Academics
Customizable and cutting-edge curriculum
The Entrepreneurship Pathway contains both a New Venture and an Entrepreneurship Through Acquisition branch with courses to prepare you for your journey. If you're interested in Entrepreneurial Finance, the Venture Capital branch of the Venture Capital and Private Equity Pathway will inform your journey.
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Commercializing Innovations provides an opportunity to gain course credit and exposure to cross-disciplinary research as well as partner with research scientists across NU working on cutting edge technology.
Entrepreneurship Pathway
New Venture Branch
The New Venture branch of the Entrepreneurship Pathway guides students through the process of building and launching startups with lasting value. From identifying a problem to launching a startup, students gain access to real-world entrepreneurs and innovation experts in the classroom and beyond.
The foundational Discover. Test. Launch. courses (ENTR 462, ENTR 464 and ENTR 466) are experiential courses designed for students who wish to build and launch a business while pursuing their Kellogg MBA. Students learn to identify a problem and conduct market research in the discovery phase, build a prototype and gain real-world customer feedback in the testing and development phase, and finally turn their product or service into a business in the launch phase.
Launching and Scaling Startups (ENTR 470) is a case-driven survey course that examines the day-to-day of an entrepreneurial CEO. Students explore some of the biggest and most challenging topics facing entrepreneurial CEOs
Building block courses provide students with all the strategy, finance, organizations, and marketing skills necessary to build, scale and manage a business.
NUvention courses are interdisciplinary learning experiences offered to undergraduate and graduate students from across Northwestern University via the McCormick School of Engineering’s Farley Center for Entrepreneurship & Innovation. Courses are offered with several industry focuses, including Artificial Intelligence, Arts & Entertainment, Medical, Energy, Transportation, and Media. Student teams will include business, law, journalism, engineering students and more from across the University. In these courses, teams move new ideas through the entire innovation lifecycle — from ideation to prototyping to launch. Applications are required. Learn more about NUvention courses.
Entrepreneurship Through Acquisition Branch
A second path to entrepreneurship is through acquisition of an existing company, which brings challenges of its own and reaches across all business functions. The foundational Entrepreneurship Through Acquisition course (ENTR 905-5) is followed by courses that go into depth on developing the skills required to complete an acquisition as well as to be a successful operator. Depth courses are offered in the areas of:
- Finance, Accounting and Legal
- Leadership And Communication
- Sales And Marketing
- Operations
- International And Emerging Markets