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Do you think master degree in entrepreneurship is useless?

ericaung

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Hello,
I just wondering master degree in entrepreneurship is useless or useful for starting out own business?
Which courses should I take to learn more about entrepreneurship except collecting paper certificates?
 
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Scot

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Completely useless.

Even an associates in “entrepreneurship” is bordline pushing it.


Can you name one high profile founder who has a degree in entrepreneurship?

I’ve learned more than any degree about business by just doing and learning on the fly.
 

Andy Black

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Fire up a Google Ads or Facebook Ads account. Don’t even “learn” the platform first.

Invest $5 or $10 every single day, getting visitors to a page. Maybe it’s a page you created. Maybe it’s the website for some local business.

Now try to convert that $ spend into $ revenue.

Bet you’ll learn more doing that over the course of one year than doing a full-time Masters.
 

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jon.M

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The only way to learn entrepreneurship is to start with something. Everybody's got a plan until they get hit in the face. The knowledge you need can be acquired by living your life and solving problems, reading free stuff on internet and buying $15 books on Amazon.
 

ericaung

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Thank you so much for your input guys! I appreciate it.

The course from Harvard Business Online maybe useless. its $1k USD for one single course so called "entrepreneurship Essentials" :/
 

Scot

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Wait..

Wait...

This was a digital course from Harvard for $1,000? Are they actually awarding an MBA?

Sounds more like you almost got scammed by Harvard.
 
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ericaung

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ericaung

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Kruiser

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Useless MAs are a major source of cash for universities. Getting an additional degree only makes sense if you desire a specific job that requires that degree (e.g., medicine). Who are you going to impress with a degree in entrepreneurship? No one is going to buy anything from your company because of your degree. You have what they want or you don't.
 

jpanarra

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I have a masters in business administration, if anything.. this is worth more than the degree you're talking about.. and I haven't even gotten a real return from it yet.
 
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Seth G.

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Arguably, nothing is useless ;)
John Wick killed men with a pencil.

But is it necessary - probably not.
Most entrepreneurs and folks here probably have a bit of business education at most in that direction.

My "major" involved a lot of entrepreneurship courses... finance/business/marketing/etc.
I definitely use what I learned, but I definitely didn't need the courses to learn them if that makes sense.

I'd say - get it if it is free (or damn near) and if the courses/professors themselves are especially interesting. But don't get it expecting to walk out as a 'certified entrepreneur' with credibility. That takes starting something which the degree doesn't do ;)
 

Blek

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Hello,
I just wondering master degree in entrepreneurship is useless or useful for starting out own business?
Which courses should I take to learn more about entrepreneurship except collecting paper certificates?
It's useless. Unless state have monopoly to give You a privilage to do things (teacher, doctor etc.).
Best seen at IT studies. Paper means nothing.
 

ZF Lee

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Completely useless.

Even an associates in “entrepreneurship” is bordline pushing it.


Can you name one high profile founder who has a degree in entrepreneurship?

I’ve learned more than any degree about business by just doing and learning on the fly.
I feel afraid to wonder what other Masters Degrees exist out there...
 
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wade1mil

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I have an Associates in Business. I learned more in two weeks creating a product than two years studying in school. I'd say a really good business school like Wharton's would definitely benefit you, but you'd be better off starting a business and learning as you go than getting a MBA from Kansas State or something.
 

maverick

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You need a paradigm shift.

This is what you have conditioned yourself with:

Go to school -> study -> do the exams -> get good grades.

Go to work -> do overtime / go the extra mile -> performance review -> promotion / marginal increase in pay

Entrepreneurship doesn't work like this.

Trailblaze.
 

ZF Lee

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You need a paradigm shift.

This is what you have conditioned yourself with:

Go to school -> study -> do the exams -> get good grades.

Go to work -> do overtime / go the extra mile -> performance review -> promotion / marginal increase in pay

Entrepreneurship doesn't work like this.

Trailblaze.
One of my projects at business school was to write a business plan.

After numerous review sessions with the lecturer, peers and other academic materials, the finished work ended up being a thick stack of papers.

I'm wondering if real-world investors have the time and patience to look all over that literary atrocity...

Is the professor grading your work using the POV of a full-blooded entrepreneur/investor or an academic that goes by the book?

Both come from TWO very different world.

Even if the academics do have consulting experience, you just don't know what 'consulting' means. Consulting can be done in a regular corporate boardroom or in a coffee shop.
 
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maverick

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I would rate the feedback of a lecturer highly if it concerned lectures.

