Volume 13, Number 2, 2005
Graduate from college, get an entry-level job at a large corporation, work your way up through a series of promotions over the next 35 years and then retire.
That may have been the old model for career success, but it no longer is realistic for most people, according to Scott Jones, professor of accounting and management information systems in the Alfred Lerner College of Business and Economics.
“The economy is changing, and a lifetime career in a large corporation is not that common anymore,” Jones says. “Today’s students grew up during the dot-com boom, so they’re familiar with entrepreneurs who’ve been very successful. If we can help them understand the process and the challenges of entrepreneurship, they’ll be better equipped, not just to start their own businesses someday, but to become employees of emerging businesses.”
This school year, a group of 16 freshmen is getting a head start on that understanding by taking part in a new project—part of UD’s Learning Integrated Freshman Experience (LIFE) program—focusing on entrepreneurship.
In the University-wide LIFE program, freshmen who share a particular interest volunteer to be part of a small learning community of first-year students. Participants in such groups, known as LIFE clusters, live in the same residence hall, take a couple of courses together and meet regularly as a group for activities and projects related to their common interest. The clusters are built around a wide range of topics, including technology, animal science, global citizenship, nursing and environmental issues.
During the fall 2004 semester, about 400 freshmen participated in the LIFE program. While the Lerner College has developed other LIFE clusters, the group focusing on entrepreneurship is a new initiative that organizers say is just part of a growing emphasis by the College.
“We thought that a LIFE cluster was a great way to involve freshmen who have an interest in entrepreneurship but who are still figuring out what they want to do,” Jones says. “We hope this initial group will continue their interest and encourage other students to become interested, and that will support our efforts to offer additional courses in entrepreneurship.” Eventually, Jones says, the College might offer a minor in the subject.
The students in the cluster are taking an introductory course in microeconomic systems and a general psychology class together. In addition, during the fall semester, they met weekly with a peer adviser, Natalie Gempesaw-Pangan, AS ’07, to plan activities and hear guest speakers.
The group attended a venture capital conference in Baltimore in October, where the students sat in on presentations from start-up companies in the fields of biotechnology and life sciences, whose owners were seeking financing from investors. Students also visited exhibits set up by these new ventures and spoke personally with the entrepreneurs.
Barry Williams of the Lerner College’s Delaware Small Business Development Center, who with Jones serves as a resource to students in the LIFE cluster, says the field trip to the conference is just one example of the way the program offers practical insights into entrepreneurship. He also arranged for guest speakers during the fall semester and presented a workshop to the group on starting a business.
Williams, who is director of the business development center’s Technology Assistance Program, normally advises working professionals seeking help in beginning, managing or expanding a company. Working with students has been a new and rewarding experience, he says.
“If this LIFE experience makes these freshmen more alert to opportunities in emerging businesses over the next four years, that could help influence their choices of summer jobs and internships and which courses they take,” Williams says. “They could easily come out of this process knowing more about entrepreneurship than many college seniors, or even graduates, do.”
For many students in the cluster, their decision to take part in the LIFE program was seen as a way to ease the adjustment to college academically and socially. Although they share an interest in entrepreneurship, their career plans vary.
“I thought the LIFE program would be a good way to meet people and develop friendships right away, and everyone in our group has really bonded and gets along great,” marketing major Amy Frankel, BE ’08, says. “I came here knowing that I wanted to study business, so I chose a LIFE cluster where I’d meet other people with similar interests.”
Her friend, Kait Lunny, AS ’08, is majoring in math and economics and considering an eventual graduate degree in finance. She says she’s interested in entrepreneurship, “not necessarily to run my own business, but maybe to work for a start-up someday.”
Mike Kobb, BE ’08, is looking ahead to attending law school after graduation. Whether he opens his own law practice or develops other business interests, he says, he figures he’ll be an entrepreneur at some point and wants to have the management training to succeed.
As part of the LIFE program, the students also are working on a group project this school year, in connection with the Lerner College’s first-ever business plan competition. The yearlong project encourages students throughout the UD campus to form teams, come up with an idea for a new business and submit a formal plan for the venture, to be judged by a panel of professionals.
The LIFE students have been helping to organize and promote the competition.
“These kinds of new-business plan competitions are common in schools that have entrepreneurship courses, and we thought the LIFE students could play a big role in helping us launch ours,” Jones says. “It’s just one of the experiences we think will be valuable for them. After all, there’s going to be a lot of new-business creation in the future, and we need graduates who are prepared for it.”
—Ann Manser, AS ’73, CHEP ’73