Minor in Entrepreneurship

At Princeton, entrepreneurship isn’t just about launching startups—it’s about learning how to turn bold ideas into real-world impact. Whether you're passionate about social change, tech innovation, or creative ventures, the Entrepreneurship Minor gives you the tools to take initiative, embrace risk, and create value in any field.

This program is designed to complement your major, helping you build a strong foundation in entrepreneurial thinking through hands-on experiences, interdisciplinary courses, and a vibrant community of students and mentors. You’ll explore how entrepreneurship drives change across industries and cultures—and how you can be part of that transformation.

Learning Goals

• Provide a comprehensive understanding of fundamental concepts, theories and skills necessary for innovating new ways to create value through positive impact on society by starting and running a successful venture, whether it is a for-profit startup, a social-purpose venture or a nonprofit initiative. These include leadership, ideation and identification of opportunities, evaluation of solutions, business planning, financing and marketing.
• Introduce students to the broad national entrepreneurial ecosystem through networking and connecting them with experienced entrepreneurs, industry leaders, investors and alumni networks. This is accomplished by having many guest speakers in various classes, as well as extracurricular panels and activities.
• Create an experiential learning opportunity by completing the required practicum. This practicum is intended to give students the opportunity to experience value creation in the real world through whatever context is most meaningful to them, whether it is a for-profit startup, a social-purpose venture, or a nonprofit initiative. This practicum will give students the opportunity to apply some of the frameworks and concepts they have learned on campus. The practicum is also intended to be a personal journey into the real world of entrepreneurship.

Admission to the Program

Undergraduate students interested in the program will be expected to apply, normally at the end of the sophomore year and, in general, no later than the fall of the junior year. At the time of application, students must submit a short application form outlining a tentative plan and timeline for completing all of the requirements of the program. The statement will include an account of the two introductory courses, two core courses and one breadth course (as explained in the Requirements section) that the student proposes to take and explain how these courses fit into his or her aspirations for learning and practicing entrepreneurship. Students are encouraged to make a special effort in the application to describe their proposal for the practicum requirement (learning by doing, with a high bar of excellence). Please email Victoria Dorman with any questions.

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Program of Study

The program exposes students to different ways of understanding, conceptualizing, and for some, building enterprises that create value through positive impact on society, whether through a commercial or social venture. Students will develop necessary skills through a set of practicing courses such as Venture Capital and Finance of Innovation and Entrepreneurial Leadership. But they will do so while developing a contextual understanding of the social forces at work through courses that might include, for example, History of Entrepreneurship or Psychology of Decision-Making, and more broadly, by developing an informed understanding of the social and global challenges to which entrepreneurship can seek to contribute.

Program Requirements

There are four sets of requirements:

1. Courses (intellectual foundation)
2. Workshop (practical skill acquisition)
3. Practicum (learning by doing, with a high bar of excellence)
4. Colloquium (shared social experience)

Certificate of Proficiency

A student who fulfills the requirements of the program with satisfactory standing receives a certificate of proficiency in entrepreneurship upon graduation.

Faculty

• Director
  • Sigrid M. Adriaenssens
• Executive Committee
  • Craig B. Arnold, Mechanical & Aerospace Engineering
  • Minjie Chen, Electrical & Comp Engineering
  • Marcus N. Hultmark, Mechanical & Aerospace Engineering
  • Kai Li, Computer Science
  • Derek B. Lidow, Computer Science
  • Carolyn M. Rouse, Anthropology