The world of entrepreneurship is vastly misconstrued today for several reasons. It’s become “trendy” and a bit of a buzzword. Some envision fame, fortune and freedom while others resent the word as wishy-washy and a waste of time. The truth is that neither of these ideas represent the reality of entrepreneurship.

• It’s not true that starting a new venture leads to more free time. In order to turn an idea into a reality, it takes a lot of hard work.
• It’s not true that you must be a natural born leader, an extrovert, a type-A personality, or any other common stereotype to succeed as an entrepreneur. The only thing that is important is that you’re willing to learn.
• It’s not true that you’re supposed to do everything yourself and be some superhero. Every entrepreneur has support in their pursuit whether it be teammates, mentors, friends or family.
• It’s not even true that you must have your own idea or start your own business. Organizations of all sizes have opportunities for entrepreneurship because that’s how innovation and progress are produced.

So, what is entrepreneurship?

If you look up entrepreneurship in a dictionary, you’ll see a definition containing words such as “business”, “risk” and “money.” However, I’d go as far as to say that even this description is a misconception. Harvard’s Howard Stevenson defines entrepreneurship as “the pursuit of opportunity beyond resources controlled.” Being an entrepreneur goes beyond business applications and allows one to take full control of any opportunity.

How you benefit from becoming an entrepreneur

Since engineers have a great responsibility to innovate and improve the world, our impact would only be spread further if we pursued entrepreneurship. Skills such as communication, leadership, creativity and business knowledge are foundational to great success in any pursuit. Lucky for us, Texas A&M has many initiatives involving entrepreneurship so consider signing up for a course or competition sometime soon!

The College of Engineering offers an engineering entrepreneurship program that allows students to engage their minds while also gaining a certificate at the same time. This opens the window for a wide variety of opportunities.

Explore Engineering Entrepreneurship