Careers in Entrepreneurship

Employment outlook and opportunities

Entrepreneurship is an option for students interested in creating new ventures or affecting disruptive change in existing companies. Entrepreneurial activity drives innovation, productivity and economic growth, but an unpredictable business climate and unproven products can result in significant challenges. Recent years have seen increasing numbers of Canadians choosing to become entrepreneurs.

Entrepreneurship graduates have a variety of opportunities available to them. You could work as an independent entrepreneur and start a new venture or for early-stage businesses that need help in rapid growth phase. You can also become an intrapreneur and innovator in a larger organization.

The Entrepreneurship option program is very applied and experiential. Building on solid conceptual foundations, you will study the economic drivers of innovation and new ventures, financial models, creative thinking, and problem solving. In New Venture Design, the capstone course, students from the UBC Sauder School of Business, Applied Science and other faculties work in interdisciplinary teams to design a venture, build a prototype and develop the business model required to raise funding and possibly launch the venture.

Outside of the classroom, you have the opportunity to get involved with related student-run clubs and events like Enactus, UBC Social Enterprise Club, UBC eProjects, the Pacific Venture Capital Conference, and Enterprize.

Skill set required

• Communication skills
• Interpersonal skills
• Analytical skills
• Creative problem-solving
• Strong team player
• Project management skills
• Time management skills
• Action-orientation
• Ability to work with ambiguity or incomplete data
• Able to rebound from failure
• High internal drive and motivation