Marietta College’s Thadd Graham ’22 (Sunbury, Ohio), Allyssa Hagenbaugh ’23 (Stow, Ohio), Zachary Klein ’22 (Evergreen, Colorado) and Aditya Shah ’25 (Birgunj, Nepal) recently gained some real-life entrepreneurial experience as they attended Babson College’s week-long course on Entrepreneurial Mindshift.
“I really liked my experience because I not only learned about the entrepreneurial mindset but also learned how to communicate with other people around the world who don’t speak much English and are in a different time zone,” said Hagenbaugh, who is majoring in Educational Studies.
The course is designed for undergraduate students from all academic disciplines who want to develop an entrepreneurial mindset and learn how to create and identify new business opportunities.
“My experience with the Babson College Entrepreneurial Mindshift course was incredibly beneficial,” said Klein, who is majoring in Marketing. “Not only did this week inspire me to take action on my ideas, but it also emphasized the importance of stepping outside of my comfort zone to fully achieve my goals. This week highlighted the idea that failure is an all too common part of the entrepreneurship process, and it is the reliance on innovation and creative problem-solving that allows for those failures to turn into great successes.”
The course consisted of two live sessions and four hours of independent assigned work.
“When we talk entrepreneurship, it is always practical and experimental learning,” said Shah, who is majoring in Physics. “This opportunity gave us a chance to experiment and learn from real-world stimulation, from generating revenue to failing badly, but the shift that comes from theory to stimulation changed our view to what seems easy in books.”
Each student received a certificate of participation from the Babson Academy.
“Babson College has prepared me to think in different innovative ways to benefit others,” said Graham, who is majoring in Marketing.
A contribution by Jamie Kendrioski ’01, MA’04, partially supported the participation of the four students. Kendrioski is the Director of Babson Collaborative & Babson Build at Babson College.
“The four scholarship recipients were selected based on their level of interest and the degree of commitment to completing the course,” said Dr. Jacqueline Khorassani, Director of Marietta College’s Entrepreneurship Program.