Babson College in Wellesley, Mass. offers A Classroom Path to Entrepreneurship:
At Babson College in Wellesley, Mass., for example, entrepreneurship is part of the school’s identity. Always listed among the top business schools for entrepreneurship studies, Babson was a pioneer in the academic discipline as far back as the late 1970s.Most colleges do not offer entrepreneurship courses until the junior or senior year. But at Babson, incoming freshmen take a yearlong course in which they are required to start and run a small business. Each class of 25 to 30 students is given $3,000 in seed money and is required to create a company to sell a real product that will exist for the school year. According to Professor Andrew Zacharakis, the students have never had a company fail to make back its initial financing. Most often, the companies make a profit, which is donated to charity.
“Our professors do a really good job of helping kids become active learners,” Professor Zacharakis said. “In high school, they sit back and listen to the teacher. Here, the professor is more of a coach. You are given a framework to think about how it works and you are expected to apply that.”
On Babson’s leafy suburban campus, budding upperclassmen entrepreneurs are the superstars, says Philip Tepfer, a 22-year-old senior who already has started his own apparel business, Sail (Proud), which sells clothes for sailing.
“Entrepreneurship is deep within the culture here,” Mr. Tepfer said. “They are always pushing us to go out and do something on our own.” Mr. Tepfer said his nascent business will reach $40,000 in sales in its first year and he projects more than $300,000 by Year 2. “Yes, there’s risk,” he said. “But it’s better than working at the campus coffee shop.”