Schulze School of Entrepreneurship Viewbook

GET TANGLED UP IN

BIG IDEAS

We can talk until we’re blue in the face about the amazing, talented Richard M. “Dick” Schulze, our benefactor and founder of the big, blue-chip brand Best Buy. However, we’ll just cut to the chase. Dick is a businessman with the ability to think like an entrepreneur. And we can teach you how to think like Dick Schulze too.

Our formula for success at the St. Thomas Schulze School of Entrepreneurship isn’t a highly guarded secret available only to a select few initiates. On the contrary. It’s available to anyone who is a FIRM BELIEVER.

To think like an entrepreneur, you MUST BELIEVE in the power of your passion to create innovative business ideas that impact people’s lives in meaningful ways. Are you down for it? Good. And don’t worry about flying solo. You’ll collaborate with fellow students from the get-go. You’ll also get one-on-one mentoring from professors and business professionals, as well as plenty of hands-on learning opportunities.

IF YOU HAVE THE TIME, WE HAVE THE FULL STORY ABOUT DICK SCHULZE AT LINK.STTHOMAS.EDU/DICKSCHULZE

YOU’LL FIND A RIGOROUS

CURRICULUM, AND NOT ARCANE, DUSTY BUSINESS TOMES

While pursuing a business major or minor with an entrepreneurship concentration, your nose won’t be lodged between two pages of a book 24/7. We want you to smell the coffee, so you’ll stay wired and engaged. You’ll use your critical thinking skills in practical, hands-on ways to identify opportunities, evaluate them, develop a plan for prototyping and testing new ideas, bring them to market, test, retest, craft solutions to problems, and more. Whew!

But wait! You won’t just dip your toe in business theory. Brace yourself, because you’ll dive right in. You’ll explore, conceive, analyze and discuss the entrepreneurial process — and then fully bake your knowledge into a real, sustainable business model that advances the common good.

PSST.

AN ENTREPRENEURSHIP MINOR PAIRS WELL WITH… Computer Science, Music Business, Engineering, Biology and Exercise Science (actually, it goes with everything).

BEEF UP YOUR RESUME EVEN BEFORE YOU TAKE YOUR FIRST COLLEGE CLASS. The Freshman Innovation Immersion is an action-packed, mind-stretching, two-day experience. You get to work with a team of fellow first-year students to create a business concept and learn the basic principles of entrepreneurship. You’ll learn critical thinking, ideation, improvisation, creativity, business modeling and more. You and your team will present your concept to business leaders for the opportunity to score awesome cash and prizes.

SCHULZE ENTREPRENEURSHIP CHALLENGE

We host one of the nation’s largest business plan competitions, awarding more than $215,000 in cash prizes for the best ideas.

ON! GAME

Get ready to train your brain for fierce competitions, which will prepare you for realworld challenges. Participants will learn how to develop a persuasive pitch under pressure and pivot on a moment’s notice. You’ll also acquire business skills and forge connections with potential future employers, investors and peers that will serve you well in future entrepreneurial endeavors. Oh, and yeah, there is big money up for grabs too!

IT’S NEVER TOO SOON TO START NETWORKING

COLLEGIATE ENTREPRENEURS ORGANIZATION (CEO) brings together entrepreneurial thinkers on campus. This student club is a forum for discussion, a space for applied learning, and a hub for resources.

ENACTUS is a club for students who want to develop community outreach projects that improve the quality of life for people in need by using business skills and entrepreneurial thinking.

FOWLER BUSINESS CONCEPT CHALLENGE

This entry-level competition invites St. Thomas students to compete for $86,000 in scholarship prizes.

ST. THOMAS BUSINESS PLAN COMPETITION

Students compete for $38,000 in cash to launch their businesses.

FOWLER GLOBAL SOCIAL INNOVATION CHALLENGE

St. Thomas Social Entrepreneurs compete for a chance to advance to a global competition to win their share of more than $60,000 in seed funding.

YOU’LL NEED A BIGGER PIGGY BANK

TO STASH AWAY ALL THAT SCHOLARSHIP MONEY

We have a very large scholarship created just for incoming freshmen intent on majoring in entrepreneurship. You must already have pursued an entrepreneurial endeavor in high school. Whether it was a success or not doesn’t matter one iota. But you must possess the mind and soul of an entrepreneur — someone who has passion, isn’t afraid to work hard and is willing to take risks.

The Schulze Innovation Scholarship Program is a four-year, full-tuition scholarship that provides young entrepreneurs with a launchpad. It will catapult you into an immersive educational experience that includes individual mentoring, hands-on learning and unique opportunities for networking and internships, plus the chance to gain access to seed capital to launch a start-up after graduation.

Learn more about the selection criteria and process at link.stthomas.edu/schulzescholarship.

97% of St. Thomas students receive merit-based scholarships

Schulze Innovation Scholars

Full-tuition, four-year scholarship program

More than $1.4 million in scholarships awarded annually to entrepreneurship students

IN OR OUT?

THERE’S NO WRONG WAY

YOU CAN BE AN ENTREPRENEUR OR AN INTRAPRENEUR

What can you do with your entrepreneurial major or minor? You can start something up, or you can shake things up in an established company. You’ll have the tools and mind power to create your own company: hello, entrepreneur. You’ll also be fully equipped to innovate within a company of any size: hello, intrapreneur. Either way, you’ll have the innovative thinking skills that employers relish, such as the uncanny ability to see solutions where other people see only problems.

Entrepreneurship is the

5th

largest major at St. Thomas

390+ entrepreneurial expert mentors

94% of Opus students have at least one internship or career-related experience prior to graduation

$81M+ raised by recent alumni start-ups

97% of Opus grads are employed or in graduate school within six months of graduation

83% of entrepreneurial faculty have started, owned or run a business

YOUR NET WORTH HAS A LOT TO DO

WITH YOUR NETWORK

LOAD YOUR SMARTPHONE WITH 110,000 BUSINESS CONTACTS

Tommies are a pervasive part of the local Minnesota business scene — more than 35,000 alumni are living and working here. And we keep a close tether to the local business community, which is comprised of 18 Fortune 500 companies, plus thousands of start-ups and small businesses. These relationships ensure that many doors are open to our students pursuing internships. Plus, our alumni network is 115,000+ strong worldwide, should you want to wander. Needless to say, you’ll probably bump into a Tommie wherever you go.

stay bizzy like alex

ALEX FRENCH ‘11

Alex French, entrepreneurship major, started Bizzy Coffee, ranked No. 1 on Amazon in the cold brew coffee category. Meet this business rock star at link.stthomas.edu/bizzy

bank on your talents

KARA GAMELIN ‘15

Kara Gamelin, entrepreneurship major, works in the innovation group at U.S. Bank, where she is finding ways to make the digital user experience more of an intuitive human experience.

An avid gamer with a head for business ENZO VINHOLI ‘21

Enzo Vinholi majored in entrepreneurship. Somewhere between classes and study time, he found the time to build a company that's using virtual reality to keep memories alive for Alzheimer's patients. Meet this entrepreneurial rock star: link.stthomas.edu/enzo

These super men created their own kryptonite against cancer

ZACHARY QUINN AND BRIAN KELLER ‘15

Zachary and Brian fight evil every day: pediatric cancer. Their greatest superpower isn’t X-ray vision, or steel-bending strength. It’s the ability to think critically to solve real-world problems. They created Love Your Melon in an entrepreneurship class.

1 stthomas.edu/schulze CONNECT

2 VISIT stthomas.edu/visit

3 APPLY stthomas.edu/apply

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