The College of Engineering at Mississippi State University offers a program to allow students to understand real life job situations. The Jack-Hatcher Entrepreneurship Program is designed for those who wish to pursue a career in management or engineering and allows students to participate in the creation or refining of new products.
“This program is a certificate program designed for engineers to introduce them to business and entrepreneurship while completing their engineering degree,” Gerald Nelson, director of the Entrepreneurship Program, said.
The program consists of three parts: a seminar series, coursework and a project. Each of these components offers an essential aspect to the program.
The first component of the program is a seminar series in which the program brings in successful entrepreneurs, who are also engineers or run technical businesses of their own. It is a weekly event and actually serves as a one-hour class.
“The students are able to hear these entrepreneurs share their successes and failures in a lecture format,” Nelson said.
Students in the program must complete three semesters of the seminar series within his or her time at MSU in order to receive a certificate.
The seminar is held every Tuesday at 2 p.m. in the Swalm Building, and registration is open to any student.
The second component of the program involves coursework in addition to the engineering curriculum. Students must complete five business-related courses. Many of those can be taken as electives within their curriculum.
Coursework can be applied toward the prerequisites for an MBA degree if the student pursues one. Each individual must maintain a 2.25 GPA in all coursework and receive no less than a C in a class for it to be counted for the certificate.
The third component of certificate program is a project that includes a business plan.
“The project usually involves designing a new product that is technical in nature but has commercial application,” Nelson said. “We just recently had the idea fair, which is a source of project ideas for students.
“We had nine companies represented here last night (Tuesday) proposing new product ideas.”
Companies such as Skytell, MFJ Enterprises and Adtran, as well as many smaller businesses, come to the fair and set challenges for the students. They may present new, marketable products, desire to improve existing products or create new system designs.
Students listen to each company’s presentation and then pick a project of interest and form a team.
The companies give their financial support to the team that wants to follow through with their idea and offers the students advice on how to approach the problem.
Teams present their projects to entrepreneurs when completed and the winners receive a cash award as well as the chance to take that product to one of those companies.
The vision of the Jack-Hatcher Entrepreneurship Program includes helping students who desire careers in management or engineering the opportunity to increase their knowledge and experience and thus giving them increased value in the workplace. The program does encourage individuals to become entrepreneurs of their own businesses, but that is not its main purpose.
“It’s not about everyone going out and starting a business; it’s really to equip them,” Nelson said. “This entrepreneurship program allows students to learn both from first-hand experience as well as from professionals who have already experienced successes and failures themselves.