What is an Entrepreneurship Degree?

I’m a graduate of a nationally-ranked, top-11 entrepreneurship program. But what does that mean exactly? Is entrepreneurship a ‘real’ degree, or is it just a fad? Whether you are a high school student who loves Shark Tank and wants to own your own business one day or a recruiter looking to better understand the value of the degree, this article will give you an inside look into what a student learns as an entrepreneurship major, dispel some myths, and highlight the value and use of the degree in the real world. 

I remember when I told my dad I was going to major in entrepreneurship in college. He was confused, “they have a major for that?” -- a phrase I would get used to hearing the more people I told. The skepticism around learning entrepreneurship in a school (undergrad or MBA) is widespread in the business community. There is an argument you simply cannot learn how to be an entrepreneur in a classroom. Phrases such as “everyone I know who started a business didn’t go to school,” and “the only way to learn entrepreneurship is to do it” are commonly thrown around. Opposers of the degree believe that the degree is mostly ‘fluff,’ a money grab from universities, and too theoretical. After all, think about how many books have been written about entrepreneurship and how many social media gurus are out there offering free advice. Why get a degree in something as general as entrepreneurship, when you can practically learn everything for free online anyways? 

Although there is merit and a logic behind many of these arguments, I believe most are based on a faulty understanding of what an entrepreneurship degree actually entails, which is why I made this article--to clear up the noise. 

In addition to me completing an entrepreneurship degree firsthand, as a graduate assistant during my MBA program I performed extensive research on the top 25 entrepreneurship programs in the country which gives me an in-depth look into programming, curriculum, and trends of leading university entrepreneurship programs. To start, let’s first examine a typical entrepreneurship curriculum, what kinds of concepts a student can expect to learn, and the experiences a student can be a part of. 

What is an entrepreneurship degree?

If a student is looking to pursue a degree in entrepreneurship, there are many options. Schools offer certificates, concentrations, minors, and majors in entrepreneurship. As an entrepreneurship (ENT) major, students can take major-specific classes in new venture financing, product development, human resource management, sales, intellectual property, technology commercialization, business planning, and more. At my school, the first class students are enrolled in as ENT major is called the “sophomore experience,” where students pitch Shark Tank-style to their classmates who vote on the winning ideas. The department then gives the teams a $5,000 loan to start and run a microbusiness over the course of the year, all the while learning the fundamentals of entrepreneurship. As a senior ENT major, students put their skills to the test and consult for a real local business, solving a real business problem. 

As part of the coursework, countless case studies are analyzed, group projects taking ideas through the different stages of the venture creation process are executed, simulations are completed, and so much more. Not to mention all of the core business classes that are taken in conjunction with the major such as accounting, economics, statistics, marketing, finance, operations & supply chain management, organizational behavior, and management information systems. 

And that is just the degree. Most students also take advantage of extra-curriculars that the school or campus organizations offer. For example, I have pitched in my school’s business pitch competition twice, joined the Entrepreneurship Club, attended start-up days, innovation challenges, attended and pitched at the Collegiate Entrepreneurs Organization (CEO) national conference in Tampa, FL, and attended countless speaker events where I was able to network with and meet top entrepreneurs and CEOs. Many top schools also have accelerators or incubators that connect students with resources both inside and outside of the school. 

Is entrepreneurship a ‘real’ degree?

It can be argued that an entrepreneurship degree is too “general” of a degree to actually be effective and that entrepreneurship cannot be taught, only learned through action and failure. The problem with this is that entrepreneurship is a topic that is already well-researched and continues to be researched with increasing popularity. This research helps form the curriculum that schools use to teach students. Topics like business formation, IP, venture/seed financing, market research, management, business strategy, and more are very real topics that are researched and 100% applicable to entrepreneurship. On the outside, it may appear that an entrepreneurship degree is simply just a management degree, but that is false. It is a very narrow focus on how to optimize success in creating and growing a new venture based on research, best practices, and learning the necessary concepts. 

