<p>Some of the comments here imply that college professors would be clueless about how to teach entrepreneurship or to develop coursework in it. While that is generally true, consider what the faculty at Stanford created - Silicon Valley. </p>
<p>There are college programs for entrepreneurship in some business schools; Babson comes to mind.</p>
<p>I wasn’t disputing you on the fact more students had Cs in the past. </p>
<p>Only merely stating that there was just as much disdain for C students back then among many college students as there is currently. I wonder if this disdain coupled with the legacy admissions on steroids for Ivies and other elite private universities, the commonplace flagship public universities’ policies of using tough grading to weed out weaker students after comparatively easier admissions policies*, and the comparative lack of care for undergrad grades because there were so few college grads that getting an undergrad degree was regarded as a great achievement unto itself in that earlier period?</p>
<ul>
<li>Heard plenty of stories about how public flagships in the 1960’s and before would have easy admissions…but then use weedout grading policies to flunk out around half of the entering class within the first two years.</li>
</ul>
<p>My impression from Adams’s essay was that he didn’t learn entrepreneurship from his professors. If he “learned” any entrepreneurship at all, as opposed to simply being born with that kind of talent, then he learned it largely on his own.</p>
<p>Adams admits that he actually majored in economics, not entrepreneurship. What’s more, his examples were all things that he did out of his own initiative; they were not things he did in class but rather outside of class. He applied to be “Minister of Finance” at The Coffee House. He proposed to his accounting professor that “build[ing] and operat[ing] a proper accounting system for [The Coffee House]” would substitute for three credit hours. He got his friends together and pitched an idea to the Dean (of Housing?).</p>
<p>In a way, Adams’s essay confirms what I have long believed about “leadership” and “entrepreneurship”: leaders and entrepreneurs are born, not taught. None of Adams’s experiences came from the classroom. They all came from HIS drive.</p>
<p>You can teach a person to be a better public speaker, to be more organized, to be more responsible, and even to be more confident. But you cannot teach CHARISMA and VISION, which are necessary for effective and true leadership and entrepreneurship.</p>
<p>“But why do we make B students sit through these same classes? That’s like trying to train your cat to do your taxesa waste of time and money. Wouldn’t it make more sense to teach B students something useful, like entrepreneurship?”</p>
<p>I agree with Adams about the waste of time and money, but he doesn’t have any idea what today’s B students should be studying. Nobody knows how we will employ the millions of young Americans who won’t be working at jobs made extinct by technology.</p>
<p>Americans will work at something and my guess is that our country will continue to prosper but I don’t know what the heck they’ll be working at. And neither does Scott Adams.</p>
<p>*But you cannot teach CHARISMA and VISION, which are necessary for effective and true leadership and entrepreneurship. *</p>
<p>I agree.</p>
<p>It also takes a certain personality type, IMHO: confident, driven, a risk taker, willing to put in lonnnnng hours. You’ve got to really want to make a lot of money, and you’ve got to be willing to make tough sacrifices in the process. You’ve got to have that fire in your belly, etc. etc. etc.</p>
<p>I don’t have any of those things. You could teach me about them until your eyes bubble; you still wouldn’t make me into a successful entrepreneur.</p>
<p>It’s like any natural gift. You’ve either got it or you don’t. If you’ve got it, then practical training can help you develop it. But if you don’t have it, then no amount of book-larnin’ will ever give it to you. </p>
<p>Regardless of whether or not entrepreneurship is teachable, one great thing about being at college is that it offers great entrepreneurial opportunities. There aren’t many places which will allow an 18 or 19 year old with absolutely no experience to design, implement and run a small business’s accounting system, and take over management and operations of a housing facility. In the real world, most bright-eyed and bushy-tailed kids would get smacked down just for asking, no matter how talented and hardworking they are. But colleges are set up to give young people just these opportunities.</p>
<p>Which isn’t to say that a young entrepreneur can only gain experience at college. Just that we want to remind our kids that college learning isn’t restricted to the classroom. </p>
<p>My favorite part of the article was Adams’ description of how you add value:</p>
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</p>
