Entrepreneurship Minor

Curriculum overview

The Entrepreneurship Minor is 15 credits (five courses) designed to be taken alongside any major. The sequence moves from problem discovery through validation, prototyping, and venture building, with each course requiring real progress on a venture concept — your own or a team's. There are no prerequisites beyond sophomore standing.

The minor is housed in the College of Business but draws faculty from engineering, design, health sciences, and the arts. Courses are project-based; exams are rare. Grading emphasizes iteration quality, evidence gathering, and reflection, not whether your venture "succeeds."

Course sequence

1. ENTR 200: Discovery & Problem Framing (3 cr.) — Interviewing users, mapping systems, sizing markets, writing problem statements. Offered every semester. Fulfills a General Education Social Science requirement.
2. ENTR 310: Validation & Business Models (3 cr.) — Running structured experiments, building MVPs, unit economics, pricing tests. Prereq: ENTR 200 or instructor permission. Offered spring.
3. ENTR 320: Prototyping & Product Development (3 cr.) — Physical and digital prototyping, design for manufacturability, working with the Forge Prototyping Lab. Prereq: ENTR 310. Offered fall.
4. ENTR 410: Go-to-Market & Traction (3 cr.) — Channel strategy, sales fundamentals, growth loops, fundraising basics, cap tables. Prereq: ENTR 320. Offered spring.
5. ENTR 490: Venture Capstone (3 cr.) — See capstone options below. Prereq: ENTR 410. Offered every semester.

Courses must be taken in order. A summer accelerator section compresses ENTR 310–410 into 10 weeks for students who want to move faster.

Capstone options

ENTR 490 lets you choose a path that fits your venture stage:

• Incubator Track: Join the Student Venture Incubator for the semester; your cohort work is your capstone deliverable.
• Seed Fund Track: Prepare and pitch to the Student Venture Fund; the investment memo and pitch deck are your deliverables.
• Social Venture Track: Build a nonprofit or campus-impact project with a community partner; a sustainability plan and impact metrics are your deliverables.
• Research Commercialization Track: Work with a faculty PI on a research project with commercial potential; a technology transfer plan is your deliverable.

All tracks include a weekly seminar, a final presentation, and a reflective portfolio.

Who it is for

The minor attracts students from every college: engineers turning senior-design projects into products, designers building service ventures, nursing students creating patient-education tools, computer science majors launching SaaS products, and arts students starting creative businesses. About 30% of minors enter with an existing venture; the rest form teams in ENTR 200.

You do not need to identify as an "entrepreneur." The skills — problem discovery, evidence-based iteration, resourcefulness, communication — transfer to product management, consulting, research, nonprofit leadership, and intrapreneurship roles.

How to declare

1. Complete ENTR 200 with a C or better.
2. Meet with an entrepreneurship advisor (book through the Innovation Coaching portal).
3. Submit the minor declaration form in MyPorter; your advisor signs off.
4. Plan the remaining four courses with your advisor — they will help you sequence around your major requirements.

Transfer students with equivalent coursework can petition for ENTR 200 waiver. The minor appears on your transcript and diploma.