Stimulating Entrepreneurial Interest in Engineers Through an Experiential and Multidisciplinary Course Collaboration

Abstract

Entrepreneurship education is gaining momentum in today’s world. This article focuses on a teaching intervention introducing engineering students to multidisciplinary innovation and entrepreneurship, using experiential learning and the lean start-up method. We compare the experience and attitude change of engineers enrolled in a mixed cohort of undergraduate business and engineering students to those enrolled in an engineering-only cohort. To evaluate the effectiveness and outcome of the program, data were collected at the very beginning of each course and at their completion. Results indicated interest in entrepreneurship significantly increased at the end of the course and supported the concept that interest in entrepreneurship can be positively motivated through experiential learning. The engineering-only cohort experienced a greater change in entrepreneurial interest and were challenged more over the course of the term than the multidisciplinary cohort. Nonetheless, the multidisciplinary cohort benefited by interacting with business students and leveraging the shared disciplinary experience.