JustinIdea - Justin Ricaurte's Personal Blog

Degree in Innovation

This is an idea I have been working with, since I read about the best D-Schools on David Armano's blog, Logic+Emotion.  What if UW created an interdisciplinary degree in Innovation, where students would be required to take courses from business and entrepreneurship, design studies, and engineering?  The degree program would be housed in the Business School's Center for Innovation and Entrepreneurship. 

A degree program such as these would attract the best and brightest from around the school and the world, because many students have a variety of interests.  The program might take up to 5 years to complete, because of the amount of courses, but it would be a lot of fun at the same time.  Wouldn't you enjoy taking a course each on engineering, business, and design each quarter?  You would never get bored.

The creating a business course for the Innovation major would be changed from the current two quarters (for entrepreneurship) to one year, and students would not be required to fold their business at the end.  Instead the students would pay back the program for the initial money raised, and give a program a nominal equity stake in their enterprise.  This way if anyone strikes it, the program will receive a windfall endowment.

As to whether employers would hire people with this degree, these might be the most in demand students.  Advertising/Marketing, Computer Hardware, Software, Internet, Nanotech, and American Manufacturing (including cars) companies, to name a few, could utilize the unique breadth of skills offered by these students.  Of course the students would only need to corporate if they desired, because they might already be running a successful company.

UW Business School #25

Its great to see that the UW Business School was ranked #25 in the nation for its undergraduate program.  There has also been some debate as to how much the ranking will go up by once they replace Balmer Hall with a newer building (5 spots anyone?).

After reviewing what the other schools are doing well and from my own experience in the undergraduate program, here are some ideas I have to help improve the program.  I would love to see the school be in the top 10!

1. Have more cases in classes, lecture from the book is not the most stimulating.
2. And going with that, shift to more of an MBA format (this has worked for Berkeley).  What if our undergrads came out just as prepared as the MBA students?
3. More students competing in competitions and more competitions.
4. More advertising around the UW-Seattle Campus about the Business School by the Business School (not just the clubs) to create a greater buzz around it.
5. Create a greater bond with start-up companies in the area.  The BEDC has been doing a great job with this, but it would be awesome to get even more backing from the Business School.

If there is anything that I am not aware of that addresses one of these points or if you have anymore ideas, let me know.