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Welcome to the PSC Business Entrepreneurship Program!
Our undergraduate program offers you the opportunity to learn about all the functional areas of business in the heart of entrepreneurship country! Our faculty of experts and business professionals present an impressive array of practical entrepreneurial experience. We offer state-of-the-art facilities with classrooms and computer labs equipped with networked presentation equipment and interactive classroom technology. Our program is guided by our four pillars of Paul Smith's business education: Leadership, Innovation, Stewardship, and Tradition.
PSC Business Program Mission
To be a leader in providing hands-on entrepreneurial learning experiences for our students. We serve the campus community by:
promoting stewardship as an important part of modern sustainable business practice;
building on the entrepreneurial tradition of our namesake, Apollos "Paul" Smith who proved that hard work and great entrepreneurial skills can simultaneously create a financial success and serve the common good;
fostering innovation by continually challenging ourselves to create new solutions to current problems;
educating ethical, responsible business leaders of the future.
Entrepreneurship Curriculum
Leading the innovation in entrepreneurship education, our program provides students with the opportunity to study all dimensions of entrepreneurship beginning in their first year of collegiate study and continuing throughout their four years of study at Paul Smiths College.
Supporting Business Courses
Students take supportive business courses in Accounting, Economics, Finance, Management, Marketing and Information Technology. The Course Offerings page has a complete listing of offered courses.
General Education Program
To be an educated person is to be literate in a variety of content areas. It is the responsibility of the entire Paul Smiths' experience to provide opportunities to obtain and apply these literacies. Through reinforcement across the curriculum, General Education enriches students with the practical skills needed for successful careers: analytical skills, effective communication, practical intelligence, ethical judgment, and social responsibility.
Entrepreneurial Business Core Experiential Learning Projects
- Freshman Year Learning Experience: Entrepreneurship Foundations
Entrepreneurship Foundations is a course that requires students to create, launch and manage a campus-based start-up company. Students are introduced to the characteristics of entrepreneurial ventures, looking at entrepreneurship theory as a backdrop to all aspects of initiation, growth, and development with the learning methodology being supported by student run start-ups. Students will work in teams to develop an abbreviated business plan with a request for start-up funding up to $500. Funding will be approved by an internal board of mock-venture capitalists. At the close of the project, proceeds will be returned to the "investors" for reinvestment in future classes.
Underlying the entrepreneurship education is the delivery of sustainable knowledge and stewardship of the community. The Freshmen class will learn how social equity, economic development, and environmental awareness play into development of new businesses, and the realignment of existing ventures.
- Sophomore Year Learning Experience: Simulation
This course experience will use simulation models with negotiation and business ethics as key concepts in the process. Simulation cases will include a host of ethical issues that impact entrepreneurial organizations as well as individual employees using the four pillars (Leadership, Innovation, Stewardship, and Tradition) as a basis for analyzing problems and creating solutions.
- Junior Year Learning Experience: Entrepreneurial Practicum
The Junior Year Learning Experience will be marked by practicum (internship) placement in a start-up company or current enterprise. Students will work on-site, learning how business, marketing, financial, and operations management happen in the "real" workforce.
- Senior Year Learning Experience
The Senior Year Learning Experience will be marked by two distinct opportunities to integrate the business core curriculum with the general education curriculum and the Entrepreneurial Studies Curriculum.
- Entrepreneurship Policy and Strategy - This case-based seminar will focus on issues of venture capital and other forms of capitalization and enterprise growth; initial public offerings (IPO's); small business management problems and entrepreneurial strategy.
- Consulting Practicum: Students will be assigned a business client from local and regional opportunities for a consulting practicum designed by business owner, student and supervising faculty member.
Study Abroad Partnerships
Paul Smith's College is a member of the College Consortium for International Studies. Please visit their web site for further information.
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