Second Major in Entrepreneurship
Course Overview
The Second Major in Entrepreneurship (SMiE) is developed with a focus on technopreneurship to nurture innovation-driven entrepreneurs who can contribute to Singapore's Smart Nation goals. This also allows greater flexibility for undergraduates to pursue interdisciplinary programmes and pan-university majors. Students will be inspired to be venturesome and more resilient in this ever-changing world.
Currently available to students from the College of Engineering (CoE), College of Science (CoS), Nanyang Business School (NBS), and the School of Humanities (SoH), the Second Major in Entrepreneurship (SMiE) programme will progressively be offered by other Schools. Upon completion of the programme, SMiE students will receive a degree in their respective major along with a separate certification for the Second Major in Entrepreneurship.
The NTU Entrepreneurship Academy has established a range of grants and awards, one of which is the Chua Thian Poh Scholarship. This scholarship provides financial aid to NTU students who are interested to enrol in the Second Major in Entrepreneurship (SMiE). It is awarded to students with good academic performance and who demonstrate financial need.
Each successful applicant will receive a scholarship award of S$5,000*. For more information on grants and awards, please click here.
*Terms and conditions apply. Subject to changes.
Course Details
With the goal to prepare NTU graduates to impact the world and its grand challenges, the new Second Major in Entrepreneurship (SMiE) is introduced to:
• equip NTU students with the fundamental entrepreneurship competency and broaden their understanding in enterprise and innovation,
• enrich them with an entrepreneurial mindset to deal with uncertainties in a VUCA* world and be the drivers of technology innovation,
• provide them with hands-on experience in entrepreneurship through experiential learning approach and 20-week overseas/local internship with organisations that can include startups, venture capital firms, entrepreneurship support organisations, and innovation setups in corporations,
• expand their network and be part of the entrepreneurship ecosystem, and
• seize the opportunities from new technologies and support NTU students to venture into technology startups
* Volatility, Uncertainty, Complexity and Ambiguity
List of Modules
Students will be required to take 4 courses for 12 AU as Compulsory Courses so that they will be equipped with the fundamental entrepreneurship competency and the technopreneurial mindset, with an emphasis on experiential exposure and interactive learning:
ET5214 Financing Entrepreneurial Ventures (3 AU)
ET5211 Entrepreneurial Mindset and Technology Innovation (3 AU)
This course provides fundamental knowledge in entrepreneurship and innovation. With special focus on training students to develop an entrepreneurial mindset and exposing them to various technology innovation, specific technology expertise will be brought to the classes to share their knowledge, real life industry experience, and insights.
Students will learn the applications of the new technology - such as how to use it?; Who will find it useful?; Where are the main users located?; Who will pay for it?; How to commercialise it?
For more details, please download the full module outline here.
Pre-requisite: Nil
ET5212 Entrepreneurial Ecosystems (3 AU)
This course provides students with an understanding on the concepts, practices, and tools of the entrepreneurial world through experiential projects and activities, readings, and speakers. Since the most effective way to understand entrepreneurship is to communicate with many entrepreneurs and customers, the course takes a very practical approach and requires students to interact with the business community, potential customers, participate in class activities/discussion and be active participants in the learning process.
For more details, please download the full module outline here.
Pre-requisite: Nil
ET5213 Managing New Ventures (3 AU)
This course seeks to relate theoretical concepts of strategy and organisation design, with practical and execution issues in the context of a growing enterprise; and studies the key elements that propel scaling up and impede growth. Students will be taught how investors commonly look for sustainable and repeatable growth in an enterprise performance, and what makes a start-up succeed or fail.
For more details, please download the full module outline here.
Pre-requisite: Nil
ET5214 Financing Entrepreneurial Ventures (3 AU)
The course is for the would-be entrepreneurs and for those considering a career in commercial banks, investment banks, private equity firms, venture capital firms, as well as in corporate venture investments. Unlike a typical corporate finance course, this course highlights the special and unique considerations when planning the financial needs of new ventures and young companies. Many typical avenues of funding (such as bank borrowing, issuing of bonds or issuing of liquid equities) for established or public listed companies are not accessible to small and young companies due to the lack of business track record. The analyses and requirements of investors who are considering to finance small and young companies may be different from that of public equity investments. This course will provide students with the understanding of the various aspects and processes in financial planning and financial management of new ventures or young companies, as well as investment analyses and considerations for investors providing funding to such companies.
