduate sometime later this month in a whirlwind labor market that cannot seem to make up its mind on which way to go, I have increasingly started thinking more and more about startup and entrepreneurship. A good friend suggested for us to start out our own company about a couple of months ago - actually Spring Break 2012 to be precise (yeah go figure). He and I had a very engaging brainstorming session driving to Durango, Colorado for s SB trip helping out the Habit for Humanity ReStore in La Plata County - we were both high on caffeine and had to keep bantering in order to stay awake. With much to be done over the summer, I will not bore you with details of our business until later when it is more concrete in fruition. However, I came across this wonderful article yesterday describing various entrepreneurial programs in some of the colleges across the country.
As you can see from the article itself, mainstream, top B-schools do not necessarily emphasize entrepreneurship at the undergrad level. Most schools cited are small colleges, some community colleges, who have a founding vision or an experimental teaching model for entrepreneurship. Even that, the effort is meager and boutique at best. Why isn’t entrepreneurship embedded in the curriculum of top B-schools seeing that these schools and Fortune 500 companies have openly praised and acknowledge innovation as a key tenet of sustainable competitive advantage? Perhaps, business schools themselves do not want to risk their reputation and branding in a game of Russian Roulette, waging merely on a raft of headstrong undergrads. It is understandable from this standpoint that the subject is reserved for experienced MBA students - after all, most startups end up failing. However, we are no longer in a time of affluent America, where opportunities abound and walk up to your door. In a time of grave economic uncertainty, creativity and innovation can go a long way - or I’d like to think: if you won’t be able to land that dream job, what do you have to lose?!? Go start something of your own! Be your own boss. Win or lose, the experience will be thrilling and rewarding. It befuddles me why business schools that supposedly care about student initiative and ingenuity will not invest more in training student entrepreneurs. Just think about the job generating potential of a new legion of entrepreneurs going out into the world greasing the wheels of free market with new ideas, new energy, and new ways of thinking! This kind of entrepreneur spirit and dogged passion will ensure a better path to economic sustainability than any of the quick political fixes been volleyed back and forth in this campaign season.
