Student Entrepreneur
Alistair Darling, Secretary of State for Trade and Industry and Professor Bill Wakeham, Vice-Chancellor of the University of Southampton with students from the SETsquared Partnership
Why Participate in Enterprise Education?
Enterprise education is beneficial to a wide range of participants: from students thinking they might like to run a business one day, to those ready to start a business straight away. The key aim, in line with DTI policy and expectations, is to equip students with the skills and knowledge to start their own business later, possibly five or more years after graduating.
You may be looking for inspiration, wanting to know more about being an entrepreneur or to discover what drives entrepreneurs to start new ventures. Accredited and non-accredited enterprise events can increase employability, regardless of the career students enter in to when leaving university, and enable an 'intrapreneurial' attitude.
Students participate because:
- they want to develop the skills more often demanded by employers of all types, from a wide range of sectors
- modern 'portfolio' careers increasingly include a period of self employment, not necessarily immediately upon graduating, but within the foreseeable future
- an entrepreneur is a realistic and attainable career path for them
- they want to be able to create and seize entrepreneurial opportunities
- as their career progresses, they want 'hands-on' business creation experience developed by interacting with practicing entrepreneurs and enterprise advisors