For more details, please download the full module outline here.
Pre-requisite: ET5213 Managing New Ventures (3 AU)
To allow students to build greater breadth and depth in entrepreneurship, they will select at least 13 AU of Elective Courses based on their interests and needs. A diversified range of topics will be offered by NTU Entrepreneurship Academy (NTUpreneur) and other Schools* to promote interdisciplinary learning in SMiE.
ET5101 Deep Dive into Entrepreneurship (3 AU)
ET5122 E-Startups & Social Media Strategies (3 AU)
ET5134 Enterprise Strategy (3 AU)
ET5135 Business Venture Implementation (3 AU)
ET5215 Entrepreneurial Business Development (3 AU)
ET5216 Venture Capital Investment & Practices (4 AU)
ET5217 Design & Systems Thinking for Entrepreneurs (4 AU)
ET5218 Innovation & Commercialization of Technologies (3 AU)
*AB0603 Social Entrepreneurship (3 AU)
*BU5302 Law of Intellectual Property & New Media (3 AU)
*BU5503 Innovation Marketing (3 AU)
*CB4216 Entrepreneurship in Medtech & Biotechnology (3 AU)
*DV2003 Beyond the Logo: Introduction to Branding (3 AU)
*EE5083 From Passion to Action: Six Key Steps to a Start-up! (3 AU)
*PS5888 Making and Thinkering (4 AU)
ET5101 Deep Dive into Entrepreneurship (3 AU) |
You will be introduced to the fundamentals of entrepreneurship, innovation and new venture creation process. You will learn to generate ideas, identify opportunities, discover customer needs, design a product or service, and develop a relevant prototype and business model. This training will enable you to develop an entrepreneurial mindset and the practical skills, which are highly relevant to any entrepreneurship undertaking in the future. At the end of the course, present and pitch your business plan at the Chua Thian Poh Entrepreneurship Education Venture Fund competition and win up to S$10,000 in start-up grant. For more details, please download the full module outline here. |
ET5216 Venture Capital Investments and Practices (4 AU) |
This course trains students to understand how to value a start-up, a corporate venture, or a project. Emphasis is placed on developing a systematic framework in Venture Capital (VC) concepts and related techniques pertaining to venture capital investment as a profession. More specifically, the course helps students to develop an advanced level of skills on valuing a venture. It guides students in going through venture capital investment term sheets systematically, which covers important facets of the financing: economic issues such as the valuation given to the company (the higher the valuation, the less dilution to the entrepreneur). It also covers control issues such as the makeup of the company’s Board of Directors, the approval or “veto” rights the investors enjoy; and post-closing rights of the investors, such as the right to participate in future financings and rights to get periodic financial information. The course also examines several real-life venture capital and private equity investment deals. Students will identify the best practices and draw lessons from actual cases to deepen their knowledge and skills in VC investment. For more details, please download the full module outline here. |
ET5218 Innovation and Commercialisation of Technologies (3 AU) |
An integral component of the course is the exploitation and commercialisation of technologies. The course provides a platform to examine trends and key issues in commercialising inventions and technological innovations. Students need to understand the latest technological research and development and identify technology commercialisation possibilities. This course places emphasis on the successful transfer of technologies from a research environment for commercialisation. It teaches how successful and sustainable products or services go to the global market in a knowledge-based entrepreneurial wealth-creation process. Challenges and opportunities posed by emerging technologies in the Fourth Industrial Revolution will also be examined. For more details, please download the full module outline here. |
*EE5083 From Passion to Action: Six Key Steps to a Start-up! (3 AU) |
This course aims to guide aspiring student entrepreneurs through their ideation, planning and validation phases. Students will have the opportunity to develop a start-up idea from scratch using a simple but structured framework. Close guidance from faculty and industry mentors will be provided to help students iterate, refine and present their business ideas. In certain weeks, awareness sessions will be conducted to introduce students to useful tools and platforms for their prototypes. At the end of the course, student groups will pitch their start-up ideas and demonstrate their prototypes to a panel of judges. Students should leave the course with a better understanding of the entrepreneurial mindset and align their thinking with the principles for success in a future venture.
