Minor to test business savvy

Chris Dyer said it feels like someone always seems to be planning his future — whether it’s his parents’ friends saying he should follow in his father’s footsteps and become a doctor or his venture capitalist uncle pointing him toward a business degree.

The freshman said he still doesn’t know exactly what he wants to study, but he knows one thing for sure: He wants to “make things happen.”

This desire sparked his interest in UNC’s minor in entrepreneurship, approved last week as the latest component of the Carolina Entrepreneurial Initiative. It will be available to 50 students next fall.

“Students should come out with some basic competencies — understanding of markets, how to attract interest to their idea and learn about strategy, how to access the viability of ideas, and tools to understand the financial aspect of an idea,” said Entrepreneur in Residence Buck Goldstein.

The minor will consist of two tracks — commercial entrepreneurship and social entrepreneurship. Both tracks require a total of five classes, including the completion of Economics 10.

The final required course is a summer internship that provides direct entrepreneurship experience.

The Department of Economics will offer courses in conjunction with the Department of City and Regional Planning, the Kenan-Flagler Business School, the Center for Public Service and the APPLES service-learning program.

Economics professor John Stewart, who is directing the minor, said it “culminates in students producing a business plan.”

The minor is open to students obtaining liberal arts and science degrees, but not business majors.

“What’s cutting edge is that (the minor) is focused on the chemistry major or the music major that wants to pick up the skills needed to turn an idea into a reality,” said Goldstein, who will co-teach “Introduction to Entrepreneurship.”

He stressed that the minor is not a stepping stone for a job after college but that it provides skills necessary to find solutions to real-world problems. “It’s not just taking a couple courses to help you with your first job,” he said. “It’s more like helping you be prepared for your last job — your most important job.”

Goldstein also said students would have the opportunity to meet a variety of professionals with entrepreneurial backgrounds.

Students must obtain permission from the instructor to enroll in the introductory entrepreneurship class.

“To ensure a high quality course, we wanted to make sure that class size was kept to a manageable level,” Stewart said. “We also want to get a good mix of students with interest in social entrepreneurship and business entrepreneurship.”

Dyer, who now is enrolled in Goldstein’s freshman seminar entrepreneurship class, said he thinks students will come out of the minor with confidence and connections to the entrepreneurial world.

“(They) are going to have knowledge about how to do something and not just go in blindly,” he said.

The $11 million dollar Carolina Entrepreneurship Initiative, launched last spring, is funded in part by a grant from the Ewing Marion Kauffman Foundation.

For more information, visit http://www.kenaninstitute.unc.edu/centers/cei/index.asp?y=entreminor&t=Entrepreneurship.

Contact the University Editor at udesk@unc.edu.