Preparing UG entrepreneurs and intrapreneurs through cross-disciplinary partnership between engineering and business colleges

摘要

Entrepreneurship in technology-intensive industries requires close cooperative work between engineers and business professionals. The premise of a new program at Auburn University is that cross-functional teamwork skills that enable business and engineering students to work together on several projects lays the foundation for entrepreneurial success later in their careers. The program has two major components; one addresses sustained development of cross-functional skills, and the other imparts business and engineering knowledge and skills to business and engineering students. An unique two-year joint minor (16 semester credits) for business and engineering students in their junior and senior years is offered through the Thomas Walter Center for Technology Management, Auburn University; the Center is a creation of the two colleges. This Business-Engineering-Technology (B-E-T) program, which began in fall 2001, is a joint effort of the colleges of business and engineering. The program admits selected equal number of business and engineering students to the program each fall. The program now has a capacity of 15 business and 15 engineering students each year. The students entering this competitive program in their junior year have a minimum GPA of 3.0 and the class average GPA of the two entering classes has been about 3.5 (average GPA for the colleges is about 2.8). See Table 1 for the composition of the group admitted in fall 2002.