ACADEMIC PROGRAMS
These are the entrepreneurial courses offered in the undergraduate and graduate programs at John Carroll University. Our learning experiences provide students the entrepreneurial tools to create and succeed in a career that matters to them.
Our BA prepares you to stand among society’s brightest — leaders and entrepreneurs who don’t hesitate to bring courage, compassion, and creativity to address societal needs. You gain the skills and mindsets required to affect meaningful change in conscientious and impactful ways. You learn foundational concepts across disciplines — finance, law, sociology, history, management, marketing — and bring habits of reflection and self-awareness about your role as a collaborator, convener and leader.
Community-based activities and research, and experiential learning opportunities in the Capstone and through co-op experience give you a 360-view of markets, communities and policy and empower you to actively advocate for inclusion and social justice.
Intentionally designed for students from any major, the entrepreneurship minor is a powerful journey of experiential learning. We guide curious students as they identify and solve big problems and launch big solutions using their innate creativity and passion.
Combine entrepreneurship with any major so any student can study what they are passionate about while:
-
Mastering skills employers are looking for
-
Working in diverse teams to solve real-life business and social problems
-
Building relationships with Cleveland entrepreneurs and innovators
A sampling of courses in the Entrepreneurship Minor is below.
ER2201 - Creativity & Innovation
Students practice creativity through techniques for improving the flexibility and originality of their thinking, thereby developing an entrepreneurial mindset. Using this mindset, students generate ideas and recognize problems worth solving using different creative approaches in various settings and fields. Students work with a team to develop an innovative solution to one of these problems, to identify an audience for it, and to communicate the solution to that audience.
ER3301 - Intro to Entrepreneurship
This experiential course continues the process critical to the entrepreneurial mindset. Students will practice human-centered design processes, idea generation and validation, product prototyping, business design and modeling, customer development, and persuasive pitching. This course requires individual and team presentations.
ER3304 - Social Entrepreneurship
Applies the skills developed in ER 301 to social enterprises. Introduces the meaning and importance of social entrepreneurship in the modern economy and demonstrates how entrepreneurial orientation can assist in the attainment of nonprofit and social objectives as a means to obtain social justice. Students work in teams to develop a social entrepreneurial project and then present it in oral and written form to entrepreneurs.
ER4480 - Entrepreneurship Field Experience
A capstone course that uses and expands upon the entrepreneurial mindset and skills developed throughout the minor. Students complete a group project that involves the development of a new idea from conception to launch, the presentation of the idea to a group of entrepreneurs.
This is an immersive and project-based 1 year professional degree program serving a wide range of aspiring business and social entrepreneurs and innovators. Students develop the skills to identify opportunities and create prosperity and possibility with purpose.
Whether bringing a new product to market, delivering process change in mature and structured corporations, or disrupting an entire business ecosystem, students need far more than persistence to overcome the world’s most pressing challenges. Students' tool kit for driving innovation within established or startup organizations will include learning to:
-
Expand their overall entrepreneurial acumen.
-
Sharpen their critical eye for recognizing viable ideas and approaches.
-
Communicate new venture concepts to investors.
-
Apply novel business models to address unmet and underserved market needs.
-
Reimagine internal processes to unleash smarter solutions.
-
Manage the financial side of the innovation equation.
-
See change through an ethical and social responsibility perspective.
A sampling of courses in the MSIE is below.
ER5550 - Entrepreneurship Bootcamp
The focus of this intensive experience is to expose students to the highs, lows, pressure and fun of the entrepreneurial process. Students experience the entire entrepreneurial process, while being mentored by regional entrepreneurs and investors
ER5552 - Failure as a Learning Tool
By studying the science and the art of failure, students will develop a portfolio of resilience mechanisms to better prepare them for an entrepreneurial success. Students will study and analyze failures in the industry of their Bootcamp Project.
ER5556 - Innovative Thinking
Explores a variety of customer-centric techniques for identifying opportunities, generating ideas to fit those opportunities, and translating those ideas into value propositions that, in turn, create value for the organization. Also includes a framework for understanding the application of business models to new ideas and methods for communicating those ideas.
ER5553 - Innovative Business Models
Students will apply design methodologies and innovation tools while working closely with a client company with a real problem to solve in an industry related to their Bootcamp Project. Students will study business model innovation, and will learn how to identify new business opportunities, design and test breakthrough concepts, and develop a viable business strategy and operating model.
.jpg)
A co-curricular, cross-campus program that serves students, alumni, staff and faculty to promote entrepreneurial thinking, innovative mindset, creative collaboration, and venture creation through advising, events, and connections to the greater Northeast Ohio community.