Skip to main content

Entrepreneurship and Innovation Minor

College of Management
Undergraduate minor

The Minor in Entrepreneurship and Innovation helps students build their dreams by providing students the knowledge, skills, experience, and career opportunities to create or energize a business. Whether the dream is to start a new business, launch a career as an innovative manager within an existing organization, support a family business, become a franchisee, or build inner leadership skills, this discipline will help students achieve their economic and personal goals.

Regardless of a student's major discipline of study, these courses will help them expand their career options and competitiveness. The experiential education classes help students think like an entrepreneur, build confidence, engage in real world cases, and create their own destiny.

Taught by experts in the industry and scholars with entrepreneurial experience, the Entrepreneurship and Innovation courses are uniquely tied to the extensive entrepreneurial ecosystem of the Twin Cities and the nation. Students are exposed to a broad range of community experts that further supplement their education, career options, and resources.

Metro State connects you to your future. Receive information from Admissions about taking your first step toward a degree!

Already admitted? Find your advisor.

Current students: Declare this program

Once you’re admitted as an undergraduate student and have met any further admission requirements your chosen program may have, you may declare a major or declare an optional minor.

Future students: Apply now

Apply to Metropolitan State: Start the journey toward your Entrepreneurship and Innovation Minor now. Learn about the steps to enroll or, if you have questions about what Metropolitan State can offer you, request information, visit campus or chat with an admissions counselor.

Get started on your Entrepreneurship and Innovation Minor

Program eligibility requirements

This minor is open to students with any major at Metropolitan State.  Students must must earn a grade of S or C- or above in courses to be used to meet pre-requisites. 

Entrepreneurship and Innovation Minor Residency Requirements:  At least 12 credits from among the Minor Required Courses, Minor Electives and Capstone must be completed at Metropolitan State.  See also the COM policies page for requirements that are common to all programs. 

Course requirements

Prerequisites

College of Management majors

Individual ENTR course prerequisites include one or more of the following:

FIN 390 Principles of Finance

4 credits

This course introduces the application to financial decision-making of mathematics, statistics, economic theory, and accounting procedures. The two central ideas are time value of money and the relationship between expected return and risk, and how these ideas are used to value bonds, stocks, and other financial securities, and to make capital investment decisions.

Full course description for Principles of Finance

MKTG 300 Marketing Principles

4 credits

This course surveys factors that marketing managers take into account when creating a marketing plan, including consumer behavior principles, market segmentation, product life cycle, packaging, branding, pricing, advertising, sales promotion, public relations, personal selling, product distribution methods and key laws affecting marketing practices. The course takes a practical approach to explaining how to identify marketing objectives and determine strategies for reaching them. It is useful to general business students, students who plan marketing management or marketing communications careers and those who wish to be better informed consumers. This course is also offered online. Prerequisite: Goal 1 writing requirement plus 30 credits must be satisfied.

Full course description for Marketing Principles

Non-College of Management majors

Students not pursuing a major within the College of Management must begin their Entrepreneurship minor by taking ENTR 300, plus any additional prerequisites courses, after which they can take the remaining Entrepreneurship courses.

ENTR 300 Interdisciplinary Business Skills and Knowledge for Non-Business Majors

4 credits

Interdisciplinary Business Knowledge and Skills for Non-Business Majors is designed to provide broad coverage of major business concepts in finance, marketing, accounting, and management and deep coverage of specific skills and knowledge needed as a foundation for applying that knowledge to opportunities in existing or new businesses. Students will learn how to research data within the Metropolitan State library databases to augment their knowledge and skills to evaluate opportunities and existing organizations. The students will be asked to enhance their analytical thinking by asking pertinent questions, determining relevant information, and systematically developing and applying the business processes to make decisions.

Full course description for Interdisciplinary Business Skills and Knowledge for Non-Business Majors

Requirements (16 credits)

Required (8 credits)

ENTR 400 Innovative Mindset in a Diverse Economy

4 credits

Entrepreneurship Mindset in a Diverse World provides students with an overall understanding of entrepreneurship while developing the mindset for thinking creatively, solving problems, and discovering opportunities. Students build competencies to recognize and apply innovative strategies and processes in start-up ventures and existing organizations, as well as barriers to creativity and challenges specific to groups of individuals based on gender, ethnicity, or social background. Strong emphasis is placed on understanding diverse organizational cultures and thinking outside the structured environment while dealing with real world applications. The course exposes students to concepts and principles engaged in mind mapping, adaptability, and personal assessment and self-reflection. This class can benefit students greatly in how to think and act from an entrepreneurial viewpoint which is useful for any career choice.

Full course description for Innovative Mindset in a Diverse Economy

Elective credits (8 credits)

ENTR 491 Technology Management for Entrepreneurs

2 credits

Entrepreneurs confront many challenges. Often they want merely to focus on their core business. Managing technology cost effectively to support an enterprise at start up and as it grows requires expertise that could detract from other entrepreneurial pursuits. This course is designed to help jump start the process of selecting and maintaining technology during the stages of starting and running a business.

Full course description for Technology Management for Entrepreneurs

ENTR 493 Finance for Entrepreneurs

2 credits

This course blends financial theory and current industry trends and practices to instruct students on various aspects of financing an entrepreneurial venture. Major topics include attracting seed and growth capital from sources such as venture capital, investment banking, government, and commercial banks. Among the issues discussed are valuing a company, going public, selling out, acquisitions, bankruptcy. Course format includes: case analysis, writing a financial plan, and readings.

Full course description for Finance for Entrepreneurs

ENTR 510 Social Entrepreneurship

4 credits

Social entrepreneurship and innovation is a model of business where enterprise owners are using business methods to help solve social and environmental challenges while delivering a ¿triple bottom line¿ of: profits, social, and environmental considerations. Using the social enterprise model, this course differentiates between traditional entrepreneurial ventures and nonprofit organizations as well as highlights economically viable businesses adding value to society. In this evolving landscape, it is critical for students to examine the benefits and challenges of integrating social impact with enterprise profitability while exploring their own capacity as a social change agent. This course is designated as a Community Engagement course.

Full course description for Social Entrepreneurship

MGMT 350I Management Individual Internship

1-8 credits

Students obtain internships in selected areas of study to gain deeper understand of knowledge, skills and the context of a given field. Site supervisors give guidance and direction to customized internship projects. Faculty members serve as liaisons between the internship sites and the university, providing information to students and potential supervisors and supervising the learning experience. Students should contact the Institute for Community Engagement and Scholarship (ICES) at Metropolitan State University for more information.

Full course description for Management Individual Internship

MKTG 325 Digital Marketing

4 credits

This course is designed to provide insights into digital marketing strategy and various digital channels. Students will gain an understanding of the trends, concepts, and tools of digital marketing that companies use to engage with current customers and attract new. This course covers topics such as Search Engine Optimization (SEO), online advertising, social media marketing, email marketing, and similar topics.

Full course description for Digital Marketing

MKTG 348 Advertising Copywriting, Design and Production

4 credits

In advertising and marketing today copywriting is more important than ever. Effective copy needs to cut through the clutter whether for digital or traditional media. This course focuses on learning how to write compelling copy incorporating positioning, audience research, creative briefs, features and benefits, creation of an advertising premise (USP) and copy organization. It also covers content development, design basics, working relationships and digital and traditional advertising production terminology/best practices

Full course description for Advertising Copywriting, Design and Production

MGMT 350i: Up to 4 credits (1-4) of entrepreneurship and innovation-related internship credit can be counted toward your ENTR minor as elective credit.