When you’re your own boss, every day can be casual Friday.
That’s part of the appeal behind entrepreneurial management, an increasingly popular choice for business and management students across the country.
More than 1,600 colleges, including Boston University, are now offering courses in entrepreneurship, as well as providing support groups and centers for students interested in starting up their own businesses instead of following the tried and true formula for success in the traditional business world.
“Entrepreneurship is great because it gives people much more freedom than having to put on a suit and tie and go to work from 9 to 5,” Entrepreneurial Management Institute Director Peter Russo said. “Obviously there are disadvantages as well and risks involved, but that’s what we’re here for.”
The EMI is a resource center designed to aid students in getting a foot through the entrepreneurial door, through a variety of resources, contacts, programs and activities.
“Some of our programs include business concept competitions, friendly boot camps designed to promote and learn teamwork and a whole variety of curriculum designed to help students write business plans,” Russo said.
The EMI has already attracted students interested in getting a head start on the entrepreneurship world, including School of Management sophomore Chin Kuo.
“I’ve heard about the EMI and, although I haven’t checked out their center yet, I intend to,” he said. “I think it’s great that BU is providing all these resources that help students get a head start in the business world.
“Everybody knows how cutthroat SMG and the corporate world is,” Kuo continued. “We could use any advantage and any resource we can get, such as networking and with business contacts.”
Russo said the networking and contacts in the business world are an important resource provided by the EMI.
“We create a network and a community among alumni, the faculty [at SMG] and the students in order for them to help each other,” he said.
SMG sophomore Anthony Tsai said he feels that the EMI provides skills, resources and lessons that all management students could use, regardless of their major or focus.
“With the business contacts that they provide, along with the workshops they run, I feel like I could learn a lot about how to succeed,” Tsai said. “Obviously, it takes a lot more than some contacts and a few workshops to succeed but they definitely give us a huge advantage.”
Russo also has his own theories on why entrepreneurship is taking off as far as being a focus of business students.
“The biggest advantage is simply the opportunity to pursue one’s own dreams and to create something and see it come to fruition,” he said. “The disadvantages are clearly that it’s hard to break through into something like this and it takes an awful lot of hard work, you have to have all the skills necessary.”
The independence of creating an original business is drawing SMG sophomore Kristen Bierfeldt to the field.
“I love entrepreneurship,” she said. “I love the feeling of independence, being able to have a dream and to follow it. I think it’s great that the EMI exists with the intention of helping us out.”
Russo said being in control is often the draw to being an entrepreneur.
“A lot of people like to be their own boss,” he said, “simple as that.”
This is an account occasionally used by the Daily Free Press editors to post archived posts from previous iterations of the site or otherwise for special circumstance publications. See authorship info on the byline at the top of the page.
