What should entrepreneurs go to college for

Students majoring in entrepreneurship and innovation at TCU's Neely School of Business learn from renowned and respected entrepreneurial experts with experience launching successful companies. Courses engage students in meaningful dialogue, encourage creative thinking, and focus on real-world application.

While most other undergraduate entrepreneurship programs culminate in a bachelor of science degree, this program awards a bachelor of business administration.

As with most degrees, the experience you get from it is what you make of it. Chances are pretty slim that a bachelor's in entrepreneurship will land you on the cover of Inc.

That said, a degree in entrepreneurship will provide you with real-world business startup experience that could prove invaluable when you pursue your own venture. Knowing what not to do is just as important as knowing what to do. More importantly, being familiar with every aspect of launching and managing a startup is critical to success.

An entrepreneurship degree will provide you with real-world business startup experience that could prove invaluable when you pursue your own venture.

If you already possess some work experience, you're ahead of the game. One research paper found that the average age of entrepreneurs who started companies and went on to hire one or more employees is 42 years old. To those who debate whether going back to school for an entrepreneurship degree is the right choice, the good news is that you don't have to quit your job and commit yourself to a full-time, on-campus experience. Many accredited institutions offer online entrepreneurship programs , which will cost you far less and still allow you to work while pursuing your degree.

Entrepreneurs are vital to the global economy. New business models are being propelled by the rise of cloud computing, smartphones, artificial intelligence , online marketplaces, and data sharing. Even without that, merely knowing their way around apps can make a portion of the job easier and move up the competitive ladder. Apart from programming languages , computer science and IT majors also get to learn some business basics, which can prove helpful to an entrepreneur.

Starting a tech start-up is an achievable dream for many computer science students, but they can also succeed in other industries. Having a computer science degree or an IT degree takes care of many aspects of entrepreneurship.

Some of the benefits of these degrees for entrepreneurs are:. Knowing the mechanics of marketing is an integral part of keeping a business alive, and as such, a crucial part of being an entrepreneur. Marketing is one of the best degrees for entrepreneurs because students get to learn more than just strategic marketing methods. They learn how to research target audiences, what platforms they can use to reach them, tailor marketing strategies for specific target audiences, etc.

In such a degree program, students learn how both the economy and markets work. Knowing the wants and needs of consumers helps with making smart business decisions and collecting feedback that will eventually improve marketing strategies. For this reason, psychology degrees can be helpful. Courses in decision making, personality psychology, and business or industrial psychology may be particularly helpful.

When an entrepreneur is savvy about managing the finances of a project, cutting corners where necessary, and expanding the budget in areas that have proved profitable, the business can go much further. For this reason, those who are great at analyzing numbers and patterns are successful entrepreneurs. A degree in finance can help you master this aspect of running a project. While this degree may miss some of the other important aspects of becoming an entrepreneur, it certainly gives you a solid background in handling one of the more notoriously tricky aspects of creating entrepreneurial success.

A degree in communications is an excellent choice for an entrepreneur. The nature of this work demands that you communicate effectively with people from all walks of life. Getting others on the same page as you will be key in making sure your project develops in the direction that you want it to go. Specific skills that you may gain in a communications degree program include public speaking, negotiation, reconciling miscommunications, and the effective use of various communication platforms including social media.

As an entrepreneur, you'll be heavily involved with marketing. Whether it's selling your idea or product to investors or customers, a background in this area is extremely beneficial. With a marketing class, you'll gain insights by conducting research into how to develop products that people want or need. You'll also learn how to develop a marketing campaign and how to engage your audience.

After taking a marketing class, you'll know that it's more important to find your market first, instead of wasting valuable resources in creating a product that no wants to support. Another business-related class that you should be taking is economics. An economics class will give you a basic understanding of production, distribution, and consumption of goods or services. Economics will also inform you on government policies affecting your business and how you can function in the global market.

Also, you'll learn the difference between microeconomics and macroeconomics. A trait that entrepreneurs must possess is the ability to rally the troops. But what if that's not in your nature? You could actually learn the techniques of being an effective and efficient leader by taking a management class.

A management class can teach you to properly communicate with team members when delivering criticism or delegating tasks, how to motivate your team, how to make your team collaborate with one another, and how to properly budget your company's finances.