Priorities:Michigan State University Student Priorities

Student Priorities

Inspiring Design Thinking

Although the culture of innovation and entrepreneurship at MSU has come a long way in the last few years, there’s still a lot of room to grow. Many students, especially underclassmen, do not even have innovation and entrepreneurship on their radar, This unfortunate truth presents an opportunity to provide students with accessible and exciting opportunities to learn about innovation and entrepreneurship early on.

Encouraging the Pursuit of Entrepreneurship

Students are currently both intimidated by entrepreneurship and encouraged to follow the corporate route in engineering at Michigan State University. It is important that the campus culture encourages students to pursue their entrepreneurial goals as well as inspire capable and innovative students to follow the route of entrepreneurship throughout their studies and following graduation.

 Strategy #1: Work entrepreneurship into the curriculum

 The general curriculum engineers go through should inspire students to seek out and pursue their entrepreneurial potential and make entrepreneurship and innovation accessible to all students.

Strategy #2:  Hold regular presentations and speeches by engineers who pursued entrepreneurship

Knowing that others have followed entrepreneurship and have made it through the same point where the students are currently at will empower students to pursue the "big bad beast" of entrepreneurship.

Providing Tools for Realizing Entrepreneurial Goals

Once students at Michigan State decide they have the confidence and desire to follow entepreneurship, they quickly realize that they lack the tools necessary to do so. A large part of this problem is satisfied by the Innovation Center in the Business College, but it’s important that students leave the university with the tools necessary to maintain their entrepreneurship independently and successfully.

 Strategy #1: Provide an entrepreneurship concentration within all engineering majors; specifically designed for entrepreneurship in their field

These specialized classes will focus on students who know that they eventually want to pursue entrepreneurship, but do not know what their next steps are. There will be business classes on business model development and how to get capital, as well as classes on what entrepreneurship looks like in their field, some of which may range from patent writing and processes to software development and consumer testing.

               

Strategy #2: Provide seminars on business design and entrepreneurship strategies

For those students that do not have the space in their curriculum to add entrepreneurship to their degree but still would like to add these skills to their skill set, or for those relatively familiar with the entire process and only need classes in specialized areas, independent co-curricular seminars should be held on isolated subjects. For instance, a brief seminar on patent writing may suit students better who are at a particular point in their entrepreneurial track but need a little extra information.

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Brandon DuQuette