Calling campus entrepreneurs
By Mike Southon
Published: June 11 2010 16:05 | http://www.ft.com/cms/s/0/69e9f88a-755f-11df-a7e2-00144feabdc0.html
The schools examination season is upon us, and with it the eager anticipation of young people making plans for their university education.
Graduates face an uncertain future in the current economic climate, especially as most of them will also face a huge student loan to repay. It was very different in the 1970s, when further education was mostly subsidised by the state. I left Imperial College having failed my exams before eventually scraping a very average degree in chemical engineering at the University of Bradford.
My career in construction engineering was short-lived and my first start-up was in a completely different discipline: computing. My co-founders were some friends from university.
I tell this story to students to illustrate that many of them will not use the academic subject matter from their courses in their working lives, especially if they take the entrepreneurship route.
This is not to say that their learning at university is wasted. Mastering an academic discipline shows that they have trained their mind to accumulate and use knowledge. Just as important are the contacts they make while they are there, while extra-curricular activities, so long as they have a practical purpose, will add significant value to their CVs when applying for their first job.
Chris Arnold took this approach one step further, turning his extra-curricular passion into a thriving business. He was drifting at school until a teacher, Mary Wilson, provided some simple but effective mentoring, persuading him to write down his personal goals and ambitions – such as travel and starting his own business.
However, these goals were put to one side while he succumbed to family pressure and completed a degree in architecture. His main extra-curricular activities were working at summer camps in the US and backpacking.
He worked for a while as a quantity surveyor, but soon followed his entrepreneurial aspirations by buying a travel franchise found in the back of a national newspaper. While this venture was not a great success, it did lead him to meet experienced businessman Dave Robertson, an ideal partner and business mentor for his next venture.
Camp Leaders has a simple premise: to provide even better summer camps than the ones he had personally enjoyed. He soon diversified into Smaller Earth, offering a much wider range of activities worldwide, including sports coaching, teaching, community development and conservation. This resonates with the new entrepreneurial mood I feel on student campuses, which is about making the world a better place as well as making money.
This week Arnold launches Your Big Year, a competition for young people linked to Global Entrepreneurship Week in November. The prize is a one-year, all-expenses paid trip across the world for the two people who can persuade the judges that they not only have the right stuff, but are also able to make a real difference with their activities.
I recommend to students that even the process of applying for the competition will help develop and focus their entrepreneurial skills. Those who win this fabulous prize will have significant expertise and valuable contacts, enabling them to start their own business and pay off that onerous student loan sooner rather than later.
Your Big Year can be found at www.yourbigyear.com
mike@beermat.biz
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