“Entrepreneur is someone who has a vision for something and a want to create.”
– David Karp, founder and CEO of Tumblr
The best progressive shift one could hope for in this era would be a genuine empowerment of today’s kids and college-goers, who are in fact kids stepping into adulthood, by virtue of their maturity, experience, exposure to the outside world, and the likes that one is bound to chance upon during their post school life.
“I’m convinced that about half of what separates successful entrepreneurs from the non-successful ones is pure perseverance.”
—Steve Jobs, co-founder of Apple Inc.
Every pupil faces highs and lows during their time at college. Though that is so, it is also necessary to keep battling and not forfeit, while dealing with challenging tasks. The situation is analogous in business, where the fresher company holders have lower than 20% chances to deliver. Exercise your determination and do not give up. It is not about succeeding headlong and at the first try – it is about growing and succeeding in the attempts that follow. Like it is famously said, trust the process!
As much as it’s important to learn influential business propositions during college, it’s also imperative to start raising your entrepreneurial proficiency as well. Although it may not feel pronounced at first, college days actually offer numerous openings to exercise and hone the practical methodology one ardently would find themselves in need of, in the stark realities of the commercial base.
A factor of supreme significance to be borne in mind while in pursuit of Entrepreneurship, is the inevitable possibility of falls, or minor setbacks, or the learning/stepping stones. Howsoever one may call it, they sure are the stones towards success.
“Failure is an option here. If things are not failing, you are not innovating enough.”
–Elon Musk, founder and CEO of Tesla Inc. and SpaceX, graduate of The Wharton School
A plight looming over the generation of today is the undeniable compromises made in standards, that aid in breeding none, but a lethargic, incompetent, and unmotivated society. The reaps of such a society can only be imagined. Career wise, students lack proper orientation and guidelines. Their worlds are constricted to the fields that require less vigour, the creative, and “risk”.
“One of the only ways to get out of a tight box is to invent your way out.”
—Jeff Bezos, CEO of Amazon
For a community that perceives Engineering and Medicine as the only prestigious arenas of occupation, students are more often than not, driven, even involuntarily to these as the sole answers to life and a career.
It is in light of such a declining entrepreneurial temper, that a brush up of the said profession, and its glory, becomes rewarding.
In the words of Larry Page, co-founder of Google :
“I think it is often easier to make progress on mega-ambitious dreams. Since no one else is crazy enough to do it, you have little competition.”
Colleges have immense scopes for turning themselves into the breeding grounds of future Sharks. College is the time period in the life of a student that is novel, in its being the student’s first ever experience of being away from home, or the beginning to the beginning of one’s strutting out in life on one’s own. Throw in the right ingredients, and you’ll have carved out a smart, ambitious, creative, and genius of an individual, capable of marking his/her milestone in life, which could also be of consequence to the world and its people.
“A vision is something you see and others don’t. Some people would say that’s a pocket definition of lunacy. But it also defines entrepreneurial spirit.”
—Anita Roddick, founder of The Body Shop
There are a variety of means which colleges could adapt in bringing out the hidden entrepreneurs amongst their students. From Expert orientation classes, campaigns and workshops, to seminars and counselling, the college authorities have a lot of options in their hands to facilitate the same. Designing the course materials, the extra-curricular tasks and activities, and the class hours to suit the requirements of building the entrepreneurial temper in students, can be carried out with utmost precision and thought. The teachers can be their students’ guiding lamps of light. Once shown the way, a potential entrepreneur of a student will have it in him/her, to figure the rest out partially aided, or even unaided.
“If you’ve got an idea, start today. There’s no better time than now to get going. That doesn’t mean quit your job and jump into your idea 100% from day one, but there’s always small progress that can be made to start the movement, ” says Kevin Systrom, co-founder of Instagram.
Last but not the least, mental positivity, is a necessary entity for a wannabe entrepreneur. Sure the path ahead of you is instinct with hurdles. Whether you face them heads up or heads down, defines your journey.
