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Courses & Electives

The entrepreneurship curriculum and cocurriculum at Tuck supports the entire entrepreneurship lifecycle: from initial idea generation, through testing and development, to building a new or growing organization, and beyond.

Tuck believes that students learn how to be entrepreneurial best by doing it within an environment that is both supportive and challenging.  Much of our entrepreneurship curriculum and co-curriculum is experienced-based: it involves a broad team of academics, advisors, and entrepreneurs to help students learn by integrating their experiences with leading methodologies and practices. Maximum success has always required a team effort. Tuck has developed a hypothesis-driven entrepreneurship methodology built on the Lean Start-Up methodology, getting students out of the classroom to test and refine their business ideas.

General Electives

Tuck offers several elective courses in entrepreneurship. Below are several courses taught by affiliated faculty, please click on a course to view the course description.

  • Entrepreneurial Thinking (ETHINK): This full-term mini course is an introduction to entrepreneurship and “entrepreneurial thinking.” Taught by Professor Daniella Reichstetter T'07 and Professor Trip Davis, this course exposes students to methodologies and practitioners and allows for the development of personal perspectives about starting a company now or in the future, joining an entrepreneurial venture, and/or exploring career options in fields related to entrepreneurship, such as early-stage investing. Learn more

  • Social Entrepreneurship: Social Entrepreneurship (SESHP) seeks to inform students who are interested in understanding the theoretical and practical elements of Social Entrepreneurship, and in addition equip those who wish to explore the possibility of defining or starting a social enterprise. Learn more

  • Entrepreneurship FYP (eFYP): The eFYP uses hypothesis-driven principles to identify the assumptions behind a business idea and to begin to test and refine these assumptions in the real world. The goal here is to build a tested and viable business model from the initial idea. eFYPs may include student-founded ideas and ventures which include ETHINK projects and Tuck Startup Incubator ventures, as well as early-stage client projects.
     
  • Entrepreneurship and Innovation Strategy: The entrepreneurial challenge is one of selecting among the many potential combinations that you see, and then organizing the venture, whether startup, corporate, or non-profit, that will allow you to realize your ambition for the opportunity. In this course you will develop a ‘Wide Lens’ perspective on the challenges of innovation, with a particular focus on the context of innovation ecosystems. We will explore a set of analytic lenses that will help us assess the potential of new opportunities and to strategize about how to best exploit them. We will apply these tools using a combination of cases, exercises and projects.
     
  • Diversity Entrepreneurship Collaboration Practicum: This practicum offers an opportunity for Tuck students to partner with entrepreneurs participating in Tuck’s Executive Education Diversity Business Programs’ “Building a Successful Diverse Business” and help growth-stage entrepreneurs tackle their current business challenges, including strategy, marketing, financial analysis, operations, management, and leadership.

Specialized Electives

Tuck and Dartmouth more broadly offer a collection of electives that enable students to specialize in areas appropriate to their idea and new ventures, as well as to early-stage growth companies, including:

  • Data Analytics (Thayer)
  • Design Thinking
  • Design Thinking for Strategic Innovation
  • E’ship and Innovation Strategy
  • Entrepreneurial Finance
  • Entrepreneurial Thinking
  • Entrepreneurship and Innovation Strategy
  • Entrepreneurship FYP
  • Entrepreneurship GIX (select courses)
  • Entrepreneurship in Health Care Services and Technology
  • Entrepreneurship Onsite
  • Entrepreneurship Through Acquisition
  • Field Studies in Venture Capital
  • Field Study in Private Equity
  • Fundamentals of Web Programming
  • Investing and Dealmaking in Health Care
  • Law, Technology, and E’ship (Thayer)
  • Marketing in the Network Economy
  • Medical Device Commercialization (Thayer)
  • Medical Device Development (Thayer)
  • Multichannel Route-to-Market Strategy
  • Platform Design, Management, and Strategy (Thayer)
  • Selling and Sales Leadership
  • Social Entrepreneurship
  • Strategic Principles of Internet Business
  • Technology, Innovation and Entrepreneurship (Thayer)
  • Tuck Startup Incubator
  • Venture Capital & Private Equity
  • Venture Capital & Private Equity Basics
     

TuckGO

Tuck students develop a global mindset through immersion into different cultures; with this in mind, all students are required to complete a global requirement during their time at Tuck. TuckGO (global opportunities) features a set of carefully designed immersive, experiential courses that take place in various countries around the world and to fulfill this requirement, each student must participate in at least one such course in a country that is new to them. Four activities satisfy this requirement: a Global Insight Expedition, a qualifying First-Year Project, an OnSite Global Consulting assignment, or an Exchange Program with one of Tuck's partner institutions. Students can also propose an alternative means of meeting the requirement that must be approved in advance. Additional entrepreneurship opportunities are available in TuckGO courses where the course focus involves entrepreneurship or is consulting-based work with startups and early-stage companies. Current offerings are provided to enrolled students via the TuckGO office. These, and other relevant industry topic courses, are coordinated across all centers at Tuck. See more on Tuck's commitment to experiential learning for information on how students in the past have designed their own pathways as a part of TuckGO.

First-Year Project

For students interested in entrepreneurship, the eFYP track of the First-Year Project provides the opportunity for students to gain hands-on experience working on either their own venture or with an early-stage client. Some students concurrently work on their venture in both eFYP and the Venture Learning Lab.

Check out Zippity Car Care as one example of a Tuck Startup which used eFYP as one part of the venture development while at Tuck!