|
*PS5888 Making and Thinkering (4 AU) |
This course aims to create an environment that allows students to apply their scientific knowledge to identify and solve open-ended, real-life problems together with their peers from different disciplines. You will have the opportunities to freely explore, take risks and even if you fail, you will be able to learn from your failures. The end-product of the investigation will be a (possibly novel) prototype designed and created by you and your team to solve the problem you identified. You will also be required to do presentations of your project. For more details, please download the full module outline here. |
ET5215 Entrepreneurial Business Development (3 AU) |
This course aims to introduce students to a framework of business development strategy, equip students with theories and tools to develop strategies, engage students in the application of these theories and tools to real-life business cases. This course focuses on strategic decisions, which will have a long-term impact on the organisation. The course enables students to discover how adopting entrepreneurial marketing thinking will help them to:
For more details, please download the full module outline here. |
ET5217 Design & Systems Thinking for Entrepreneurs (4 AU) |
From high-tech electronic products to low-tech children’s toys, human-centered design leads to the creation of great products or services through a deep understanding of human needs. The key to any start-up success is the quick and accurate identification of its customer base, and the value to its target market. Design behaviours – collaboration, empathy towards others, prototyping new ideas, and continuous improvement – are important when delving into any new experience. On another note, entrepreneurs spend most of the time interacting with all kinds of systems, which are often complex mixes of technology, people, and issues. Even in a simple system there can be several subtle cause-and-effects that we have to deal with if we want to change or improve things. Learning about systems thinking means learning about these behavioural properties and characteristics. This course consists of two parts:
For more details, please download the full module outline here. |
*BU5302 Law of Intellectual Property and New Media (3 AU) |
The knowledge-based economy is underpinned by laws which protect information assets, shapes transactions and provides security for the various parties of interest to electronic transactions. Topics covered include protection and management of intellectual property, validation and protection of electronic agreements, data security and privacy, cyber-crime and the laws that apply to virtual worlds. This course is designed to give an understanding on the relationship between law and intellectual capital and new forms of media as well as how businesses work within the rules affecting the knowledge-based economy. The approaches to this subject will involve both critical thinking and practical work. For more details, please download the full module outline here. |
*CB4216 Entrepreneurship in Medtech and Biotechnology (3 AU) |
This course provides students with interest in medical innovation and entrepreneurship with a systematic scientific framework towards a commercialization pathway for biotechnology and medical devices. Entrepreneurship is not only a mindset, but can be taught as a skillset to significantly improve the odds of creating a successful and impactful ventures. The course is designed as an integrated toolbox by introducing key lean start-up fundamentals and presenting practical guides in customer discovery and market validation, MedTech product development and regulation, and business model design. These concepts will also be illustrated with selected case study of biotech and medtech start-ups. For more details, please download the full module outline here. Pre-requisite: Nil |
ET5122 E-startups and Social Media Strategies (3 AU) |
This module aims to provide students with the essential knowledge on social media marketing, especially for start-ups. For this purpose, various social media tools that start-ups may explore will be introduced. The concept of social commerce will be covered. Students will also learn how to carry out strategic planning with social media. Topics such as social media metrics and social models and monetization will be covered to give a holistic understanding of social media marketing. |
ET5134 Enterprise Strategy (3 AU) |
This is an immersive experiential learning module which provides a platform for students to experience the process of managing a business. Students are exposed to some of the major business decisions that entrepreneurs face when growing their ventures and competing with other companies in the same industry. Students will be grouped into teams to compete with one another. As students work through the organisation's life cycle in the simulation, external forces and managerial dilemmas are added. Students will apply the various tools, case-studies, and theories from previous modules and subsequently tackle new tasks, take on additional responsibilities and make difficult decisions. Pre-requisite: ET5211 Entrepreneurial Mindset and Technology Innovation (3 AU) |
ET5135 Business Venture Implementation (3 AU) |
*There are two parts to this module. PART A: This module allows students to learn the importance of opportunity recognition and creation, and to learn how to evaluate new venture concepts. This module is a continuation of earlier modules students covered in MiE and SMiE. Students will be exposed to the ups and downs that start-ups face and the challenges of operating new business ventures. They will appreciate and learn from the lessons of under-performing or ‘turn-around’ companies. PART B: The objectives of the module are to cultivate a proactive mindset in students, to tap on the entrepreneurial ecosystem in Singapore through meeting and mingling with venture capitalists, entrepreneurs, business leaders, angel investors, government officers, and intellectual property lawyers. The module will provide opportunities for forums and discussions, where students get to explore and test potential business ideas with like-minded people. In addition, students will understand the importance of networking and professionalism at work. For more details, please download the full course outline here. Co-requisite: ET5214 Financing Entrepreneurial Ventures (3 AU) |
