When people say they want to be an entrepreneur and ask me to pick a degree, my reflexive response would be to tell them none. If you never started a business before, the heads up is that no degree would provide you with the preparation for what you would want to do - the information you actually need would be incredibly different to that of what you find in a degree. It's one of the many reasons why you don't need a degree in business to either go into business or to start a business. A business degree would be great if you want to go into business research in academia, in practice and for work in industry it's less practical.
If I were to pick between the 2 though, I would have to pick business and marketing over business and entrepreneurship.
My reasoning is:
•
Business and entrepreneurship would provide you with more research surrounding entrepreneurship and what the latest data say about it. Knowing research about entrepreneurship won't help you start up a business; in starting a business you need actual skills and practical knowledge.
•
The practical skills that would give you a better foundation in being an entrepreneur are those in marketing, accounting, HR (employment law); useful knowledge would be those in IT (if there is programming involved), corporate and employment law, marketing, accounting, data analytics/business statistics, taxes, business finance, business economics (frameworks, how to interpret macroeconomics), quantitative project management techniques
•
A lot of the material in business degrees in general include material that isn't readily applicable and provides very little help in practice in my opinion e.g. ogranisational behaviour, business strategy, business management.
•
Marketing would give you more applicable and practical knowledge to help you with your entrepreneurial journey than entrepreneurship, ironically.
Having said that, I am open to being wrong if and only if the joint degree in entrepreneurship includes aspects of the following:
•
How to scale a business
•
How to set up a business and which specific forms you need to submit and to whom
•
How to maximise the tax benefits you get when you first start out
•
How to get the financing you would need
•
How to get your first customer
•
How to start a business with little to no money
•
How to minimise business risk when starting a new business
•
How to buy businesses
•
Strategies to market your business using as little money as possible
•
How to sell
•
How to pitch your business to investors
•
How to find and get a business mentor
•
Which business to pick to start and what metrics to look out for
•
How to network with people and where to network (not through an academic book on networking)
•
How to manage your staff when you first starting out
•
What should your organisational chart look like when you hire/have your first set of employees
•
How to start a business remotely
•
The importance of financial management in the preliminary stages of forming and scaling your business
•
How to comply with laws when you have limited funds
Looking through the following degree course:
https://london.northumbria.ac.uk/course/msc-business-with-entrepreneurship/
...it pretty much concurs what I have mentioned above. It does however provide information on how to "Carry out market research to validate a business idea and map out a business model for a scaling strategy", which can be possibly be interesting if it doesn't involve the traditional marketing research methods that will require substantial funding and long periods of time (entrepreneurship often involves quick execution, a lot of testing with the market, all the whilst complying with regulations and laws).
If you compare the above degree with the following: https://london.northumbria.ac.uk/course/msc-business-with-marketing-management/... the main difference between the degrees are the following modules:
•
Consumer Behaviour in Contemporary Consumption Context
•
Strategic Marketing and Analytics
•
New Venture Development
•
Design for Digital Enterprise
Personally, I still consider the joint marketing degree to have more useful information. It would depend on you whether you think the extra content in the joint entrepreneurship degree will be materially useful to you in the future.
If I were to pick between the 2 though, I would have to pick business and marketing over business and entrepreneurship.
My reasoning is:
•
Business and entrepreneurship would provide you with more research surrounding entrepreneurship and what the latest data say about it. Knowing research about entrepreneurship won't help you start up a business; in starting a business you need actual skills and practical knowledge.
•
The practical skills that would give you a better foundation in being an entrepreneur are those in marketing, accounting, HR (employment law); useful knowledge would be those in IT (if there is programming involved), corporate and employment law, marketing, accounting, data analytics/business statistics, taxes, business finance, business economics (frameworks, how to interpret macroeconomics), quantitative project management techniques
•
A lot of the material in business degrees in general include material that isn't readily applicable and provides very little help in practice in my opinion e.g. ogranisational behaviour, business strategy, business management.
•
Marketing would give you more applicable and practical knowledge to help you with your entrepreneurial journey than entrepreneurship, ironically.
Having said that, I am open to being wrong if and only if the joint degree in entrepreneurship includes aspects of the following:
•
How to scale a business
•
How to set up a business and which specific forms you need to submit and to whom
•
How to maximise the tax benefits you get when you first start out
•
How to get the financing you would need
•
How to get your first customer
•
How to start a business with little to no money
•
How to minimise business risk when starting a new business
•
How to buy businesses
•
Strategies to market your business using as little money as possible
•
How to sell
•
How to pitch your business to investors
•
How to find and get a business mentor
•
Which business to pick to start and what metrics to look out for
•
How to network with people and where to network (not through an academic book on networking)
•
How to manage your staff when you first starting out
•
What should your organisational chart look like when you hire/have your first set of employees
•
How to start a business remotely
•
The importance of financial management in the preliminary stages of forming and scaling your business
•
How to comply with laws when you have limited funds
Looking through the following degree course:
https://london.northumbria.ac.uk/course/msc-business-with-entrepreneurship/
...it pretty much concurs what I have mentioned above. It does however provide information on how to
I fully agree that university isn’t essential for becoming an entrepreneur, rather self education through books, podcasts, online courses, etc is what does the job for education here. However the whole reason I’m going to university is as a backup, rather than being overly optimistic, I want to at least get a degree in my field of interest- business as a plan B to help me secure a job in this field of interest.
I have looked through the Business and Entrepreneurship course, and out the things you listed that would make choosing those course worth it, I could only find these:
Financial decision making (cash flows, ratio analysis, balance score cards, etc)- importance of financial management
Scale- Born global enterprise- from what I’ve read about the module it relates
Modules about Marketing
I’ve seen HR in one of the modules
Looking into/Analysis of e-commerce (so not about how to remotely start a business)
I am not sure If I’ve managed to spot everything that you have listed that would make picking it worth it, in the modules of the course, so I would really appreciate it if you could have a look at the course below and tell me if it has more of the things you listed and if it would be worthwhile picking over Business and Marketing.
https://www.northumbria.ac.uk/study-at-northumbria/courses/ba-hons-business-and-entrepreneurship-uusber1/#next-year-two
Thank you!
Hiya, I hope you're well!
I would recommend doing plenty of research on both courses! You can do this by visiting our website or by coming to one of our open days, this way academics can give you more information about each course and you can ask any questions you may have.
I hope this helps,
Beth
Northumbria UG rep
Quick Reply
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