In this Ask Evan episode, Evan Carmichael answers a viewer’s question about which university courses and extracurricular activities can best prepare a student for entrepreneurship. He advises first seeking any entrepreneurship or small‑business management class, then supplementing with hard‑skill courses such as marketing, finance, and accounting. Beyond academics, he stresses the importance of joining campus entrepreneur clubs, attending seminars, and building a network of like‑minded peers. He recommends gaining practical experience through a part‑time role with a small or solo entrepreneur to learn operations firsthand. Finally, he shares a personal example of creating an independent study with a marketing professor, turning his own business into a credit‑earning course, and encourages students to explore similar arrangements. The video concludes with a call for viewers to engage in the comments and like the video.
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Hi, I'm Evan Carmichael. Welcome to another edition of Ask Evan where I answer your questions. Today I'm going to be talking about what courses you should take in university or in school to help you prepare to be an entrepreneur. So today's question comes from Martha who wrote in asking, Evan, I'm pursuing a bachelor's degree in procurement supply management. "Headed into my second year in August as an entrepreneur. Can you please advise me on another course I can do alongside that in order to be skilled?" So, thank you for the question, Martha. A great question, one that I get a lot from young entrepreneurs who are in school or starting school because they want to start their own business and they're hoping to use their education to help them as much as possible. From my own experience, this is kind of all I can share with you. I went to University of Toronto and unfortunately there weren't too many courses that would help me with my entrepreneurship skills. There was one course in small business management, so if there is anything that is about entrepreneurship or small business, you definitely want to take that on. What else I would look at is try to find something related to marketing, finance, accounting. Those might give you some of the hard skills that you need to run your business. But what I would do is try to connect with some of the clubs that happen at university. I think that the greatest experience that I got out of the university was being able to find people who also were interested in entrepreneurship, and we actually started our own first business out of university. So I was running my company while taking classes in university. So trying to find like-minded people, see if there's an entrepreneur club or small business club that you can join up with, or if there's any seminars or events, because these people, you know, they'll give you some ideas and advice, but also could become lifelong friends and business partners as you continue to grow up, you know. And as these people graduate and start their own businesses, you have people you can potentially connect to and rely on down the line. So I try to think beyond just the courses and also try to connect with the community of entrepreneurs around you. If your eventual goal is to start your own business, I'd also look at potentially starting up partnering with an existing company and taking on a part-time job. So find a company who is doing exactly what you want to do, a smaller company, somebody who's either a solo entrepreneur or has a few employees, but not, not a big company. And try to learn as much as you can about their business, how they got started, all the operations. Entrepreneurs always need help, so if you can prove to be a valuable resource for them, then that can start giving you some ideas on how they run their business and give you some thoughts as well as if this is the type of business you want to run or not. A lot of times we have ideas for businesses, but once we get into it, like, this is a terrible idea. So being paid by somebody to learn is a great opportunity to in a low-risk way, learn about the industry, find out if it's for you, gain some skills, uh, and that can be in addition to doing your regular university coursework. One final suggestion, something that really helped me with my university career, is I was starting my business while I was at university, I was in third year I believe, and what I actually did was I talked to one of my marketing professors and created my own course with him. So I don't know if this is an option at your university or not, but we were able to do it at University of Toronto. Where I created my own course, and with this professor, he basically gave me a credit. So we didn't have an exam, but we had to kind of come together and figure out how I was gonna— what the course was gonna be about, how I was gonna do my research, what findings I was gonna create. And I basically made the course about my business, and I was able to run my business, get his advice, and also get a credit for it. So you have to talk to professors, they have to know you, they have to be willing to mentor you. For the semester to be able to give you that credit, but it's another opportunity to potentially use your university or school education to be able to get more out of it to help you build your business. So one, look for any entrepreneur small business courses. If they don't exist, look for anything that might give you some hard skills—marketing, finance, accounting, any of those kind of courses. Two, try to get involved again in the university community. Look at clubs that you might be able to join or any events or seminars that are happening And 3, see if you might be able to create your own course with a professor around a topic that is interesting that can help you launch your business. And then 4, also again, look to see if you might be able to get a part-time job outside of the university where you can learn from an entrepreneur and also gain the skills that you need when you are ready to launch your own business. So hopefully that helped, Martha. Great question. I love answering that. I love helping young entrepreneurs. For those of you watching, if you like the video, please give it a thumbs up below. It makes me want to do more of these videos for you guys. And if you have any advice for Martha or you have a question of your own, feel free to leave it in the comments below. I always read the comments and I, I love reading the comments. It always makes my day. So please leave a comment if you can, and we'll see you on the next episode.
