Undergraduate Courses 2016-17

This course introduces entrepreneurship through seminars and readings to broadly expose students to the area. Various topics will be covered, with experience sharing from practitioners and investors. Students may choose the seminars and readings of their interests, which include startup environment, team forming, financing, success and failure factors, social entrepreneurship and innovation, etc. Site visits may also be required.

Entrepreneurship is a particularly demanding form of leadership. This is a course built on a structured process of mentoring which can be an effective way to experience and practice the art of leadership, especially in the context of entrepreneurship. From this course, students can learn how to: (1) develop a passion for learning; (2) cultivate resourcefulness and an entrepreneurial mindset; (3) Embrace an abundance mentality; (4) Have the courage to be humble while maintaining self-confidence; (5) develop decision-making skills, including priority-setting; and (6) accept accountability for actions and ideas. Instructor’s approval is required for enrollment in the course.

Students who intend to experience what entrepreneurship really means must actively engage in meaningful, direct ways with the industry ecosystem. The learning outcomes in this course are essential elements in the practice of entrepreneurship, and a real-time, real-life simulation is provided to fulfill the learning goal, so the students actually work to identify real business opportunities and design meaningful solutions. This is a capstone course for the Entrepreneurship Minor. Instructor’s approval is required for enrollment in the course.

This course is jointly run by the Schools of Engineering, Science and Business & Management. It acquaints students with the landscapes of various industries, by examining important elements to start up a business and introducing the markets of various sectors. The goal is to expose students interested in entrepreneurship to the diversity, competition, interaction and decision-making process of various ecosystems. Professors and visitors from the schools will discuss enabling technologies, key processes, business models, and cases on topics of current interests. Students form teams to survey and analyze the companies and ecosystem of a particular sector, in order to identify the operation models, similarities, differentiations and opportunities ahead.

This course discusses selected, emerging and/or hot topics on entrepreneurship which are not currently covered by existing courses. May be graded by letter, P/F, or DI/PA/F subject to different offerings. Students may repeat the course for credits if different topics are taken.

Building a social enterprise can be markedly different from building a commercial one. When well deployed, social innovations can meet social needs that the government welfare, business corporations or charity-based social welfare cannot easily fulfill. A commercial entity should also be aware of the social impacts of its business decisions. This course introduces corporate social responsibility (CSR), social innovations, and the factors of consideration to start a social enterprise. This includes current topics on operation models, sustainability, team building, case studies, strategies, practices, etc. Site visits and student projects will be involved.

Many successful IT startups begin in university years. This is a project course led by students to accelerate their entrepreneurship endeavor under the guidance and advice of a faculty member. Students work in team of size 2 to 3 to develop an idea from its scratch to become viable in market. In the process, students work on ideation, prototyping, making presentations, developing operation strategies, conducting experimental trials, designing market survey, collecting user feedbacks, writing business plan, and soft-launching and pivoting the product or services. Written reports, presentations, and/or business/operation plan are required. May be repeated for credits if different topics are taken. Instructor's approval is required for enrollment in the course.