Entrepreneurship at UMC

The idea of whipping up entrepreneurship spirit among the students has been brimming for some time here, and people have been gearing up to realize it. A task force was set to draw up a curriculum for the entrepreneurial courses for all Study Programs.

But I guess this is where we have to be a little bit cautious here.

I personally would say that entrepreneurship, defined in its strictest sense, culminates in gaining profit. Now, that is most suitable with students from Management and Accounting study programs, but leaves a big question when applied to English, Information Technology and Industrial Engineering. It is obvious that those disciplines call for some other kind of entrepreneurship, something not confined to mere planning, selling, and gaining profits.

Somebody suggested that entrepreneurship concept can be extended to include things like social entrepreneur, language entrepreneur, humanistic entrepreneur or some other kinds of entrepreneurship that embrace wider dimensions. But then I’d say this somewhat blurs the focus. To me, entrepreneurship is originally about opening up job opportunities and making profit, which is in line with Ciputra’s formulation of his entrepreneurship concept. So it’s about starting a business, running it well and making money, that’s it.

Someone else thinks that the act of producing simple merchandise and selling them to Ma Chungers instills a fighting spirit and toughness in the students. Fine. But if entrepreneurship is to be expanded to include those other dimensions of humanity, surely selling is not the only act that can develop entrepreneurial spirit among the students. This is not a one-size-fits-all thing.

So, why not having them do humanitarian acts, or voluntary development programs for the local communities, where students dedicate their services to the people by drawing on their academic skills?

Entrepreneurship is a very good idea, and Ma Chung deserves big appreciation for quickly drumming up its best human resources to establish a comprehensive curriculum for sustainable entrepreneurship courses. However, it really needs to seriously ponder on the issues above to generate a sound curriculum relevant to each study program. As I suggested in the meeting, intensive talks with the heads of the other study programs should be given a high priority in order to draw up relevant curriculum for each discipline.