Additionally, from my personal experience and research, entrepreneurship degrees are some of the most experiential degrees offered at campuses. While not all schools offer a course similar to my school’s sophomore experience where we actually start a real business for a year with our classmates, many offer something similar. While students do learn the concepts and foundations of entrepreneurship (theoretical), they also put those into action via pitching ideas in competitions, launching businesses, consulting for real companies, etc. The point is, the schools are aware of the nature of entrepreneurship, and gone are the days of teaching students to write 100-page business plans that will be thrown out 1 week into start-up. The top schools offer highly tailored, experiential learning that makes students both knowledgeable and adaptable. 

Why would a student go to school to learn about entrepreneurship, shouldn’t they just go do it on their own?

In my program, most of my ENT professors were successful entrepreneurs themselves, which means they are giving students not just the academic approach to entrepreneurship, but also their real life experiences, successes, and failures. The benefits that a university provides an entrepreneurship student in terms of learning structure, resources and support system, leadership opportunities, and networking are not even comparable to someone trying to do it by themselves. In what other setting do I have the ability to take my ideas through the start-up process with no financial or reputational risk, while having access to a bunch of PhDs, top-tier research databases, school connections, and fellow like-minded classmates to help along the way? From this standpoint, the degree and experiences are invaluable. 

People get degrees to increase their odds of success in whatever they are trying to pursue. Let me ask this, does getting a degree in mechanical engineering teach you everything you need to know about mechanical engineering? Does getting a finance degree adequately prepare you to trade stocks? Of course not. While some fields require more specialization and certain certificates, those often come after a degree is completed anyways. Students don’t expect to apply everything they learned in school to their job. Most will be lucky if even 30% of what they learned is used. What a degree does is teach you how to think, how to learn, how to work in teams, and gives you a foundation of knowledge that you take with you both professionally and personally for the rest of your life. An entrepreneurship degree is no different. 

The value of an entrepreneurship degree in the real world

Everyone has a different reason for why they pursue a degree in entrepreneurship. Anecdotally, very few of my peers were actively in the process of starting a business, or had plans to start a business at least in the near future. Some planned to work for their family company after graduation and wanted to use the degree to help them grow the business and eventually take over. But the majority recognized that entrepreneurship is an extremely valuable skill, and one that employers are increasingly looking for. Entrepreneurship pairs beautifully with almost any major, but majors like engineering, marketing, sales, finance, communications, and art are popular to pair with entrepreneurship. Most schools recognize this cross-disciplinary advantage, which is why they offer it as a minor, concentration, or certificate, allowing students to learn about entrepreneurship while simultaneously getting a degree in their primary focus. 

If a student decides to face the odds and start a business at a young age, an entrepreneurship degree can give them a leg up and a massive head start compared to someone with no business degree, or even arguably someone with many years of industry experience, but no startup experience. If the student fails, or if they have no intention of starting a business, they are still left with countless transferable and extremely valuable skills to a future employer. 

For one, a degree in entrepreneurship fundamentally changes how you think. You think critically, you challenge the status-quo and it switches your brain from being a consumer to a producer. It forces you to look at the world through a lens of opportunity and recognizes patterns and areas for improvement and innovation. It gives you a well-rounded business education that shows how all of the moving pieces of a business interact with each other which aids in decision-making. Entrepreneurship majors are leaders, change agents, problem-solvers, and growth-minded.

Due to the highly project and team-based curriculum, you can expect an entrepreneurship major to have very strong skills in Teamwork, Project Management, Accounting, Creativity, Market Research, Sales, Presentation and Analysis. 

In an increasingly competitive and global world, the need for innovation and entrepreneurship to solve complex problems has never been more needed. Companies of any industry, size, and maturity can benefit from an entrepreneurial mindset. The entrepreneurship degree is here to stay and will only improve as more research on early stage companies is conducted.