Entrepreneurship Courses and Seminars
Harvey Mudd College offers the courses below for students interested in pursuing classes with an entrepreneurship focus. New courses will be developed and included here as they become available.
ENTR 179A: Enterprise and Entrepreneurs, Fall Seminar
Credit(s): 1.5
Description: This is a hands-on, practical class similar to a workshop or a lab format. The objective of this class is to help students find a repeatable and scalable business model for their startup with significantly less money and in a shorter time by using Lean Launchpad strategies instead of traditional methods. Student teams will start with a creative/innovative idea for a product to meet customers’ unmet needs. They will develop a set of untested hypotheses and validate them. They will use a business model canvas to diagram value creation for customers and validate hypotheses to create a repeatable, scalable business model. Teams will rapidly iterate their product to build something people want. They will build minimum viable products (MVPs) to avoid hypotheticals and get real customer feedback that they can use to iterate (small adjustments) or pivot (substantive changes) faster. In the end, the student teams will pitch their startup ideas to venture capitalists.
ENTR 179B: Enterprise and Entrepreneurs, Spring Seminar
Credit(s): 1.5
This workshop allows students to continue working on an actual startup they have already started, either in ENTR179A HM in the fall semester, or a separate ongoing project (students who have not completed ENTR179A HM should reach out to the instructors to get permission before registering.) The course will consist of a combination of lectures, direct personal guidance and assistance for continuing work on existing ventures, including product and market development, team building, and potentially fundraising.
Prerequisites: ENTR179A HM or permission of instructor.
Engineering 004: Introduction to Engineering Design and Manufacturing
Credits: 4
Offered: Fall and spring
Description: Design problems are, typically, open-ended and ill-structured. Students work in small teams applying techniques for solving design problems that are, normally, posed by not-for-profit clients. The project work is enhanced with lectures and reading on design theory and methods, and introduction to manufacturing techniques, project management techniques and engineering ethics. Enrollment limited to first-year students and sophomores, or by permission of the instructor.
Prerequisites: WRIT001 HM
Concurrent requisites: PHYS024 HM
Engineering 181: New Product Development
Credits: 3
Description: This course will introduce the theory and practice of a process used for new product development that considers design, management and manufacturing components. Students will identify needs (market or humanitarian) amenable to an engineered product solution, select and scope the project need they will address, quantify the impact of a solution through a business case, design and develop multiple prototype solutions, validate the resulting product and solicit funding for a launch.
Prerequisites: Junior or senior standing and ENGR004 HM
Engineering 183: Management of Technical Enterprise
Credits: 3
Description: This course provides a fundamental understanding of management practices in a technical enterprise. Instructors teach three main learning modules: financial management, people management and company management. Students will learn processes, tools, organization and measurables in all three learning modules.
Prerequisites: ENGR004 HM and Junior standing.
ENTR 188: Intellectual Property Law for Scientists and Engineers
Students will gain understanding of the fundamentals of intellectual property (IP) rights, including patents, trademarks, copyrights, and trade secrets, with a focus on how IP rights bring enterprise value. Students will learn practical skills, including the filing and registration processes for patents, trademarks and copyrights. Students will also learn about IP issues and disputes that regularly arise in the context of early stage startups, including the scope of confidentiality agreements, IP ownership, freedom to operate, and foreign rights. The course will cover many examples from real practice and discuss current topics related to IP.
Prerequisites: ENGR079 HM.