Entrepreneurship in Universities

In recent years, many universities promote entrepreneurship and have many activities. Many universities do not explicitly explain why they support entrepreneurship activities.

Universities Are Good for Entrepreneurship Activities

The academic structures in typical universities are good for entrepreneurship activities, for example,

  • The students in the same cohort take similar courses and spend considerable amounts of time together. Students can find partners among the same cohort.

  • Even students in the same cohort may take a wide range of courses and build teams of diverse talents.

  • Many universities have research programs, in addition to teaching, and can create new technologies for medicine, chemical processes, information and communication, mechanical devices, and many more.

Universities Are Bad for Entrepreneurship Activities

Many reasons also make universities bad places for entrepreneurship activities. The existing academic structures can be harmful to cultivate the minds of entrepreneurs.

  • Students and professors are used to semester (or quarter in some universities) system: Each course lasts only 15 weeks; after 15 weeks grades are given and everything is forgotten. Everything gets refresh start the next semester. Unfortunately, 15 weeks are too short for solving complex problems. Students and professors are not used to solving large and difficult problems.

  • Due to the short duration of each semester, homework assignments and exam questions must not be too challenging.

  • For large classes, it would be difficult to accommodate the needs and strengths of individual students. Instructors usually have to rely on assignments and exams questions that have “correct” answers. Such practice may discourage creativity. In fact, many exams rely on multiple-choice questions and discourage students from creating new answers other than the few given by the instructors.

  • Many instructors, for the purpose of encouraging learning, give “partial credits”: giving some points to a student if the student’s answer is wrong but somewhat related to correct answers. Unfortunately, in the “real world”, many people (customers) do not purchase products with slight defects, even at lower prices. Would you board an airplane that leaks fuel and the airlines give you 20% discount? Would you buy a sedan with one flat tire even though the dealer gives you 25% discount? The concept of partial credits can hurt students’ thinking.

  • Students in each deparment usually take similar courses. They have similar skills and do not have good opportunities knowing people in other departments with different skills.

  • GPA (Grade Point Average) is widely used to evaluate students’ understanding of the subjects. GPA encourages students to pay attention to every subjects, not to focus on any specific topic at the expense of low grades in other subjects.