

How can engineering schools not teach startups? - aswanson

I mean, every revolution in history has been driven by tech.  So why do the business guys get taught entreprenership, capital markets, etc, while the guys with a chance to innovate are taught to crank turn and think in terms of bounded small problems.  WTF?
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uuilly
If you had to design an engineering school from the ground up where the input
was an 18 y/o w/ HS math + science and the output was a good engineer, it
would look nothing like universities do today. Engineering is diced into its
core components and those components are diced into their core components
until you end up w/ a prof drawing lines and dots on a blackboard that have no
connection to the lines and dots being drawn on all the other blackboards you
saw that afternoon. All the while your goal is to predict what lines and dots
will appear on the test in a month.

I don't deny the need for a thorough and disciplined understanding of math and
physics. But... I didn't understand the need for calculus until I needed a way
to go from pos/time to velocity/time. I didn't understand linear algebra until
I needed to transform vertices in 3d graphics. Personally I don't understand a
hammer unless I see the nail. Engineering school is all about showing you
everything there is to know about a tool except what to use it for.

I think E-schools should be like obstacle courses where you have projects that
REQUIRE understanding of a concept in order to complete them. Classes about
said concepts are given as the NEED arises.

Most E-schools suck. Just take as many project based classes as possible (CS
is decent for this) and get a degree. Universities also have lots of grants
that nobody knows about where you can get money to build cool things.

Maybe this is just me, but I don't think I'm alone. And it probably explains
why I failed to hang my pictures with a chainsaw.

~~~
ecuzzillo
You just described Olin, at least as I understood it from the visit.

~~~
uuilly
Right on. I wish I had gone to Olin...

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alex_c
A few years back I was talking to the Electrical and Computer Engineering
department head at University of Toronto about pretty much the same topic.
He's very much an entrepreneur - started & sold his own business, knows lots
of people in the industry, etc.

It's not so much something to "teach" as a culture that needs to be
encouraged. Sure, you can offer some business, accounting, economics
(entrepreneurship?) courses to engineers, and to some extent U of T does that.
But the important thing is, after you graduate chances are you'll do something
similar to your friends. All your colleagues are only talking about grad
school or working on their resumes and applying for jobs? Chances are that's
what you'll do. Been throwing around business ideas with your friends since
day 1? You might actually decide to start something.

Don't know if there's an easy solution... good courses and guest speakers
help... entrepreneurship/business clubs might help... but if the culture
doesn't exist, how do you kickstart it?

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StStartup
Every revolution in history has been driven by tech, and the revolutionaries
where NOT taught about startups in engineering colleges. So ..you get the
point. For revolutionaries, its not required. [and why did you plugin that
"wtf" at the end of your rant ? Trying to get that Diggitude? ]

~~~
aswanson
Points taken, admitted end in bad taste, newbie mistake.

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zach
I don't know much about the University of Waterloo (I'm a Mudd ITR), but they
do have one guy there who is very big on startups, Larry Smith. Of course,
he's in the economics department:

[http://www.zachbaker.com/articles/2006/11/30/larry-smith-
the...](http://www.zachbaker.com/articles/2006/11/30/larry-smith-the-hidden-
world-of-big-bucks-software)

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menloparkbum
If you think school is the answer, every university with an engineering
department also has business courses. However, ourses teaching
entrepreneurship and "innovation" are usually a joke.

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pg
If it makes you feel any better, no university actually teaches how to start
startups, including business schools.

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ivankirigin
Aside from "learn by doing", how would you recommend we change universities to
make people more likely to start startups?

I'm personally in favor of noting the most capable students around 7th grade,
let them finish highschool in 8th grade, and spend high school years learning
depth and trying to make things people want. This might be a bit ridiculous.

~~~
pg
I don't think you have to change universities to make people start startups.
Once word spreads among hackers that it works, more will.

What I'd ask is: what could you teach in universities that will help people
later in startups? There are some interesting answers to that. One thing
engineering schools could do right now is teach more product design, instead
of assuming their graduates will all go off to work in big companies as mere
implementors.

~~~
aswanson
One thing that I think universities could change is to make freshman year more
than a rehash of high school calc and physics, albeit at a more involved
level. This is a recipe for extinguishing imagination.

~~~
menloparkbum
Most high schools in the USA are so bad that freshman year is mainly remedial.
Actually, most high schools in the USA are so bad that the entirety of college
is remedial.

~~~
ivankirigin
Indeed. There should be a a separation either at admissions or with honors
classes for kids that can do more. Universities typically aren't nearly as bad
as high schools with this.

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tuukkah
My university began offering a minor in "technology-based growth venturing"
last year, and it was certainly worth taking. The school of business and
economics organizes it for the sciences departments, which allows it to be
properly framed. Only afterwards could I appreciate how the classes focus on
marketing and VC.

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transburgh
At Ohio State University they have started an entrepreneurship minor and there
were a good number of engineering students in my classes. Maybe the engineers
that you have witnessed need to take the action to join a business course.

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ryantmulligan
Can you actually teach entrepreneurship? It seems more like a state of mind
that you have to learn over a long time of self discovery.

~~~
aswanny
True. I think it also takes a sense of rebelliousness, in the sense of, "Why
should I have to answer to anyone but myself?" That has been my attitude as
long as my memory goes back.

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cperciva
Big problems are made up of small problems. Who is going to be able to solve
the small problems if not the engineers?

~~~
aswanson
There are an infinite number of small problems. How are they going to know
which are worth solving in their finite lifespan? How will they learn the
value of anything if they are not given context?

~~~
rms
Engineering Managers

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s_baar
Does anyone know of a good college with a healthy balance between the two?

~~~
rms
<http://www.olin.edu>

It's not much easier to get into than MIT, though.

