Student Reflections: Why Entrepreneurship?
Students’ access to a wide variety of educational and experiential opportunities designed to enhance Purdue degrees continues to grow. New minors, concentrations, certificates, micro-credentials, internships, and cooperatives are just a click away. Given these options, we asked students from across campus why they chose to pursue entrepreneurship and innovation in addition to their majors. Here are some of their perspectives:
EXPANDING HORIZONS
As an underclassman, I wasn’t sure what career to pursue and believed the ENTR Program would complement my science degree and be a great transferrable set of skills for any career path.
Thus far, the ENTR Program has expanded my horizons on opportunities I have as a science major. While I do not see myself wanting to start my own business and be an entrepreneur per se, I have learned intrapreneurial skills that are invaluable to my future career.
PERSONALIZED & FLEXIBLE PROGRAM
I wanted an interesting yet feasible program to add to my major. After realizing the flexibility of the ENTR Program and that I could essentially personalize my path from a long list of approved courses, I knew an entrepreneurship credential was right for me. I now have entrepreneurial skills and feel ready to direct new initiatives in any company.
CREATIVE OUTLET
“I decided to become a biomedical engineer because I want to improve people’s lives through innovation. The ENTR Program has taught me how to develop business models and has been an outlet for my creative side. I’ve also been able to work with students from many different majors with diverse perspectives. Enrolling in the certificate is one of the best decisions I’ve made in my college career!”
ALL-IN-ONE PROGRAM
Being raised among family entrepreneurs and business owners, I was inspired. One of my personal goals was to start my own company. I was eager to be a part of an entrepreneurial offering providing me access to creativity, innovation, and out-of-the-box thinking all in one program.
Pursuing the ENTR Program was a great way to help me achieve my dream, and I can’t wait to see where the entrepreneurial skills that I have learned at Purdue take me!
PEER RECOMMENDATION
The ENTR Program came highly recommended by the upperclassmen on my Engineering Projects in Community Service (EPICS) team. In a demanding Mechanical Engineering program, the certificate still fits so well into my plan of study.
I’ve already applied my entrepreneurial courses to engineering design and I am excited to see how it will further impact my career.
INTERPERSONAL SKILL GROWTH
Growing my interpersonal skills and with a very technically focused major was important to me. I was interested in applying my technical skills in a startup environment too.
Throughout my multiple cooperative rotations with an industry-leading aerospace corporation, I have utilized the business knowledge I gained from the ENTR Program and it has allowed me to stand out from other engineers who only possess technical knowledge.
DIFFERENT BUSINESS PERSPECTIVE
After changing my major to pursue a business-focus with Financial Counseling and Planning, I still wanted to take courses that allowed me to collaborate and think about business from a different perspective. The ENTR Program fit easily into my plan of study and gave me the chance to work together with students and learn from real business leaders in the classroom.
I’m grateful to Purdue for the opportunity to interact with special people in a special program.
ENTREPRENEURIAL INTEREST
I grew up working for family businesses, learned to value the autonomy of small businesses, and developed an interest in entrepreneurship at a very young age. In high school, working for an independently-owned community pharmacy sparked my interest to gain more entrepreneurial skills. I was grateful Purdue had an academic credential in entrepreneurship open to all majors.
In the ENTR Program, I’ve learned so many practical methods and tools for innovating, the ability to think about problems and solutions in a different light, the value of diverse thoughts, and teamwork through students with different backgrounds and disciplines. I even have used many of the things I have learned to start a new business venture with my own family over the past year, and we have been successful and well-received thus far.