Entrepreneurship Upper Division Certificate

The certificate focuses on empowering students with real-world skills to identify market opportunities, develop ideas and evaluate their viability, and start and manage their own businesses. How do you develop your idea into a business concept? How do you build and grow a business from ground-up? What resources will you need? How do you secure them? These are a few of the questions students completing the certificate will be able to answer.

Why Choose the Entrepreneurship Certificate?

Students completing this certificate will be able to apply principles of entrepreneurship to analyze business opportunities in the external environment, and identify and address market needs. Students will further learn how to apply entrepreneurship fundamentals to organizational problems and creatively address potential issues. Students will also learn to follow the steps to create and develop their own start-up business and identify and develop resources in the environment to nurture and grow their business. 

Certificate Requirements

The certificate in entrepreneurship is open to all degree-holding students and to all Towson University undergraduate degree-seeking students except those who are pursuing a major in business administration with a concentration in entrepreneurship. 

All courses within the entrepreneurship certificate must be completed with a grade equivalent of 2.00 or higher, and all must be completed at Towson University. 

The certificate requirements are successful completion of the following courses: 

• ENTR 305 DESIGN THINKING FOR INNOVATIVE PROBLEM SOLVING (3)
  Focuses on human-centered design tools and techniques used by successful entrepreneurs to create innovative products and services.  Topics include connecting insights to inspiration, identifying opportunities, building empathy for people designed for, and pursuing actions to bring solutions to market.
• ENTR 310 WILL YOUR BUSINESS WORK? (3)
  Understand how to identify and assess new venture opportunities. Overview of the entrepreneurial process that addresses the issues, decisions, and problems that entrepreneurs face while creating or managing new or small enterprises.
• ENTR 355 ENTREPRENEURSHIP FOUNDATIONS AND PATHWAYS (3)
  Introduces the entrepreneurial process including a focus on the identification and evaluation of opportunities. Discusses the importance of innovation, creating a business concept and business models. Develop business ideas and evaluate them for potential formation of a new venture.
• ENTR 410 BUSINESS PLAN COMPETITION (3)
  Focuses on developing a business plan for a successful new venture. Topics include opportunity evaluation, feasibility analysis, creating persuasive pitches for the business idea, competitive analysis, profiling the target market, developing financial forecasts and presentation of a business plan in a competitive style format.

How to Apply 

The undergraduate upper-division certificate in entrepreneurship accepts admission materials on a rolling basis.

• If you are a current degree-seeking student at Towson University, please complete the Change of Major/Minor Form: Undergraduates (login required) to add the certificate. Please note: BUAD majors with a concentration in ENTR are not eligible for the certificate. 
• If you are a prospective student who has completed a bachelor's degree, please see admission requirements.  

More Information

For more information about the certificate, contact Filiz Tabak, professor and chair of the Department of Management, ftabak AT_TOWSON