Entrepreneurship Course Descriptions

Graduate Level Program Courses /MBA and MSEI

(All courses are 3 units unless otherwise noted)

• ENTR 5141/TA 5141 – Entrepreneurial Improvisation and Creativity. Exploration of improvisation as a tool to frame problems, think creatively, develop compelling presentation skills, and express energy and passion in varied business environments.
• ENTR 5410 – Commercializing Entrepreneurial Innovation. Examines the process of commercializing innovations and emerging technologies using a university-owned/federal lab-owned patent as the primary focus. Emphasis on bridging scientific discovery with entrepreneurial application to understand how to transition early-stage research and development to scalable ventures. Topics include the scientific methodology of entrepreneurship, intellectual property protection, data analytics and visualization, simulations, AI-driven market modeling, licensing, process optimization, and commercialization planning.
• ENTR 5450 – Evidence-Based Resource Planning. Exploration of analytical techniques for identifying, evaluating, and securing resources for scalable ventures. Special emphasis on applying business statistics and data-driven forecasting to develop startup pro forma statements and test critical assumptions. Simulation methods and optimization models are introduced to analyze multiple funding scenarios. Focus on developing skills on data analytics and visualization to communicate resource projections and startup valuation outcomes and examining frameworks for marshaling internal/external resources.
• ENTR 6200 – Pitching the New Venture. Introduction and exploration of the key concepts and techniques used to effectively position and deliver a concise summary of the opportunity, value proposition, business model, and investment potential of the new venture. Students will develop and pitch a multitude of entrepreneurial narratives for internal (business partners, leadership, management, employees) and external stakeholders (customers, public, investors, lenders).
• ENTR 6210 – Entrepreneurship and New Ventures. Study of the entrepreneurial process. Focus on the characteristics and mindset of entrepreneurs, ideation and innovation, startup models, risk mitigation, analyzing emerging opportunities, resource creativity, ethics and guerrilla tactics.
• ENTR 6230 – The Science of Opportunity: Data-Driven Recognition and Evidence-Based Evaluation. Emphasis on applying the scientific method within the entrepreneurial framework of opportunity recognition, development, and validation. Focus on learning how to form hypotheses about customer problems, design experiments to test assumptions, collect and analyze data, and refine ideas into viable new venture opportunities.
• ENTR 6240 – Law and Negotiations for the New Venture. Introduction, exploration and analysis of the key legal, regulatory and policy issues that effect new venture decision-making, negotiations and strategy.
• ENTR 6250 – New Venture Product Development. Focuses on the development of new venture products using iterative and engineering-informed approaches. Students explore the process of conceptualization, prototyping, testing, and optimization, integrating market requirements with technical feasibility.
• ENTR 6960 – Entrepreneurial Immersion. Independent graduate research. Students will work under the direction of a faculty member to develop and finalize an entrepreneurial venture project. Formerly ENTR 6961 and ENTR 6962.
• ENTR 6980 – Reflective Essay. Submission of a reflective essay based on specified program guidelines. Graded credit/no credit. Prerequisites: Completion of or concurrent enrollment in all courses in the MS in Entrepreneurship and Innovation or the MBA Entrepreneurship focus area.
• IST 6110 - Foundations of Analytics and Big Data. Business analytics is the scientific process of transforming data into insight for making informed decisions. Any organization in the public or private sector that wishes to accomplish its mission and maintain competitive advantage uses data-driven decision making metrics/analytics. This course uses hands-on tools, and a series of readings, videos, quizzes and discussion to assist students in understanding quantitative management tools used to drive business performance and security. In this course you will review the basic statistical concepts, learn data visualization and storytelling through big data, and use advanced statistical techniques for clustering, forecasting, and predicting. The design, development, validation and organization of metrics using hands-on tools.
• ENTR 5155 – Business Consulting. Supervised consulting assignments designed to provide meaningful business assistance to businesses. Prerequisites: Senior status, consent of instructor and college.
• ENTR 5260 – Global Entrepreneurship. Entrepreneurial process in a global context as it relates to recognizing ideas, marshaling resources, developing networks and creating the strategy for a new cross-border venture.
• ENTR 5470 – Managing a Growing Business. Study of the basic strategy and tactics to manage growing enterprises while still maintaining an entrepreneurial spirit. Examines the role of management decision making, management control systems, short- and long-run planning, and entrepreneurship in managing growing companies.
• ENTR 5490 – Launching the Entrepreneurial Venture. An exploration of the key processes and methods involved in positioning and establishing new enterprises.
• ENTR 5550 – Entrepreneurship in Action: Corporate, Social and Family Business Approaches. An exploration of how entrepreneurial approaches are effectively applied in differing contexts, including large corporations, nonprofit organizations and closely-held family business firms. Focus on understanding the barriers and opportunities to entrepreneurship that are unique to each context through applied case analysis.
• ENTR 5915/5930 – Contemporary Topics in Entrepreneurship (1-3 units). Analysis and discussion of selected topics relevant to entrepreneurship.