Why Exploring Entrepreneurship was the Best Decision I Made in College
I entered college as most of us do: naive, bright-eyed, and ready to experience what many adults told me would be the best four years of my life. I was intimidated going to a new school where I didn’t know anyone and had no idea what I wanted to do with my life. It didn’t help that so many of my classmates seemed to have everything all figured out (though I would later learn most of them were projecting false confidence to ease their nerves about college).
I decided to follow in my older brother’s footsteps by pursuing a computer science degree. Truth be told, after months of indecisiveness leading up to college applications, I just wanted to pick something (anything) to focus on so that I wouldn’t feel lost.
In the face of uncertainty about my life goals and career plans, one thing became crystal clear. These next four years were an essential opportunity for me to explore as many new interests as possible and figure out who I wanted to be.
Getting involved in entrepreneurship ultimately led me to discover the answers to my questions of self-identity even though I had little interest in business and could barely even define the term “entrepreneurship”.
A Definition of Entrepreneurship
When you hear the word “entrepreneur,” “founder,” or “innovator”, I’m sure your mind begins to race to the likes of Mark Zuckerberg, Elon Musk, Steve Jobs, or Sara Blakely.
Entrepreneurship is often presented as an elusive, god-like state of power that only the worthy can achieve. Yet, the true meaning of entrepreneurship is something much more attainable.
“Entrepreneurship is the pursuit of opportunity beyond the resources currently controlled.”
- Professor Howard Stevenson, Harvard Business School
This definition clarifies that entrepreneurship doesn’t just describe one’s role (i.e., founder), the stage a business is at (i.e., startup), or the type of person one is (i.e., a risk-taker who highly values independence). It is a fixation on a novel opportunity such as an innovative new product, a unique business model, a better/cheaper version of a product, or a new target market for an existing product.
Thus, anyone can be an entrepreneur if they approach problem-solving opportunistically.
[ READ: How To Find Winning Ideas]
I’m NOT an Entrepreneur
I will preface this article by letting you know that I do not consider myself an entrepreneur, nor do I believe that becoming an entrepreneur is the right career choice for everyone. However, calling yourself an entrepreneur and exploring entrepreneurship are two very different feats.
Engaging in the action of entrepreneurship is something I have done at several points throughout my academic career, such as while I was building my co-founded 3-D selfie printing business and while I was developing an innovation conference for all Boston area schools. In these pursuits, I could have considered myself to be an entrepreneur… just not a necessarily successful entrepreneur (and to me, success is key to attaining the label of “entrepreneur”).
I am certainly not one of those major success stories of a student who built their million-dollar business with a scrappy team of college students and is planning to make it the next big thing post-graduation (though I have close relationships with several alumni who have done just that). I currently do not own or operate a business of my own, nor have I indeed done so for longer than a few months.
I am still learning about the problems that riddle our world and discovering new exciting projects to possibly get involved in every few weeks. However, though I was never much of a success, this didn’t stop me from gaining immense benefits through the pursuit of entrepreneurship. Trying enabled me to become a more creative problem solver, think deeper about my career decisions, meet lifelong mentors, and distinguish myself from my peers through demonstrated passion.
Entrepreneurship Isn’t All About Business
To me, exploring entrepreneurship equates to exploring yourself and helping you discover what you care about and how much you care about it.
Most people who have explored entrepreneurship will understand the phenomenon of how something clicks in your brain when you find a problem that you wholeheartedly care about. Learning more about this problem and wanting to find a cheaper, faster, or easier solution to address it becomes an obsession.
Although learning various skills such as selling, digital marketing, accounting, and time management become necessary as you take your entrepreneurial venture more seriously, all you need to get started is intense curiosity.
The top skills entrepreneurs use and develop include pattern recognition, team building, structured experimentation, adaptation, decisiveness, and persistence. These are skills that upon further development can assist you in any profession of your choosing.
What I Gained From Exploring Entrepreneurship
Entrepreneurship provided me with an avenue to learn things about myself free from judgment. It helped me both personally and professionally in more ways than I can count, and I attribute much of my success and self-confidence today to the entrepreneurial experiences I had in college.
