Graduate Business Start-ups Project Report - The Institute for ...

Attitudes of Students
! Some students come to university primarily for an
educational experience or to enhance their creative
development, for instance. Others have more specific aims,
having chosen a course which offers exemptions from
professional examinations or provides a vocational training.
The number of such courses within an institution can
radically affect the culture and therefore the receptiveness to
enterprise provision within the curriculum.
! lack of awareness amongst students about the facilities
available.
! lack of interest amongst undergraduates in these options.
While many consider self employment as a possibility, few
actively explore the implications. In this, self employment is
no different from the number of options which most students
consider and discard or defer until a more appropriate time.
From a number of the responses to the survey of graduates, it
is clear that students are ambivalent about the inclusion of
business options in undergraduate programmes. Some
considered that business options, variously defined, should
be taught as part of their degree, others regarded their time
in higher education as an opportunity to explore exclusively
academic and creative options.
Against this background, a number of HEIs are making useful
provision in support of students’ aspirations to work as
‘entrepreneurs’. In some cases, this has been developed in
partnership with external agencies such as the Prince’s Youth
Business Trust (PYBT) or Shell LiveWire. The ‘Seven Skills of
Enterprise’ identified by the latter have formed the basis of a
pilot project, funded by DfEE, at Camberwell College of Arts.
Creative Futures 2 introduced students to many of the skills
required to work as a freelance practitioner in the creative
industries and included the production of a business plan.
However, even agencies such as PYBT and LiveWire, who were
highly rated in the graduate survey, were used by only between
15% and 40% of respondents. This raises issues about the need
for more effective signposting of the resources available and
possibly a re-examination of the remit and modus operandi of all
the agencies involved and their assumptions about the attitudes
and awareness of potential entrepreneurs.
Career Management and Enterprise Skills
Students have various opinions about the skills, opportunities
and difficulties faced by those seeking to run their own business.
In part this can be seen in the responses to the graduate survey.
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Graduate Business Start-ups: Project Report