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From All Corners of Campus
Ideas for new businesses are not limited to students in business school. Wharton’s "Business Plan Creation and Implementation" course is one of the few Wharton courses open to non-Wharton students. We spoke with social work and engineering students about their entrepreneurial dreams.
Elizabeth Randazzese expected to work as a counselor when she enrolled in the master’s program at the University of Pennsylvania’s School of Social Work. But there was always a second dream in the back of her mind. "I’ve also always had an idea I’d like to create something and own something," she said. "I see my energy more in creating something different, a new approach."
When the second-year master’s student heard about the "Business Plan Creation and Implementation" course for Penn students outside of the Wharton School, offered through Wharton’s Goergen Entrepreneurial Management Programs, she signed up immediately. This program (Management 227) is the only one of its kind within WEP’s Goergen Entrepreneurial Management Program. For Randazzese and her classmates, it was a window into another world.
"I now feel like anything is possible," she said after taking the course in the fall of 2001. "That is what you need to start something new." In addition to inspiration, the Wharton course offers a detailed overview of key aspects of developing a successful business plan, including opportunity assessment, feasibility analysis and implementation, deal structure and operations, as well as exploring the personal ramifications of the entrepreneurial life. "I really enjoyed learning about these principles and thinking about the combination of skills needed to do these things," she said.
Randazzese worked on a plan for a business to provide management and leadership training to non-profits, a need she saw while working for and with non-profit organizations. But after graduating in May 2002, she plans to first get some more experience working at the Collegiate Empowerment Company in Lambertville, NJ, a nonprofit that conducts seminars for student leadership organizations at universities. Once she develops the skills she needs and refines her own idea further, she then hopes to set out on her own. "The best way to learn more is to get out and work and gauge why I’m here on this earth," she said. "My own idea will take a back seat for a period of time."
Engineering New Opportunities
Engineering students Vinnie Liu and Sameer Malhotra worked together on a plan for a business to provide computer security services to colleges and universities. Liu drew upon two years of experience in computer work at the National Security Agency in developing the plan.
"It is something I’ve thought about over the years. I’ve dreamed about running my own business," said Vinnie Liu, a junior in the engineering school who participated in the course in the fall of 2001. "The course inspires you. It got me so excited about what is possible. It seems like such a daunting task at first, but the course breaks it down and shows you the steps you have to follow. I feel so much more able to do this now."
He welcomed the opportunity to look beyond the discipline of engineering. "I think this course is important," Lui said. "Engineers don’t get much exposure to different courses because many of the majors are in set tracks. I appreciated the variety of the course. It opens up new opportunities. You don’t have to sit in a cubicle and grind out equations."
For Malhotra, a grad student in systems engineering at Penn who had worked on "bleeding edge" technologies at AT&T’s evolutionary technologies group, the program helped to energize and focus his thinking.
"Walking around, I probably have 30 ideas for businesses in my head," he said. He is now working on refining three or four promising business plans ranging from medical technologies to educational systems. "I knew the basics of how to write a business plan, but I wanted to hear it from a professor," he said. He recently helped a friend start a company to provide home medical helping technologies to elderly customers, and he’s working on refining his other business plans.
While Malhotra still
has the opportunity to return to the labs of AT&T after graduation,
he now has a desire to see if he might be able to create something on
his own. "AT&T is stable, but maybe I don’t need stability
right now," said the 24-year-old.
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For
more on this topic:
To learn how Wharton students are benefiting from the close relationship
of teaching and entrepreneurship check out Wharton’s own Bubble
House trio, who don’t need tea leaves to foresee a future of
success.
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