A BDP helps you develop skills to bring creative thinkingand an entrepreneurial mindsetto your career goals, whether you’re interested in turning your ideas into a new venture or initiative, being part of a startup team, or bringing creative new ideas into more established organizations. Some of the skills and qualities you’ll learn as you cultivate an entrepreneurial mindset include idea generation, design and prototyping, problem-solving, pitching your ideas, teamwork and collaboration, resilience, flexibility, and a tolerance for risk. Through an exciting interdisciplinary program that combines courses from Business, Communication, Engineering, Fine Arts, and Liberal Arts, among others, you will earn a certificate that is tailored to your specific interests and career goals,while gaining hands-on research or internship experiencethat allows you to put your entrepreneurial skills and ideas into practice.
For a complete list of courses and requirements, view the Innovation, Creativity & Entrepreneurship BDP curriculum sheet.
Requirements
With 19 credit hours of coursework and Connecting Experiences, students may earn a BDP certificate in Innovation, Creativity & Entrepreneurship.
Courses counting toward a BDP in Innovation, Creativity & Entrepreneurship may also satisfy core, major, and elective requirements in a student’s degree plan. With planning, the BDP should not add time to students’ UT careers, but instead helps students choose the courses they already have to take in an integrated way.
Foundation Courses [10-13 hours]
- Forum Seminar
- Entrepreneurship Foundation Course
- Skills Foundation Course
- Creative Innovation and Problem-Solving Foundation Course
Courses in a Strand [3-6 hours]
Students should work with their BDP advisor to choose strand courses that will focus the BDP on specific interests, and that will provide an interdisciplinary perspective. In order to create an interdisciplinary experience, students must choose courses from a variety of disciplines.
Connecting Experiences [3 hours]
BDP advisors assist students in finding meaningful connecting research and/or internship experiences related to Innovation, Creativity & Entrepreneurship. For examples of Connecting Experiences Innovation, Creativity & Entrepreneurship students have completed in the past, read these Connecting Experience spotlights.
Integration Essay
Students write a three to four-page essay written at the end of the BDP experience, drawing together the different pieces of the BDP.
Faculty Panel
An interdisciplinary faculty panel works with students to tailor their coursework to fit their interests, and to identify research and internship opportunities.