Undergraduate Courses
The Lester Center for Entrepreneurship and Innovation extends a special invitation to undergraduate students to participate in its courses:
- Introduction to Entrepreneurship, UGBA 96 - L&S 5
2 units, graded, offered fall and spring
(current semester videos) (video archive)
- Perspectives on Entrepreneurship
UGBA 195P, three units, fall semester
- New Venture Creation
UGBA 195T, three units, spring semester
- Entrepreneurship to Address Global Poverty
UGBA 195S, three units, spring semester
- Innovation and Entrepreneurship in Information Technology
UGBA 195T, 2 units, fall semester
- Innovation and Entrepreneurship in Wireless Services
UGBA 196, 3 units, spring semester
- Sociology 121: Innovation and Entrepreneurship:
Social and Cultural Context
Perspectives on Entrepreneurship
UGBA 195P, three units, fall semester
In this course, the goal is to have students identify their entrepreneurial interests through a combination of exploration, readings, and close interaction with successful entrepreneurs. Key projects include taking students through a systematic search to identify how their past achievement best align with their career pursuits. An additional goal is to get students to take ownership of their entrepreneurial ideas through a trend analysis and elevator pitch. Students also receive coaching as they seek a summer internship or job placement depending on their graduating year. Whether students plan to join a startup upon graduation, or seek positions in more established firms, there is a role for entrepreneurship.
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This course is taught by Professors Peter Molloy and Jennifer Walske.
New Venture Creation
UGBA 195T, three units, spring semester
[syllabus from spring 2010]
Do you have an idea for a new business, but want to learn how to more fully develop this idea? Would you like to receive funding for your business idea – but lack a framework to ask for capital?
This course takes students through the new venture process using a 20 to 30 page business plan as the main deliverable. A well-written business plan sets key milestones and indicates the resources needed to achieve them, in an increasingly complex business environment. Through the planning process that tightly links market and financial planning a business plan creates a set of standards to which investors and teammates can evaluate actual performance, laying the foundation for an “operating plan” once the business is launched. Students may also choose to participate (but are not required to participate) in the U. C. Berkeley Business Plan Competition, which also occurs during the spring semester.
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This course is taught by Professors Dan Himelstein and Jennifer Walske.
Entrepreneurship to Address Global Poverty
UGBA 195S, three units, spring semester
This campuswide undergraduate course, developed with The Blum Center for Developing Economies, offers students insights into whether and how entrepreneurial ventures can make a difference in tackling one of the world’s most urgent and daunting challenges: persistent and pervasive poverty. It integrates guest lectures by distinguished faculty in other departments with expertise in issues such as water, housing, transportation and energy with case studies and conversations with a variety of social entrepreneurs around the world.
This course is taught by Professor John Danner.
Innovation and Entrepreneurship in Information Technology
UGBA 195T, 2 units, fall semester
[more information]
This course is an intensive and in-depth study of the rapidly evolving global information technology (IT) industry viewed through the perspective of an entrepreneur/innovator attempting to introduce a new product or service into the market. The course will study companies such as Apple, Microsoft, Google, Facebook, Nintendo, and numerous start-ups to understand the opportunities and challenges in creating viable businesses in the 21st century IT industry.
This course is taught by Lecturer Reza Moazzami.
Innovation and Entrepreneurship in Wireless Services
UGBA 196, 3 units, spring semester
No other technology in the history of this planet has proliferated as quickly to as many people as the mobile phone. There are significant and unique challenges in creating a commercially successful wireless service as many innovators and entrepreneurs have discovered in recent years. The strategic choices made regarding how an innovation is introduced into the market and the nature of the innovator’s role in relation to the rest of the ecosystem matter. In this course, students will examine both successful and unsuccessful case studies of new wireless services to understand the key ingredients to creating successful businesses in the wireless industry.
This course is taught by
Lecturer Reza Moazzami.
Sociology 121: Innovation and Entrepreneurship: Social and Cultural Context - 4 units
Entrepreneurship, innovation and creativity are an increasingly important phenomena in the world around us, but especially in global business endeavors. A precondition of modern competitiveness, the use of multiple cultural perspectives increases students’ ability to work in and understand the role of innovation, entrepreneurship and creativity in, among other things, business environments, strategy, and international competition. Using a primarily sociological perspective, but giving attention and credit where due to psychology, economics, political economy and anthropology, we unpack innovation given the highly competitive dynamics of 21st-century organizations.
Please visit the Lester Center’s website for more information about all of our programs.
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