Author Reflection

Many assistant professors, within engineering and other disciplines, go straight into academics without the opportunity to practice engineering in ‘real-world’ applications. Many of these faculty are excellent researchers, however, due to the lack of experience may have a limited understanding of how today’s business actually operates with respect to validating customer desirability, technology feasibility, and business viability. Thus, the question then becomes where they can go to attain this insight to help prepare future engineers. It is important that students see value in classroom topics and are able to connect theory and textbooks to real-world applications.

The purpose of this section is to provide faculty motivation for being entrepreneurial in our teaching approach and at the institutional level.

1 Being Entrepreneurial in Our Teaching Approach

We recognize that the thrust of this book has been a call to integrate the entrepreneurial mindset within engineering students. Yet, this can only happen if we, as engineering educators, further develop and depend on our own entrepreneurial mindset in the process. No, this does not mean that you need to go out and start your own business (that is, unless you want to). Rather we need to become more entrepreneurial as engineering educators. This involves being innovative in our teaching approach, being proactive or alert to new pedagogical opportunities, and lastly, take some risks in doing so.

First, we can innovate. A lot. Innovations may be incremental additions to existing courses, such as trying out new experiential exercises, incorporating innovation prompts or adding a new case. In other instances, we might have more freedom to innovate and develop new projects that span the entire semester. In however we innovate, we need to strive to develop new ways to engage the student. In many cases, this involves bringing the real world into the classroom. As evidenced by the learning pyramid, this also requires experiential learning (and lecturing less). It is a huge responsibility to innovate. While innovation can require a lot of time and energy, it is also a lot of fun and can be very rewarding when successful.

We recognize that the thrust of this book has been a call to advance entrepreneurship education within engineering students. Yet, this can only happen if we, as educators, further develop and depend on our own entrepreneurial mindset in the process.

Second, we can be proactive and try to anticipate what pedagogical opportunities might exist. Thus, we need to stay very active in what is happening in the ‘real world’ and talk to ‘real’ entrepreneurs and community members. Being constantly on the look out for new teaching ideas, these may appear through various email list serves, conferences, scanning the web, reading the newspaper/magazines or talking with folks in the community. It means becoming active in local networks, such as KEEN, VentureWell or Epicenter. As we teach a class, we can keep a running list of ways in which we might want to explore improving upon the following semester. Thus, it is our proactiveness or alertness that feeds the innovations we pursue.

Third, we can take risks. This means that sometimes our course innovations work great, while other times they do not. Yet, as we teach our students, we do not necessary fail. Rather, we learn a bit more each semester on what works and what does not work. While entrepreneurs are risk-takers, they are moderate or calculated risk-takers. This means that they try to manage the risk by conducting research and/or spreading out the risk through collaboration with other partners. When creating a new assignment or exercise, we can similarly try to reduce the risk by sourcing proven ideas that have worked elsewhere at other institutions.

Our guess is that you already do a lot of this as it relates to the engineering disciplines in which you specialize. The next step is extending it to integrating the entrepreneurial mindset so that we can ensure our students develop the habits they need to best leverage their engineering skillsets. While the curriculum examples offered in the preceding section may be a starting point, a commonly asked question is “where do we go from here?” How do we get linked in with others that are implementing the entrepreneurial mindset? What resources exist that we can tap into? Fortunately, there are many resources that do exist. The first pool of resources that focuses exclusively on applying the entrepreneurial mindset within the context of engineering is small, but growing and gaining speed. Yet, a second pool of resources also exists. Although this second pool has been created from the point of view of the business school, there is a lot to be leveraged and that can be creatively applied. Thus, we hereby draw on both “pools” of resources to showcase how you, as the engineering educator, can leverage them.

2 Tips for Continued Development

When developing curriculum incorporating the entrepreneurial mindset, there are a few tips that can be taken to ensure that the process is both efficient and effective.

  • Benchmark other institutions. It is always useful to understand how entrepreneurship is being integrated into other courses. One way is to examine model institutions that have received some sort of acclaim or recognition for their entrepreneurship program. Within the entrepreneurship arena, for example, you might look at the model undergraduate programs in entrepreneurship as awarded through the United States Association of Small Business and Entrepreneurship (USASBE). Another option is to profile the member institutions of either the KEEN or Epicenter organizations. Keep in mind that the role of benchmarking is to see what is out there, and learn from these institutions. There may be some elements that you want to copy and take back to your institution, and still others that you might take the concept and customize it. Moreover, you might end up innovating and creating something altogether different.

  • Leverage insight from local entrepreneurs (or, in this case, entrepreneurial engineers). Talk to engineers in a variety of contexts, whether it be a start-up, large corporation, growing firm, etc., and find out what skills they rely on.

  • Leverage insight from employers. Talk to your employers and again, ask they what skills they are looking for. Sometimes there can still be confusion as to what is meant by the entrepreneurial mindset, so be sure to focus on the components of the mindset and don’t get stuck on terminology. See if your experience with employers matches what we read about. See which components of the entrepreneurial mindset seem to be lacking in your graduates, and where you might focus your efforts.

  • Leverage insight from interdisciplinary faculty. You cannot simply jump to the end point, but you can accelerate it, especially with partnerships across colleges. If we look at the history of how formal entrepreneurship programs develop, they typically start within the business school. Ironically, many of the design elements are simply being transferred from the engineering folks to the business folks—thus, there is already a lot of overlap. The key is to find these synergies.

The curriculum is just one way in which the entrepreneurial mindset can be taught to engineering students. There are also many programming opportunities and strategic partnerships within the university and greater community that can be leveraged. Many of these programming examples that are specific to your university size, location and focus can be identified by looking to model, peer, aspirant, or competitive institutions. However, we continue to reinforce that while it is important to examine these other programs, we do not necessarily recommend that you copy them. Some might make sense for you to copy, while others might make more sense for you to customize. And still, there is likely room for you to innovate all together in envisioning what entrepreneurial engineering could look like at your institution.