Should I go to university if I want to be an entrepreneur?
Levent asked 5 years ago
Is there any benefit that a university can give me about that field? Plus, what do you think about educating entrepreneurs? I think entrepreneurship is a wild field. You will learn and discover entrepreneurship while you are walking the way. This thing makes entrepreneurship exciting and unique. Some of my thoughts tell me by educating is killing creativity and outside thinking ability which is important for entrepreneurship. And some of my thought tell me things that I wrote above is not totally correct. I need to listen to the people who already walked this journey. I need to be more open, flexible, and always ready to learn new things. Educating is one of them. What do you think about it? Thank you, sir.
Bill Aulet answered 5 years ago
Great question. As I talk about entrepreneurship is a craft not a science or art (see http://www.d-eship.com/articles/entrepreneurship-is-a-craft-and-heres-why-thats-important/). If people try to treat it like a science, they will fail teaching it. If people believe it is an art, they will not teach it effectively. It is a craft and as such it requires an apprenticeship model to teach it effectively. There should be theory and practice. It certainly can be taught.
Does this mean that you should go to university if you want to be an entrepreneur? I don’t know your personal situation but generally my answer is yes. This assumes you want to be an innovation-driven entrepreneur who will build a company with a scalable product. To do this you probably need to understand science, technology, math, engineering and fundamental business concepts. I know people point to the fact that Gates, Jobs, Zuckerberg, etc. are college dropouts … but this is misleading. First of all, they all had terrific educations before they dropped out. Secondly, they had a very specific time and industry. This would not work for the biotech industry because you really need to have some fundamental knowledge that you only get through an education. Third, these are outliers. The average age of a successful entrepreneur is late 30’s and early 40’s.
Which leads me to my next point of why it makes sense to go to university. The hardest part about a startup is not the technology. It is not the market. It is the PEOPLE dimension. Going to college allows you to grow up in so many ways and become a full person who can communicate and get along with many different types of people. It builds your confidence. You grow up. This is one of the reasons why successful entrepreneur are in not in their 20’s. This subtle element is something you acquire over time and the college environment is a great place to develop these skills so you can excel this area.
Now all of this being said, getting a college degree will not make you a successful entrepreneur. No one cares about credentials in the entrepreneurial world. It is about skills, attitude and your ability to solve problems with low drama. Find a school that has a good entrepreneurship program that runs parallel with your education. Not all of them have rigor and relevance to the real world. See what types of courses, co-curricular programs, extra-curricular programs, infrastructure and partnerships they have. There are a number of schools with very exciting programs that will accelerate your entrepreneurial education beyond what you could do outside a university (one with the initials MIT comes to mind!). You can do both in places like this and it sounds like that would fit you best.
I hope this helps but I recommend almost all the time the question is not whether you go to university or not but rather which is the best one for you. There will always be entrepreneurial opportunities but you really can one shot at going to college with your age group and growing up. Make the most of it.
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