*AB0603 Social Entrepreneurship (3 AU) |
Social entrepreneurship is rapidly emerging. These entrepreneurs help solve social and environmental challenges which are ignored or missed by businesses and pursue predominately donor-driven models of the nonprofit sector. This field includes “social intrapreneurship,” where employees in companies develop new income opportunities for their firms by addressing social and environmental challenges in a profitable and scalable manner. In this evolving social entrepreneurship landscape, the traditional lines blur among nonprofits, government, and business. Through use of case studies and class discussions, lectures, guest speakers, and a field project, students will gain better understanding on the opportunities and challenges in this landscape. Students will learn what a social enterprise is and its similarities and differences with other types of business, engage in problem/ opportunity assessment, and learn about the trade-offs between social and financial returns on investment. |
*BU5503 Innovation Marketing (3 AU) |
In a rapidly changing, dynamic, uncertain, and engaging world, which quickly renders various products and services obsolete, organisations need to continuously innovate and come out with new solutions when new opportunities or challenges arise. This is pertinent and urgently needed in an increasingly connected and competitive world, where technological innovations continue to proliferate our world and the digital revolution generates fast impacting values demanded by customers. This course aims to enable students to learn practical skills and knowledge on market innovations for sustainable success. Pre-requisite: Nil |
*DV2003 Beyond the Logo: Introduction to Branding (3 AU) |
In this introductory level course, you will be introduced to a theoretical overview of how branding is situated in our contemporary society and its roles through the lens of art, design and media. You will gain a broad understanding of the evolution of corporate brand communication and identity, brand consumption theories and patterns which led to the rise of various alternate brand movements. A basic anthropological analysis of brands as an economic force to becoming a cultural artefact will also be discussed. Through various analytical in-class exercises and hands-on assignments, you will gain theoretical and practical knowledge to develop a critical voice to make brand creation decisions. Pre-requisite: Nil |
To intensify the experiential learning, students are required to take a compulsory *20-week overseas or local internship with organisations that can include startups, venture capital firms, entrepreneurship support organisations, and innovation setups in corporations.
* CoS and NBS students are able to take two 10-week overseas or local internship.
Important to note:
- This compulsory internship in the SMiE programme will also fulfil the internship requirement for your 1st degree specialisation.
- Students will take either a 20-week overseas or local Professional Internship with organisations that can include startups, venture capital firms, entrepreneurship support organisations, and innovation setups in corporations. It is credit-bearing and comprises 10AUs.
- Students keen on overseas internship should approach OEP 3 to 4 months ahead of the internship.
- Students must submit job description (JD) to NTUpreneur and check with NTUpreneur on suitability of organisation for local internship.
- Job description should include elements of developing an entrepreneurial mindset, planning and/or executing strategies and implementing innovation in job tasks.
Courses
Admission Info
For more information, you may refer to the Office of Admissions.
- If I apply for the SMIE during semesters, do I need to pay extra school fees?
No, you do not need to.
- Do I have to complete two internships, one for my specialisation and one for SMiE?
No, you do not. You only need to complete ONE internship.
- Do I have to intern at start-ups?
No, you do not need to. You can intern at any organisation, including start-ups and VCs. However, do ensure that the Job Description allows you to pick up skills on product or service management and development, business cycle and development, strategic planning and problem solving.
- Besides going for the local internship, can I go for an overseas internship?
Yes. NBS students can go for a 10-week overseas internship with Overseas Entrepreneurship Programme (OEP) during Special Term. CoE students can go for a 20-week (one semester) overseas internship with OEP.
- Can I withdraw from the SMiE programme halfway through?
You are strongly discouraged from withdrawing. If you decide to do so, you will need to inform your school of your decision. The modules that you have completed will count towards your BDEs.
Career Prospects
The Second Major in Entrepreneurship (SMiE) provides NTU students the unique competitive advantages in highly transferrable skills, entrepreneurial mindsets, and global exposure to address the world’s grand challenges. SMiE students will be the game changers and have the versatility to choose from a wide range of career options as entrepreneurs, venture capitalists, government policymakers, management consultants, business innovation and new venture development in large corporations.