In conjunction with the Keller Center, Princeton University recently announced the creation of a Certificate Program in Entrepreneurship, starting with a cohort of 28 students. Students will be exposed “to different ways of understanding, conceptualizing, and for some, building enterprises that create value through positive impact on society,” according to the announcement in the university’s newsletter. The inauguration of the Certificate Program is part of the university’s ongoing theme of “Entrepreneurship the Princeton Way.”
The program will use curricula to create focused pathways that enable students to learn about and practice entrepreneurship in their own respective areas of study. Students are able to incorporate entrepreneurship as a skill as opposed to a field of study. Designing the program this way is intended to enhance liberal arts education across campus and create an interdisciplinary community sharing a commitment to entrepreneurship.
The certificate program not only seeks to teach students what entrepreneurship entails, but also contextualize the social and economic forces that affect entrepreneurship. Students will take classes such “Entrepreneurial Leadership” but such straight-forward courses are supplemented with courses such as “History of American Capitalism” to present students with the social and global challenges that entrepreneurship also serves to address.
