SoylentNews is people
SoylentNews
The common thought that learning by experience is most effective when it comes to teaching entrepreneurship at university has been challenged in a new study.
An analysis of more than 500 graduates found no significant difference between business schools that offered traditional courses and those that emphasise a 'learning-by-doing' approach to entrepreneurship education.
The research challenges the ongoing trend across higher education institutes (HEIs) of focussing on experiential learning, and suggests that universities need to reconsider their approach if they are to increase entrepreneurship among their students.
http://phys.org/news/2016-12-entrepreneurial-textbooks.html
[PhD Thesis]: Evaluation of the Outcomes of Entrepreneurship Education Revisited
[Related]: College can cultivate innovative entrepreneurial intentions
(Score: 2, Insightful) by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday December 27 2016, @04:55PM
Real hands-on entrepreneurship, any level position in a small startup company, is BETTER than any MBA. Not surprising that the for-profit education system is trying to run them down.
No. Hands-on experience is *different* than an academic one. It is by necessity more practical, but may not be as good in the end-case.
To put it in a programming perspective, in my mind, there are three people.
1) Has hand-on experience but little academic. This person is good at delivering code. If I say "I want a electronic records sorting system" they'll probably deliver something which works.
2) Academic experience but little academic. This person understands why certain things work and can make small projects. They would fail as making an electronic records sorting system, but they would understand the concepts of why a working one works.
3) Academic experience and hands on experience. This person would make an EFFICIENT and MAINTAINABLE electronic records sorting system.
I've had experience with all three of them, and pure hands-on experience is overrated. I know somebody who was good at making a first cut, but literally had never learned what a floating point operation was and why it can't be relied upon to sum large numbers of financial transactions. You just don't learn that stuff in hands-on.
I'm sure somebody with hands-on experience running a business would be better at the practical aspects of business ("you need to give a bribe of about $5000 to the mob to get the permit to build there"), but I expect they'd not get all of it as good as they could ("I've used a paper filing cabinet for the past 20 years and it hasn't failed me yet").