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University of Texas IE Consortium: Creating a New Breed of Entrepreneurs

Five years into my graduate work at UT-Austin, I had the disturbing realization that I didn’t really fit in with the profile of my program. I didn’t want what the other doc students wanted (a job at a major research institution) but was unsure how to go after what I did want (a job as an editor or as a teacher at a smaller, liberal arts school). I was looking for a way to take ownership of my own education, and for access to something that might help me find the path to the careers that really appealed to me. In UT’s fledgling entrepreneurship program, I found those things; more, I encountered mentorship that encouraged me to get beyond just job prospects in my thinking about my life and where it might lead.

Eight years later, that experimental program has grown into the University of Texas Intellectual Entrepreneurship (IE) Consortium. Their early philosophy of mentoring graduate students to become “citizen-scholars” has expanded into a radical claim: Entrepreneurship is more than a business model; it is an attitude for engaging the world. The program operates on the principle that entrepreneurial skills help individuals not only to build a career, but to build a life. Its mission is ambitious: “creating cross-disciplinary and multi-institutional collaborations designed to produce intellectual advancements with a capacity to provide real solutions to society’s problems and needs.“

By: Carolyn Roark

Full Story: http://wisepreneur.com/entrepreneurship/university-of-texas-ie-consortium-creating-a-new-breed-of-entrepreneurs#more-5195

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