New Minor in Entrepreneurship Helps Prepare Students for Start-up Ventures

The School of Business launched a new entrepreneurship minor, building on students’ strong efforts in business plan competitions and their work with Oswego-area companies, among other indicators of interest.

The minor’s core courses in entrepreneurial management, innovation and creativity, along with traditional business functions such as marketing and sales, accounting and funding seek to lay a solid foundation for students who aim to take part in opportunities for business start-ups. There’s also a required capstone project.

Aaron Shopland ’20, whose idea for a new shark repellent propelled him and fellow marketing major Michael York ’20 to first place in the School of Business Launch It! competition this year, said that if he has already taken enough of the core courses, he may be able to declare the minor in time for his 2020 graduation.

Shopland came up with his idea for a sensory-based repellent involving magnetic waves as he watched “Shark Week” on the Discovery Channel. He took MGT 261 Business Organization with Larry Maher of the marketing and management faculty, later serving as a teaching assistant in the course two other times; he also took MGT 350 Entrepreneurship with Sarfraz Mian, chair of marketing and management and coordinator of the entrepreneurship minor.

Mian, who is a national team leader and principal investigator in the GEM (Global Entrepreneurship Monitor) program, said his research on entrepreneurship at SUNY Oswego shows strong interest in entrepreneurism, especially among students in the STEM (science, technology, engineering and math) fields looking for training to participate in high-tech businesses.

“The minor could become very useful for our students to fulfill their entrepreneurial ambitions,” he said.

For information on all offerings of the AACSB-accredited SUNY Oswego School of Business, visit oswego.edu/business, call 315-312-2272 or email business@oswego.edu.

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