Entrepreneurship at UVA is much more than a course or a classroom experience. It is a mindset that charges the students and faculty to challenge the status quo, create, innovate, and drive change. The Technology Entrepreneurship program coordinates a network of entrepreneurship-related programs and activities open to all students and emphasizes a practical, hands-on approach to entrepreneurship.
We designed our program to train engineering students to know how to recognize and convert discoveries into products; business schools are not well equipped to study and teach how to advance knowledge-push innovations.
The mission of this Entrepreneurship Minor is three fold:
1) Prepare students to play crucial roles in the new venture community—whether as founders, funders, policy makers, technologists, or executives—thereby impacting positively the world in which we live and creating value of all kinds.
2) Connect entrepreneurship efforts across multiple disciplines and Schools at the University of Virginia through a coordinated and collective curriculum.
3) Experience with the tools, techniques, and transformations involved in new venture development (e.g., ideation and innovation, team building, product-market fit, financial and social return, policy and legal dynamics), involving not only start-up companies, but also new ventures within or launched by established firms.
The curriculum of the minor provides students with an education in and experience with the tools, techniques, and transformations involved in new venture development. For example: innovation and design (e.g., ideation, design thinking, problem solution fit), management and operations (e.g., team building, venture modeling), financial and social return (e.g., venture capital, venture philanthropy and impact investing), and legal dynamics (e.g., incorporation, term sheets, intellectual property). The new venture community is defined broadly to include not only startup companies, but also new ventures operating within or launched by established firms. Furthermore, this community is defined so as to include both not for profit and or profit ventures.
Eligibility
The Entrepreneurship Minor is open by application to all undergraduate students at the University regardless of school of enrollment, major, or prior coursework.
Applications are currently being accepted here.
Acceptance into and declaration of the minor does not guarantee enrollment in the courses or completion of the minor, all courses are offered on a space-available basis.
Courses may not be double-counted toward the fulfillment of the Entrepreneurship Minor (i.e., a single course should not fulfill requirements for greater than one distinct degree program), except in the case of Engineering School students who may double count one STS elective with the STS requirement for Engineering majors. Engineering students may not enroll and complete both the Engineering Business Minor and the Entrepreneurship Minor.
Course Requirements
Students begin the Minor curriculum with ENTP 1010: Startup class. The Startup class is a 14-week course-plus-experience designed to provide students with not only the basic tools and vocabulary of new ventures, but also a sense of what it feels like to start, fund, and manage such ventures. The course, by way of in-class case discussions and mentored workshops, introduces students to a broad range of issues faced by founders and funders of both for-profit and nonprofit ventures. The Startup class—open to first- and second-years students at UVA, regardless of school or major—is the result of a partnership involving McIntire’s Galant Center for Entrepreneurship, the Technology Entrepreneurship program at the School of Engineering & Applied Science, the Social Entrepreneurship Initiative at the Batten School of Public Policy, and the i.Lab at the University of Virginia .
A Concentration within the Minor is initiated by one of two courses—(a) STS 2810: Introduction to Technology Entrepreneurship (for the Technology Entrepreneurship Concentration) or (b) PPOL 3050: Introduction to Social Entrepreneurship (for the Social Entrepreneurship Concentration)—and then fulfilled via three elective courses from a portfolio of courses offered across Grounds: Finance, Operations, Law, and Design/Innovation.
The curriculum of the Minor is completed via a Capstone course, which is be offered in two forms in an effort to match the nature of student demand: (1) Special Topics in New Ventures (ENTP 3000) and Launch (ENTP 4000). Students will select one of these options below:
ENTP 3000: Special Topics in New Ventures
Each section of ENTP 3000, via guest speakers, discussions, and assigned projects, will introduce students to and engage students with new ventures in a particular sector (e.g., New Venture in Health, New Ventures in Impact, New Ventures in Education,etc.). Versions of these courses already exist at the University, offered out of a variety of Schools, and would simply be organized under or co-listed via a common course listing.
ENTP 4000: Launch
The Launch course is a class as accelerator, through which a select group of admitted students would further develop over the course of a semester a venture of their own design. The course experience is comprised of not only a curriculum focused upon customer, product, and venture development, but also the mentoring of ventures by experienced founders, investors, lawyers, and other members of the new venture community.
Elective Courses
Students complete nine credit hours (usually three [3] courses) from the following list:
ARCH 3070 Foundations in Design Thinking
CHEM 2350 This Chemical Century
COMM 1800 Making Business Work
COMM 3420 Commercial Law II
COMM 3790 Venture Capital and the Emerging Firm
EDLF 2050 Innovation in Education
HIUS 3162 Digitizing America
MDST 3405 Media Policy and Law
PPOL 3290 Social Innovation in Emerging Markets: India and South East Asia
PPOL 3410 Social Innovation Imperative: Implications for Thinking Big and Having Impact
PPOL 4550 Global Field Experience – Social Entrepreneurship in India
PPOL 4730 Impact Investing
PPOL 5225 Conscious Social Change
SOC 3710 Organizations, Institutions, and Markets
STS 1800 Business Fundamentals for Engineers
STS 2730 Engineers and Art of the Deal
STS 2820 Presentation Strategies for Entrepreneurs
STS 2830 Start-Up Operations for Entrepreneurs
STS 2850 Government and Entrepreneurship
STS 2890 The Entrepreneur and History
Additional course electives are pending approval. Other courses are approved by David Touve, Academic Director for the minor, in consultation with Professor Bernard Carlson (School of Engineering & Applied Sciences) and Professor Christine Mahoney (School of Leadership and Public Policy).
Capstone Options
Students choose one (1) course from the following to complete the minor:
VARIOUS Project-Based New Ventures Courses (e.g., PPOL 4735, BME 4550, STS 4110)
ENTP 4000 Launch (by instructor permission)
Consult the UVA Undergraduate Record for degree requirements and course descriptions.