DEVELOPING AN ENTREPRENEURIAL MINDSET IN ENGINEERING STUDENTS

Abstract

Developing engineers with entrepreneurial skills is becoming a valued objective for engineering faculties across the country. Entrepreneurship courses are being added to engineering curriculum, course options are being created to allow students to pursue an entrepreneurship or management track in their undergraduate engineering studies, and graduate programs are being developed in Engineering Management, as a more specific and alternative route to the Master of Business Administration (MBA). This paper presents the results of a six-year survey of engineering students who have elected to enroll in an upperclassmen Entrepreneurship course. It presents the approach that has been taken in an Engineering elective at Memorial University to develop entrepreneurially minded engineering students, and the students’ perspectives on why engineers become entrepreneurs, what entrepreneurial qualities they believe they possess, and how they have learned to evaluate entrepreneurial ideas not only on its technical merit, but organizationally and strategically.