Entrepreneurial Start Up

Description

This module is a new initiative to deepen the engagement of final year students with the enterprise agenda, encouraging them to think about how they can develop enterprising behaviours, mind-sets and skills, and to examine and participate within the relationship between being enterprising and entrepreneurship. Students will explore product viability through to product launch (not including actual product launch as part of the module, students can pursue this independently if they wish). They will also be given initial training in how to demonstrate entrepreneurial skills to an external audience or interviewer.

An Enterprising and Entrepreneurial mind-set and skill-suite in graduates are highly prized by employers globally and will become essential in ensuring our students are able to compete at a high level within the graduate labour market. In addition, this module supports the University’s strategic framework of encouraging our students to become:

  • Enterprising, creative and transformative thinkers
  • Effective problem solvers and communicators
  • Globally and locally culturally aware
  • Responsible and ethical citizens
  • Confident and flexible life-long learners
  • Resilient and effective leaders

The proposed module fits perfectly with the overall rationale for the Liberal Arts and Natural Sciences, to encourage students to become well rounded individuals with a strong set of diverse skills. During their first and second years they will already have engaged in group work and gained some preparation for this kind of assessment. This module now leads them more directly to think about their life after university in the world of the market and commerce.

Students will engage in independent guided learning through group work, designing, planning and testing the viability of their chosen product. They will work with LANS team leaders under the guidance of Careers staff. 

By the end of the module students should be able to:

  • Critically evaluate and apply appropriate entrepreneurial skills in practical settings
  • Work in collaboration with others to apply knowledge and understanding in a group project
  • Communicate information, ideas, problems and solutions to an audience
  • Engage reflexively in an independent learning environment

Assessment

  • Group Business Investment Pitch : Coursework (40%)
  • Self-reflection interview : Presentation (20%)
  • Group Investment Proposal : Group Assessment - Coursework (40%)