New course opens entrepreneurial avenues

BUS 238 will make upper-division business courses available to students in all faculties

September 8th, 2014 by Scott Jacobsen| Photos By Anderson Wang (The Peak)

A new course offered this fall by two SFU professors will open entrepreneurial avenues to undergraduate students in all faculties.

The 200-level introductory course, BUS 238: Introduction to Entrepreneurship and Innovation, emphasizes cooperative, team-based approaches to entrepreneurship and innovation. Available to any student who has 12 or more credits, the course will make upper-division business classes accessible.

Taught by Sarah Lubik, lecturer in the Technology Entrepreneurship@SFU program, and Andrew Gemino, professor of management information systems, BUS 238 demonstrates that you don’t have to take courses in business fundamentals — such as finance or accounting — to learn about entrepreneurship at SFU.

For the duration of the course, Lubik and Gemino intend to bring in multiple guest speakers from differing disciplines to discuss team-based approaches. As of yet, the guest speakers have not been confirmed.

Lubik told The Peak, “The course looks at empowering students in understanding themselves as entrepreneurs and innovators. It looks at studying problems, going deep into problems.”

According to Lubik, this type of course instruction will allow all students to develop basic, core skills necessary for any innovator or entrepreneur. “This course is important because entrepreneurship and innovation skills are important no matter what faculty you are in, no matter what you think your future is,” Lubik said.

She added that the course will help students develop “the ability to come up with an idea that actually meets needs [as well as] the ability to execute on an idea and to iterate, and to pivot.”

In addition to these benefits, Lubik said the course is important for the university and its students because it brings together all of the different faculties involved in entrepreneurship and innovation. “It is open to everybody, regardless of faculty,” she said.

According to Lubik, one of the most important skill sets in entrepreneurship and innovation relates to the ability of people to work in a team and cooperate to succeed at an entrepreneurial goal.

“The reason I keep saying ‘team’,” she told the Georgia Strait, “is because traditionally, business schools have tried to teach entrepreneurship to business students, not realizing that as soon as you get out into the real world, you’re going to be working with people who don’t speak that language — who are completely different from you.”

Lubik emphasized the importance of involving students who have the ability to work across disciplines because of the challenges — such as communicating in different languages — that are encountered in different fields.

In such situations, it becomes important to find a common language or conversational style which allows everyone involved to bridge disciplinary jargon.

She concluded, “No matter what your discipline or interests are, entrepreneurship and innovation skills will give you greater flexibility, more value for many potential employers and the security of knowing you have the ability to create and seize your own opportunities.”