1. Stand Out Amongst the Crowd
As someone who has gone through the job application process for full-time jobs twice during college, experience with entrepreneurship was one of the key factors that helped me stand out from my peers.
Coming from high school, there are very few experiences worth including on your resume. Trying to build your own business helps you brand yourself as a doer, and hiring managers look for self-starters. Personal branding is a major skill that everyone who pursues entrepreneurship ends up learning.
You’ll have something to talk about during interviews that you actually want to talk about, not a class project or camp counselor job but something that embodies who you are at your core. Not to mention you’ll have a whole new skill set to pitch yourself with.
While applying to software development jobs I was able to promote my new understanding of the overall business and how monetary needs integrated with the prioritization of work for engineers. I could also speak to my creative problems solving skills by discussing how my co-founder and I used an X-Box Kinect camera as a scanner to save time and money in our business.
2. Connect With Like-Minded Peers
I’m sure you’ve heard sayings like “you should always surround yourself with people that are better than you,” and “your friends determine your future.” Studies have shown that academic performance, self-control, health, and success can all be determined by the people you surround yourself with.
I argue that there is no better group of individuals to possibly surround yourself with than entrepreneurs. Though many may have been faking it until they make it, I was able to derive so many great characteristics from my peers at The Entrepreneurs Club.
The people around me valued curiosity, ingenuity, scrappiness, and high achievement. They were able to speak about themselves and the things they cared about with ease because their pursuit of entrepreneurship had helped them clarify their identity.
3. Learn What You Care About Free From Judgement
One of the greatest benefits of exploring entrepreneurship that isn’t afforded to most college students within their major studies is the freedom to experiment with different problems and ideas.
Your entrepreneurial ventures are not branded on you like your college major is. You could be working on a venture for months and decide not to tell a soul about it. In this way, you can choose what you spend your time exploring, and this allows you to truly dive into issues that matter to you.
Failure is a necessary step in the pursuit of entrepreneurship. It is something that is celebrated by all entrepreneurs as a new learning experience. This outlook helped me ease the pressure off myself to always be doing things “the right way.”
4. Start Solving Problems That Matter
After you discover what you truly care about, the process of entrepreneurship will enable you with the tools you need to start solving these problems yourself. This, of course, is driven by a combination of self-education and learning from mistakes while building a business venture.
Researching problems, speaking to potential customers, creating business models, and iterating on new product ideas are all things anyone has the ability to do. These are the steps all entrepreneurs take to solve the problems they care about. You need no one else’s permission but your own to do the same.
Most people know nothing until they do. Don’t let your age or lack of knowledge hold you back from putting your best effort toward trying something new.
How You Can Start Exploring Entrepreneurship
How I Got Started
I started exploring entrepreneurship freshmen year of college by participating in a venture incubator and pitch competition on campus.
The program was heavily education-focused and built its curriculum around the same one taught by Northeastern entrepreneurship professors. They brought in expert speakers each week who had real-world experience dealing with the topics that we were being taught, and they played a hand in teaching us how these topics applied to a real business venture.
Participating in that program laid the foundation of business knowledge that I was lacking as I started my journey into entrepreneurship. It also helped me meet key student leaders at my university who were heavily involved in the entrepreneurial community and encouraged me to integrate further into their organization.
I went from building a startup to mentoring other student founders and eventually teaching other students the curriculum myself as the director of the same venture incubator that had helped me so much during my first year.
My Advice To You
My best piece of advice to get started as a college entrepreneur is to join an entrepreneurship organization at your school or in your area. You don’t need some grand idea to participate in a startup challenge. Odds are, you’ll be able to find a co-founder there or start exploring problems once you enter. The key is to just get started, take the leap and see where you land.
If your university lacks the resources for entrepreneurial exploration, there are lots of ways you can get involved on your own online. I am currently putting together the entire curriculum I benefitted from so greatly during my first few years at college.
Stay informed on when I’m launching my website built for students interested in exploring entrepreneurship by filling out this brief survey.
