Bachelor of Arts in Entrepreneurship and Innovation

This course introduces entrepreneurship as both a mindset and a practice. Through experimentation and action-based projects, students develop key entrepreneurial qualities such as creativity, adaptability, grit, empathy, and self-leadership, and actively apply them to spot opportunities, generate ideas, and develop early, testable solutions. The course emphasizes resilience, ethical awareness, and confidence-building as students explore their character strengths, values, and emerging interests. By the end, students will understand how entrepreneurial ways of thinking and acting can help them navigate challenges, pursue opportunities, and create value in many different contexts.

This course flips the script on failure. Instead of something to fear, it becomes the fastest way for starters to learn. This course invites students to take smart risks, run bold experiments, and explore what happens when things don’t go as planned. Using Lean Startup principles and experiential projects, students will design, test, and refine ideas in real time. Each misstep becomes valuable data for building stronger ventures and stronger entrepreneurs. By the end, students won’t just understand failure; they’ll know how to use it as fuel for creativity, confidence, and growth.

This course is a working lab where students build simple prototypes/MVP’s (minimum viable products) with no-code/low-code/emerging analytic approaches app builders, test assumptions, run low-cost experiments, and let evidence guide iteration. Tight feedback through close customer engagement ensures students are developing profitable offerings that are aligned with the value proposition of students’ target customers and marketplace. The emphasis is on what to build (minimal), what to measure (meaningful), and what to learn (actionable decisions). By prototyping quickly and often, students reduce uncertainty, sharpen analytical judgment, and gain the confidence to move from opinions to outcomes. This is character work that builds intellectual honesty and resists confirmation bias.

Students interested in using entrepreneurship to address social and environmental challenges will gain practical tools for creating ventures that balance purpose, feasibility, and financial sustainability. Over the term, students apply systems thinking to analyze complex problems, identify root causes, and understand the people and organizations affected by those problems. Topics include community and purpose, empathy and human-centered design, environmental and urban challenges, mission-driven business models, financial sustainability, partnerships, and mission-supporting products and services. Through client-based projects and iterative prototyping, students develop skills in opportunity evaluation, impact measurement, and communicating credible impact cases to partners and funders.

Students learn how early capital really works: bootstrapping, friends/family, crowdfunding, accelerators, angels. Term sheets are read, dilution modeled, risk evaluated, and due diligence practiced from both founder and investor perspectives. Students examine founder–investor trust, term fairness, and the character signals in deals. By the end, students can structure a clean cap table, tell a financeable story, and choose capital that fits the venture’s stage and strategy.

The BA in Entrepreneurship and Innovation is a great fit for students who enjoy solving problems, thinking creatively and turning ideas into action. Whether you hope to launch your own business, grow a family business or bring new ideas to an established organization, you’ll develop the entrepreneurial mindset and practical skills to create value in a variety of settings.

Students who thrive in this program are curious, adaptable and eager to learn by doing. Through venture development projects, experiential coursework and Drexel’s renowned co-op program, you’ll have opportunities to test ideas, collaborate with others and build the confidence to navigate change and pursue new opportunities.

Students have access to a robust entrepreneurial ecosystem through the Charles D. Close School of Entrepreneurship and the Laurence A. Baiada Institute for Entrepreneurship. From mentorship and startup advising to pitch competitions, funding opportunities and Drexel’s online StartupTree community, you’ll find resources to help move your idea forward. Eligible students can even develop their own venture through the Entrepreneurship Co-op while earning Drexel Co-op credit.

Absolutely. Many graduates apply entrepreneurial thinking in established companies, nonprofit organizations and family businesses. The program prepares you to identify opportunities, lead innovation, solve complex problems and adapt to change, skills that are valuable across industries and career paths.