<p>So, so, so true. And this isn’t just about business, or being wealthy. This is great advice for any career.</p>
<p>A. that Wisconsin has a center for entrepreneurship does NOT prove that it can be taught
B. from glancing at that, even they seem to encourage combining it with a major in the life sciences or engineering, not studying “entrepreneurship” on its own.</p>
<p>This article makes a good point that not most students don’t end up in academia or even in graduate/professional schools, so following a very “academic” course might not be the best. At the same time, I like to believe that many entrepreneurs combine leadership and real mastery of some skills. They are people who have ideas in the sciences, arts, and engineering. Unless you master some field, the entrepreneurship might not take you very far. Perhaps, a better alternative would be to teach science, art, and engineering students more business skills to allow them to use their skills to be entrepreneurs, not just academics or employees.</p>
<p>"But you cannot teach CHARISMA and VISION, which are necessary for effective and true leadership and entrepreneurship. "</p>
<p>You forgot to include CLASS ‘A’ JERK. Zucherberg may be an outlier, but S Jobs and B Gates are good examples. Business success is so often built on the exploitation of others. I wonder if that aspect is taught in B-school.</p>
<p>In the Wisconsin material they have summaries of several businesses that the students have started. Some have grown into good-sized companies and otjhers not so much. Most of them say they could not have done it as well without what they learned and the people the program brings in to advise them. </p>
<p>“You forgot to include CLASS ‘A’ JERK. Zucherberg may be an outlier, but S Jobs and B Gates are good examples. Business success is so often built on the exploitation of others. I wonder if that aspect is taught in B-school.”</p>
<p>Aren’t we a tad bit Stereotypical… Just because that is all you hear about in mainstream media does that mean it is true for all Entrepreneurs? No, Look at Richard Branson - True Entrepreneur. Business does not have to be a zero-sum game. You do not have to be a jerk to be successful. You have to understand people. The majority of business people and entreprenurs I know actually have a heart and care about others.</p>
<p>Eh, I don’t know if I agree with that. The market is trending more towards specialization; I’ve read quite a few articles about this, about how more and more employers are looking for people who are really good at one or two things instead of people who are moderately good at a lot of things. They then build teams of people who know how to do those things to work together. I think a better way to frame it would be for an average student to pick several things at which they can and are willing to achieve and then pursue/hone those skills to be really good. Maybe you won’t be world-class, but most businesses aren’t looking for a world-class accountant or computer programmer or technical writer - they just want someone who is great or really good.</p>
<p>The people on my staff for whom I would fight the hardest to retain are the two who possess an uncommon combination of skills. I would be very hard pressed to replace them. Yes, each has a particular, valuable specialty. But both have taken their skill sets beyond the bounds of their specialty and have redefined their jobs in the process.</p>
<p>I’m not sure we should listen to anyone with his views about half of society. See what he said about women:
“The reality is that women are treated differently by society for exactly the same reason that children and the mentally handicapped are treated differently. It’s just easier this way for everyone. You don’t argue with a four-year old about why he shouldn’t eat candy for dinner. You don’t punch a mentally handicapped guy even if he punches you first. And you don’t argue when a women tells you she’s only making 80 cents to your dollar. It’s the path of least resistance. You save your energy for more important battles.</p>
<p>And I think he fails to understand that college is not trade school. The point of a BA (and to a slightly lesser degree, BS), is not to equip you to have a job. Getting a college degree has , in fact, several points. One is acquiring a set of skills and knowledge that qualify you for a job or set of jobs. Another is becoming a better educated person - to improve yourself and , hopefully, your world.</p>
<p>You can improve yourself for a lot less than $30K-$50K a year. Just get a library card and start reading. For well over $100K I want something more. That notiion was fine when college cost less than the average Toyota today for 4 years.Now–not so much. A very expensive luxury.</p>
<p>However, the high cost of attending a university to study to a bachelor’s degree (unless one gets full non-loan aid/scholarship) means that most students do have to think about job and career implications of their studies.</p>