Enternships Blog

Student Mentality and Entrepreneurship Posted on Friday 04 February 2011 at 13:34PM by Tom Allen

This June I will graduate and finally be able to concentrate solely on my business, which is absolutely great. However, I’m sadly alone amongst my peers in pursuing entrepreneurialism as a viable career path.

This is rather strange I think, or is it? Well, perhaps it isn’t. Until I got to university I was convinced I was going to be a lawyer or a banker, so much so that I endured painful hours studying economics at school. I didn’t enjoy it, and the idea of a career crunching numbers was less than inspiring, yet working for an investment bank was creditable and very well paid. Seemingly unaware, I was following the natural path promoted by schools and careers services up and down the country.

I would admit that upon co-founding my business I did not curtail hopes of a generously paid corporate job. Yet it helped to change my attitude with time. The development of the business was inspiring and it began to dictate my thoughts, the entrepreneurial path was an increasingly conscious consideration. After a year my mindset was completely changed and I realised that I wanted to dedicate myself to the business upon graduation. I’ve rejected the norm that the corporate route is the route, and my decision owes much to the real and practical experience of running a business. I’ve been fortunate that circumstance changed my outlook, but I do think entrepreneurship is greatly overlooked because so many people possess the same mentality that I had, a conscious conformity to the status quo.

But existing conditions simply don’t promote entrepreneurship, so it is unreasonable to expect student’s mindsets to shift. At my university for instance, a student created FitFinder (now Floxx) and it spread like wildfire only for the University to demand its closure, a potentially fatal blow to an innovative concept. Furthermore, I remember my friends lauding the concept without even the slightest consideration that they too could potentially take the entrepreneurial route.

What’s more, very few students have the confidence to embrace prospect of entrepreneurship. In ‘mainstream’ student culture our financial predicaments are considerable, as are our debts, so to forego a traditional career for a crack at self-made success is a gamble that many are simply unwilling to take. I think the media counts against enterprise, but it reflects society, and until conditions change students are unlikely to think positively about ignoring the status quo.

Off the top of my head I can think of a number of measures that would help matters, for instance careers services need to change, support networks need to be stronger, and there needs to be more insight opportunities. I strongly believe more students must consider interning at startups to better appreciate the potential of entrepreneurship. If I had interned at a fast paced startup and not a stockbrokers then things may have been very different.

The image of entrepreneurship needs to be more aspirational if it is to be taken more seriously by students. Personally speaking, I think students need role models, people of their generation who have been successful, and it is here that the aforementioned media can influence young people. Sure, we have Dragons Den, but I for one cannot image being the next Peter Jones or Duncan Bannatyne, because they are of a different generation. We should praise the work of budding entrepreneurs, and advance the positives of entrepreneurship to help erode preconceived student mindsets that being an entrepreneur is not a viable career choice.

Tom Allen, UCL student and Co-founder of YearbookMachine.com