Overview

The undergraduate Entrepreneurship program aims to prepare “independent”, “corporate” and “social” entrepreneurs who will be the drivers of development with the innovations they accomplish, as well as the volume of business and employment opportunities they create. 

The program endeavors to equip students with the necessary education and capabilities to find and assess potential business opportunities, and turn them into marketable and sustainable economic products and services and thus create new business and employment opportunities. Aiming to increase the awareness of students in entrepreneurship, the program will not only present students with ample opportunities and facilities to gain and/or develop entrepreneurship skills but also will also teach them entrepreneurial behavior, attitude and capabilities.

In addition to independent entrepreneurs who will start their own businesses, our program strives to produce corporate entrepreneurs. Major corporations that have lost their flexibility, which is vital to keep up with technological advancements, must revive their entrepreneurial spirit and regain their original flexibility in order to survive and compete against new ventures and small businesses in the increasingly and aggressively competitive world. Realizing this requirement, most of the big established firms now seek new ways to engage in corporate entrepreneurship activities. The key to achieve this goal is to recruit entrepreneurial persons vested with entrepreneurship skills. It is our objective to see at least a part of our graduates transfer the entrepreneurial knowledge, skills and capabilities they have gained or further developed in our program to their employers and take an active role in corporate entrepreneurship activities at least for a certain period of time.

Our program also endeavors to prepare social entrepreneurs. With its vast need and potential for growth, our country also requires not only for-profit entrepreneurs but also social entrepreneurs for social development and growth. Hence, our program is tailored to respond to the current need for social entrepreneurs as well.

Our graduates will not only start their own business but will also take a leading role to promote entrepreneurship and foster new ventures by creating synergy. We expect our graduates to serve as a role model for new entrepreneurs; contribute to their education and training; and/or help them raise funds.

Career Tracks

First and foremost, we expect our graduates to start new businesses or develop their existing family businesses in the primary industries for our university as well as other manufacturing and service industries.

Our graduates will be preferred by corporate firms such as Vestel and Turkcell that are committed to corporate entrepreneurship activities as well in quest to satisfy their need for entrepreneurial and innovative employees.

Newly founded and small businesses will serve as another career track for our graduates. We firmly believe that newly founded and small businesses will prefer our graduates, with great enthusiasm and confidence, for they have taken the same path as our graduates have. Keeping their entrepreneurial spirit alive, these companies will be more than interested in recruiting our graduates who share the same enthusiasm and capabilities with them.

Our graduates will also be able to find employment opportunities at non-governmental organizations and/or institutions that run and/or seek to run social entrepreneurship activities but lack the necessary human resources.

Last but not least, our graduates will also be recruited by public institutions and organizations that aim to support and promote entrepreneurial activities and therefore require high-quality and well-educated human resource in the field of entrepreneurship.

Academic Program

During the freshman year, our students will take common courses with other programs. The sophomore year curriculum is composed of common basic courses with the Undergraduate Business Administration Program. The junior and senior year curriculums include required program courses (4 courses) designed specifically for the entrepreneurship program as well as program electives (6 electives), non-program electives (2 electives) and general electives (4 electives). Our students will prepare a senior year project during the Business Plan courses offered for two successive academic semesters in their senior year. Students are expected to find and/or develop a business idea during their internship program in the second semester of the junior year (6th academic year) and then turn this idea into a well-thought and detailed business plan.

Students are offered a total of 12 electives to give them the freedom to shape their own curriculum. Electives allow students to specialize in the tracks they prefer. Students can choose the electives that are directly related to their business idea or they are simply interested in as well as the electives offered in the areas they feel they can further develop. General electives are composed of courses that are relevant to students’ business ideas and plans (such as a second foreign language or an engineering course etc).

Just like in our Business Administration program, our students will obtain in-depth information about the primary industries that our university focuses on during their sophomore year. Students will choose and specialize in an industry during their junior year. This industry can be the one that the students aspire to start a business in as well as a different industry. The following summer term, students must complete an 8-week internship program. The internship program will reinforce the knowledge of our students. The course offered during the 6th academic semester and the internship program will prove very beneficial for our students to develop their business ideas.

Furthermore, our students will extensively use the information and communication technologies. Each student is issued with a laptop computer to provide them with an enriched applied education and reinforce the concepts taught during the course and the lab sessions. Starting from the preparatory program, students will be offered a world-class education integrated with modern technologies and will have a strong command of the information and communication technologies when they graduate.