I would not rate the feedback of a lecturer highly if it concerned the feasibility and achievability of a business idea.
 

NMdad

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What if you decided to spend the same amount of time not on an entrepreneurship course, but on finding a need you can fulfill--and create a progress thread about it?
 

maverick

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DustinH

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A university teaching a course on entrepreneurship has to be one of the most ironically antithetical dichotomies out there.

It's like when George Costanza was trying to teach Derek Jeter and the Yankees how to hit a baseball. He had no experience or track record of success doing it.

Unless you can use the program to market yourself then it's a waste of time and money because you will not learn what need to be successful. An MBA is useful for people looking to become mid-level managers, not business owners. I looked into hard about 10 years ago. Even took an accounting class (I got it for free because I worked at the university at the time). I realized I wasn't going to learn what I wanted to learn and focused my time on something else.
 
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jcvlds

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If there are specific topics that you want to learn about from an MBA or other MS program, look up several class curriculums from several schools and then dissect those topics into further specific areas for your situation.

Having these topics, look for books, blogs, forums, podcasts, etc that talk about these specific topics. Some may be free, some may be paid, regardless, it will be much cheaper than a full-time university program, but more importantly, will be much targeted to whatever you need at the moment and likely to be more actionable than just trying to memorize things for an upcoming exam.

MJ talks about this in his books.
 

Knugs

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There are some good things about Business school. You meet like minded people and have all the time on your hands to start a business without parental obstruction. You enjoy University infrastructure and get to live the student life. My friend studied at a private business school in Europe that was popular among rich foreign families. There he met 2 Russians and they received a private Investment to launch a fashion label. He does confirm what everybody says here though: The academic knowledge is useless and you learn far more from going right into entrepreneurship.
 
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Chapas

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I have a Bachelor Degree in Entrepreneurship & Innovation and a Masters Degree in International Marketing. If not for the amazing people I met on my way, I would really feel like I wasted 5 years of my life.

All that I know and use is self-taught. I basically do not use anything I have learned in these 5 years. I do not regret it as our school system is free and we even get paid to study. Unfortunately that is not the case for you guys in the US. So better safe that money and become an entrepreneur by taking action and trying out things for yourself. Just my 5 cents.
 

Primeperiwinkle

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Through my own stupidity in marrying a douchebag I have been on the verge of homelessness twice in my life, both times I had only 2k left to my name. Both times I turned it around to reestablish a safe and enjoyable lifestyle.

Use the money you have available for school, don’t spend it on school, and pretend that you will be on the streets if you don’t earn a profit with that money inside of a month.

Today is Day One. Good luck.
 

justacar

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Hello,
I just wondering master degree in entrepreneurship is useless or useful for starting out own business?
Which courses should I take to learn more about entrepreneurship except collecting paper certificates?

let's paraphrase that. the average cost of annual fees for a degree is $17,530. a degree will take 2 years for a masters, 5 years including an associate. so between $35.000 and $75.000. the end result is a certificate that says that you are an entrepreneur.

now to the usefulness.

anyone in this forum who spent 35.000 over 2 years while getting absolutely no money in return, please raise your hands.

my advice: spend 5000$ on a CRM like active campaign, 5000$ on books and courses on how to sell. and 5000$ on products to start selling online. you will spend half the money and get your money back with a margin at the end of the year.
 
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Tommo

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let's paraphrase that. the average cost of annual fees for a degree is $17,530. a degree will take 2 years for a masters, 5 years including an associate. so between $35.000 and $75.000. the end result is a certificate that says that you are an entrepreneur.

now to the usefulness.

anyone in this forum who spent 35.000 over 2 years while getting absolutely no money in return, please raise your hands.

my advice: spend 5000$ on a CRM like active campaign, 5000$ on books and courses on how to sell. and 5000$ on products to start selling online. you will spend half the money and get your money back with a margin at the end of the year.
As an example go for @biophases training when available. Just cut OPs costs again. OP can find plenty of very happy course former trainees on the forum I am sure.
I am too stubborn to take it, I have to figure it out myself.
Edit didn't mean any offence to anyone who takes the training, I certainly would but I have learnt so much from biophase and others here that I will go my own way shit or bust I think they say lol.
 
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Process

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1.) Hahahaha for the cost of an MBA you could make down payments multiple rental properties.

2.) Or start many different ecommerce businesses.

3.) You could even rent $1000 mo. office space and sit in it for ten years trying to prospect for sales.

You’d also gain real world experience...

The reason big companies are so out of touch is they are run by brainwashed MBAs.
 

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