Entrepreneurship is an interdisciplinary minor that provides opportunities for students to learn about entrepreneurship—the process of creating value through recognizing and developing opportunities. It serves to complement the student’s major area of study, in any college, by offering a means of putting theory and science into practice. The goal of the Entrepreneurship minor is to provide the knowledge and skills needed to create value through recognizing and developing opportunities. In addition to feasibility analysis and business planning, the minor deals with the topics of innovation, opportunity recognition, technology transfer, industry analysis, and competitive strategy. Although the minor introduces some fundamental concepts from accounting, finance, marketing, and management, it does not attempt to substitute for any business courses in these areas.
Interdepartmental Undergraduate Minor
A minor in entrepreneurship is available to all undergraduate students at ISU. The minor requires at least 15 credits from an approved list of courses, including at least 6 credits in courses numbered 300 or above taken at Iowa State University with a grade of C or higher. The minor must include at least 9 credits that are not used to meet any other department, college, or university requirement. Students must follow college-specific rules in selecting courses. The college representatives to the supervisory committee will be responsible for advising students in their college, and will inform students about the details of the college rules. Students with declared majors have priority over students with declared minors in courses with space constraints.
Students with an Entrepreneurship minor are not permitted to major in Entrepreneurship.
A student seeking a minor in entrepreneurship must successfully complete a minimum of 15 credits in courses approved for use in the entrepreneurship program, including the following:
| Required Courses (6 credits): | ||
| ENTSP 310 | Entrepreneurship and Innovation | 3 |
| ENTSP 313 | Feasibility Analysis and Business Planning | 3 |
| or ENTSP 320 | Corporate Entrepreneurship, Innovation and Technology Management | |
| or ENTSP 410 Social Entrepreneurship | ||
ENTSP 310 Entrepreneurship and Innovation is the introductory course and provides an overview of the entire field.
ENTSP 313 Feasibility Analysis and Business Planning emphasizes developing an idea for a new venture, conducting a feasibility study, researching the potential market, analyzing the competition, and preparing a formal business plan.
ENTSP 320 Corporate Entrepreneurship, Innovation and Technology Management introduces and examines state-of-the-art approaches to product innovation and technology development in today's large and established organizations.
ENTSP 410 Social Entrepreneurship discusses issues related to the role of social entrepreneurship in helping to solve social problems, including innovation, opportunity recognition, planning and the launch of new non-profit organizations.
| Elective Courses (6 credits): | ||
| Select TWO entrepreneurship-oriented electives from an approved course list (see below). Students are encouraged to take electives within their major college. | ||
| Experiential Learning (3 credits): | ||
| Students will engage in the process(es) of entrepreneurship to earn experiential learning credits. Students will either take a course that has been designated as an experiential learning course, or use some other experiential learning activity as the basis to receive credits through an independent study. | ||
Detailed information about the Entrepreneurship minor, the list of approved electives, as well as information about the experiential learning options are available online at: https://www.ivybusiness.iastate.edu/undergraduate/majors-minors/entrepreneurial-studies-minor/
FOR IVY COLLEGE OF BUSINESS STUDENTS ONLY: Students are limited to three business majors/degrees within the Ivy College of Business, or a total of three business majors/minors within the college. This limit is on business majors/degrees/minors only, and does not apply to multiple majors/degrees/minors taken outside the Ivy College of Business.
Graduate Certificate
An interdisciplinary graduate certificate in entrepreneurship and innovation is available to post-graduate students from any discipline. The program provides students an opportunity to learn about entrepreneurship, innovation, and the new venture creation process and to develop business skills that can be used to start a business. The program is flexible so that students can design a program that provides core entrepreneurship education through one required business management course as well as discipline-specific training from entrepreneurship courses in other colleges. Some of these courses for this certificate may be available online.
Students seeking this Graduate Certificate must meet minimum university criteria for admission to graduate programs. Students interested in the Entrepreneurship and Innovation Certificate must successfully complete a minimum of 12 credits in courses approved for use in the certificate program, including one required course, MGMT 566 Entrepreneurship and New Business Creation and three entrepreneurship-oriented electives (9 cr.) chosen from an approved course list. MGMT 566 Entrepreneurship and New Business Creation focuses on the essentials of starting and operating a new business. Additional information as well as the list of approved electives can be found on the certificate website at: https://www.ivybusiness.iastate.edu/masters/graduate-certificates/