STARKVILLE – Entrepreneurship has always had a home at Mississippi State University, but now, it has a major.
This month, the College of Business introduced a new major in entrepreneurship, housed in the Department of Management and Information Systems.
Department Head Laura Marler said the program is tailor-made for students interested in launching their own businesses, helping out with family businesses or creating new pathways in existing corporations.
“We don’t view entrepreneurship as a one-size-fits-all,” Marler said. “Entrepreneurship comes in all sorts of different forms, and we wanted to have a major that had enough flexibility for students to delve into areas that they would like to learn more about.”
The 120-hour program repackages existing business coursework while introducing two new classes: Creativity and Innovation, and a capstone course called Business Venture Creation.
College of Business Dean Scott Grawe said the curriculum is rooted in the basics of working in business.
“If you’re going to be in business … you have to understand finance. … You have to understand how capital markets work, how loan markets work and so forth,” Grawe said. “A lot of what we teach is basic core components that are really important to entrepreneurs, and then we can tailor some additional courses on top of that.”
The Creativity and Innovation course trains students to think creatively and develop original ideas. The capstone, Business Venture Creation, guides students through the full process of building a business.
“We’re focused on creativity, innovation and training people on how to take something from an idea stage to an actual business that’s viable,” Marler said.
Beyond the classroom
Students in the major are encouraged to connect with MSU’s Center for Entrepreneurship and Outreach, better known as the E-Center, a 4,000 square-foot space in McCool Hall that supports and funds student ventures.
Currently, the E-Center is home to about 100 student-led startups. While participation in the center isn’t required, Grawe said it’s a natural complement to the major.
“What this entrepreneurship major does is it allows us to put together a curriculum to accompany the E-Center, to go alongside it,” Grawe said. “So for students who are interested in learning what it takes to grow a business … we can help them build those skills and knowledge to be able to do that.”
Grawe said he expects a “good number” of students in the new major to take advantage of the E-Center’s resources.
“While the students are taking their entrepreneurship courses, they’re going to walk right past the E-Center,” Grawe said. “… By stepping foot in that E-Center, students have the opportunity to really put what they’re learning in the classroom to work in actually building and getting their businesses off the ground.”
In addition to dedicated office space for students, the E-Center offers a Venture Catalyst Program, which teaches students how to write a business plan and awards up to $7,500 in funding. E-Center Director Nick Pashos also helped launch a new living learning community this month, housed in Davenport Hall, for freshmen across all majors who are interested in entrepreneurship.
Pashos said all these opportunities work in tandem with the new major to create a fully-immersive experience with entrepreneurship.
“It all kind of goes hand-in-hand,” Pashos said. “If somebody is interested in entrepreneurship and they come in for the major, they could come live in the living learning community, they could be a part of the E-Center and take part in the Venture Catalyst Program. … Everything that happens at the E-Center is complimentary to those learning activities of the new major.”
Devin Duncan, a senior majoring in interdisciplinary studies, has been growing his streetwear brand, Goat-Teez Apparel, through the E-Center since 2021. He’s learned how to build a business plan, pitch to investors and fine-tune his marketing strategies.
Originally a business administration major, Duncan said the new entrepreneurship track would have been a better fit for him from the start.
“Coming into college, I was under the impression that business administration was sort of like an entrepreneurship major, but then once I started getting into more serious classes, things really started to break down a little bit,” Duncan said. “… Being in this major would have knocked out a lot of the trial and error that I just did on my own. … It’s definitely an opportunity I would have taken.”
Grawe said that while no students have enrolled for the major just yet, he hopes to see between 25 and 50 students switch to the major in this first year.
“A lot of students who come to Mississippi State University come, not necessarily because they want to go work for somebody else, but because they want to start something big,” Grawe said. “We want to give them the tools to be able to do that.”
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