Now that students are selecting their future courses, here’s why I think it is beneficial to take entrepreneurship as a student who took it myself. 

My Experience

Although I enrolled into entrepreneurship thinking it would be a fun, easy class, it ended up requiring more work than initially thought. If you have any interest in any aspect of business, you should take entrepreneurship; if you want to be one of the students producing products for the porter pride store, you should take entrepreneurship. The class is split between the production and business side of entrepreneurship. The work including designing the logos, cutting out vinyl and placing the vinyl on products turned out to be a process I thoroughly enjoyed. 

Entrepreneurship is the type of class that gives students creative freedom with their projects. In a group, you create a product you will then work on the entire semester, and start this same process again in the spring. In the fall, my group designed and produced sweat-shorts. Although this product wasn’t my favorite, we learned a great deal from our mistakes on everything from communication to how to handle the machines. 

Based on this experience, we applied this knowledge to our spring product—graduation jerseys. These jerseys were practically fully customizable with customers selecting their last name, graduation year, color scheme and if the choice to add glitter. 

While making them was a process in itself, we then had to market the jerseys. Through this entire experience, we received feedback from our teachers while simultaneously competing with other students and their products. It was fulfilling to see our product and hard work come to life, we also incorporated other aspects of business like business models, pitching our product to teachers and having sales to incite our customers. 

Entrepreneurship is  a very hands-on experience; however, since it is a dual enrollment class, you have to complete McGraw Hill Practice in addition to the physical work. McGraw Hill was one of the more annoying parts of the class, as every time a question was answered incorrectly you had to complete more questions to move on. However, another positive was that we didn’t really have tests as our product and McGraw Hill is what made up most of our grade. Overall, my entrepreneurship experience was a positive one and if I could I would take the class again. 

Teacher Insight

The entrepreneurship teachers, Mr. Ebert and Mr. Meyer, also shared why taking the course would be beneficial: the course is dual credit, where you receive six hours of college credit, it’s very hands-on, and you get to learn about business. 

They also shared some of the things students have notoriously disliked about the class. “There are times when it’s a lot of work, and there are times when it’s not. If students don’t manage their time well, then they push everything together rather than doing their work when we assign it,” Mr. Meyer, the teacher in charge of the business side remarks. 

They go on to describe the resources they offer for students to succeed, including step by step tutorials and Compass time for struggling students. For students who are deciding on getting into the world of business, Mr. Ebert advises students to take entrepreneurship in their junior year, followed by taking the career internship class in their senior year.

Both teachers and I share the sentiment that if you choose entrepreneurship as a blow off class, thinking you will do little work, you’re not going to enjoy it. While the class is fun, there is work involved, so instead, you should choose entrepreneurship to gain this business experience of learning to make and sell a product.