This fall semester, I signed for the Entrepreneurship and Innovation course (ENTI 781) at the Haskyne Business School of University of Calgary. Wanted to capture my thoughts on this course for my readers here.
First, the course was unconventional since there are very little academic material to teach entrepreneurship and innovation. The teacher, Olga Petricevic, did a decent job of collecting materials comprising of academic papers, case studies, newspaper articles and YouTube videos as well as bringing in a local entrepreneur for a lecture one day. But none of these were the highlights for me.
The course had a few assignments and I liked a couple to be specific. In one assignment, the students were asked to find a project in Indigogo or Kickstarter to put their own money. This was eyeopening, as I had hard time finding a project that looked to have any potential to become a successful venture. Moreover, even if I liked it, there were almost no incentive to “donate” your money since all you got was a token for your money in a way that you bear the risk without any potential for a profit.
The other assignment was about compiling a list of 50 things that bug me in everyday life. This was the most fun assignment of the semester and I had a decent list with bugs such as:
1. Did I leave the stove on while leaving the house?
2. Vacuum cleaning the stairs.
3. Finding a plumber NOW.
4. Waiting at airport.
...
All in all, the worst assignment was the group assignment. The group I worked with was very collaborative and did a great job in keeping everyone in sync with clear messaging around individual expectations. However, the project itself sucked. We were asked to create a stupid business plan for a venture around “watervate” - innovative solution to save water that could turn into a profitable business. In an entrepreneurship course, the deliverable was a business plan, with detailed text on the product, marketing, strategy, financial data etc. that were completely fake. The fakeness of the whole assignment made it super boring for me.
After finishing this course, I actually have a better trust in online education. The course was unplugged, so students had to keep digital devices off. But on one class the rules were lax because it was about presenting. I saw people browsing sports scores, watching memes, playing games and random youtube videos etc. right in the class. These students are mostly MBA students, holding a good day job, but it hurt my eyes to see them paying so little respect to the fellow students presenting.
Online education on the other hand, is so much so for self driven students that, I expect them to carry much respect for their own time. I suggest people taking online courses to save their money and time and also to learn better than traditional classroom settings.