What Does a Career in Entrepreneurship Entail?
It doesn’t take much to be an Entrepreneur, but one thing every entrepreneur should have is knowledge. Once you have learned your craft and earned your degree, you will have the skills needed to head for success. Entrepreneurs typically start and run their own business after getting a great idea. Some of these ventures take off and grow into multi-level industries, but unfortunately, most will fail within 18 months of start-up. That is the main reason why a degree should be obtained first, before taking on such a big risk. If you are smart, driven, creative, brave, headstrong, patient, and a gambler, then entrepreneurship may be the right career choice for you.
Once you hold an entrepreneurship degree, you can jump into line for many rewarding careers in business, as your coursework will help you understand business and strategy fundamentals that can be applied to running your own business or someone else’s. With the entrepreneur degree, you will gain enough insight to design and market products and services, recognize new business opportunities, and create and run a business from the ground up. You can also further your education and get a master’s in business.
Although there are no certifications required for a degree in entrepreneurship, you can get a “Certificate of Entrepreneurship” if you choose to take the one-year course to earn it. All that you will need to gain this certification is 30 credit points, then you can later continue to earn a higher-level degree that usually takes another year.
Some business colleges will not accept students in their bachelor’s degree entrepreneurship programs until they have achieved either sophomore or junior status, as well as satisfied core educational requirements. Students will have hands-on training that will account for some experience, which is crucial before jumping into risky business ventures. Fortunately, there are usually several options available while earning your degree that involve hands-on training, so that you can learn first-hand while watching experts at work. By the time you are ready to graduate you will be confident of developing your own business plans and seeing them through.
Typically, you will need to earn 120 credits to get an entrepreneurship bachelor’s degree, and you can obtain 30 credits per year by studying full-time. Therefore, it would take a total of four years to complete the course. However, there are some options to help you earn your degree sooner. Some schools offer accelerated entrepreneurship programs where you can reduce that time by about 30%. There is also year-round learning available at various colleges and universities, or another option is transferring credits you received from AP courses in High School to reduce the credits still required.
For a full four-year bachelor’s entrepreneurship degree, it will cost anywhere from $28,000 to $94,000 in total tuition. Even at full price of $94,000, it is a great investment choice since you will make the full four-year tuition cost back in around one year, when you start your own business, and with the skills you will learn, you are bound to be successful. A study conducted by American Express found that the majority of entrepreneurs pay themselves an annual salary of around $70,000 a year.
According to The National Center for Education Statistics, 6 years is now the average time it takes for individuals to get a college degree.
We can think of accreditation as a form of endorsement by a reputable association that stamps their approval on a college or university for quality educational program operations that meet their guidelines and high standards.
