The process of adding a minor in another academic school
- Look through the USC catalogue of majors and minors to determine which minor interests you: https://catalogue.usc.edu/content.php?catoid=11&navoid=3699. It may be easier to look through a specific school’s catalogue of minors if you know the general field you want to minor in.
- Depending on the school, there may or may not be an application. The business school had a short application that could be filled out in less than 5 minutes. After applying all you have to do is wait to get in.
What happens once you get accepted into the program
- Once I was accepted into my minor program of technology commercialization, similar to entrepreneurship, the process was very simple. I met with an academic advisor from the business school, to discuss what classes I needed to take and where they would fit in my schedule. This information is also available online in the course catalogue.
- With that done, I was able to sign up for my first entrepreneurship course: technology entrepreneurship.
The classes
- Obviously, this varies greatly from school to school, but for me the classes I’ve taken ended up fulfilling all my preconceptions. I learned about entrepreneurship concepts as they apply to technology.
- My first class, tech entrepreneurship, taught the fundamentals of entrepreneurship. I learned basic accounting, customer discovery, product pitching, and much more. The class was essentially a crash course into business.
- The second class I took was feasibility analysis. This class was more focused on financials and determining the feasibility of a business. My team worked on making a desk attachment to maximize table size in small desk spaces. Some important feasibility factors were determining: if this was a common problem across dorm and apartment rooms, if the revenue-cost provided sufficient profit margins, and if the market size was large enough to allow for growth.
- I’ve enjoyed both classes I’ve taken so far and feel it’s diversified my ability to work as an engineer. I tend to look at a lot more factors when working on a project than just the engineering side of the problem. Being able to explore another passion of mine besides engineering has made my time at USC more academically well-rounded and fun!
