Academics

Ent130E1
Entrepreneurial Teams (3 credits)
Organizations are multi-faceted. One of the biggest reasons why startups fail is due to ineffective communication within a team or, simply, the wrong team. Teams are composed of individuals fulfilling different roles in close collaboration. To be successful, business leaders must create strong teams and understand their role within that team composition. In this course, students learn personal strengths, weaknesses, and preferences as they participate on a sequence of team projects with rotating team compositions.

Ent130E2
Fundamentals of New Ventures (3 credits)
This course explores the fundamentals of startup culture and essential practices that make up the entrepreneurial mindset. This includes, but is not limited to, concepts of fast failure, risk taking, flexibility, creative problem solving, the innovation ecosystem and ideation. Major frameworks include understanding what it takes to be a successful entrepreneur and how to improve soft skills applicable to startup culture and effective innovation. 

Ent145E3*
Contemporary Social Problems / Social Entrepreneurship (4.5 credits)*
What are contemporary cultures’ challenges? How might empathy better ground innovations to address those challenges? Students explore, examine, and analyze case studies of complex contemporary social problems as a basis for creating and sustaining new ventures with social value. Students conduct original research, build a deep context for a specific social topic of interest, and implement that knowledge to develop a solution plan for effective deployment.

Ent220E5
Brand Strategy (2 credits)
You have a product, how do you build the brand? This course examines each phase of a brand making strategy, including marketing campaigns, brand identity, and brand pitches to both investors and consumers. Students will develop a hypothetical brand, from idea to marketing campaign, with routine critiques from field practitioners.

Ent220E6
Fail Forward (2 credits)
Most venture backed start-ups fail. Creating a safe environment to fail fast, early, and often, then repeat is a key practice for an agile methodology of entrepreneurship. Fail Forward is a writing intensive course. Students examine case studies of business failures to analyze statistics of failure and determine missed opportunities for success. This course encourages students to “fail fast”, learn quickly, identify overlooked risks, determine the next effort, mitigate conflicts, and pivot to try again.

Ent230E4
Startup School (3 credits)
This course explores the necessary steps to develop, validate, and scale a unique product, service, or initiative. It begins with ideation, pitching an idea, and prioritizing time, then proceeds into setting pathway goals and providing deliverables. Students will experience the process of realizing a novel idea and/or approaches to defining and solving a societal or market need.

Bus230I6 (3 credits)
Business Building
What are the dos and don’ts of starting new ventures? This course proceeds from product ideation, to pitch formation, to business planning, to funding acquisition, to business launching and into business management. The objective of this course is to provide students with all of the basic knowledge each will need to launch a new venture. 

Bus245I4*
Business Ethics (4.5 Credits)*
Organizations have learned that the costs of unethical actions can be high. Consequences include legal ramifications, adverse brand images and tarnished corporate reputations. This course addresses business ethics through frameworks of moral dilemma in the context of business practice. Eminent philosophers and notable leaders of business start-ups are studied to establish foundations of grounded ethics while students examine how organizations can establish and build ethical cultures.

Tech130T1
Tech Stack – Introduction to Technologies and Applications (3 credits)
Introduction to Technologies and Applications will introduce students to the most essential and useful technologies and applications on the market. Its content spans from web technologies such as the Adobe Creative Cloud to applications supporting design production such as the Autodesk suite. The course prepares and equips students with critical knowledge of current market offerings, their applications, and how to implement appropriate technologies in the students’ problem solving pursuits.

Tech130T2
Fabrication I / Analog (3 credits)
Fabrication has two parts: experimental research and applied research. This course, the first of two in fabrication, specifically works through analog methods. A series of inquiries explore latent material properties, potential transformations and their capacity to lead – or mislead – our material understanding. Building on this research, artifacts are then made toward specific thematic and functional purposes. The artifacts investigate the technical, aesthetic and situational performances of materials, their combined purposes, and their cumulative effects. Three themes guide the research and its subsequent application: finish, form and fit.

Tech130T3
Fabrication II / Hybrid (3 credits)
Fabrication has two parts: experimental research and applied research. This course, the second of two in fabrication, builds upon analog understandings to investigate digital and hybrid methods of making. Specific inquiries explore relationships between material and tools; prototyping; the benefits and limitations of analog, digital, and hybrid methods of production; material sciences; and material behaviors. Through these inquiries artifacts are made toward specific thematic and functional purposes which investigate technical, aesthetic and situational performances of materials, their combined purposes, and their cumulative effects.

Tech220T4
Social Media Studio (2 Credits)
How do the world’s most innovative companies use social media to engage with customers, brand their business, and network with others. Designing and prototyping customer experiences for mobile devices will help ensure that user experiences are seamless on any device. Students will leverage content from Jason McDonald’s Social Media Marketing Workbook 2021 to develop omnichannel journeys ranging from brick and mortar to mobile device experiences.

Eng145C1*
Illuminate: English Composition and Visual Storytelling (4.5 Credits)*
Students will analyze, synthesize, evaluate, summarize, paraphrase, and cite written, spoken, and visual texts created by thought leaders in innovative design fields. They will leverage this systematic study to write effective expository prose and argumentation which stresses development and support of a clear thesis. This course helps students synthesize what they hear, read, and see, and gives them the tools to effectively communicate their resonance with and responses to the expertise and ideas they encounter. This prepares them for future academic and professional written communication. This course uses Nancy Duarte’s book Illuminate as an anchor text on visual storytelling. The book’s premise connects writing to design and creativity. It helps writers create a strong connection with audiences and leads to purposeful action.

Eng245I4*
Resonate: Public Speaking and Storytelling (4.5 credits)*
Speaking with clarity, confidence, and precision is an essential skill to advance innovative ideas. This course helps students build confidence in preparing and delivering informative and persuasive speeches in service of compelling audiences and illuminating ideas. Topics include selection of content, audience analysis, research, organization, and use of voice and body in speech delivery. This course uses Nancy Duarte’s and Patti Sanchez’s book Resonate as an anchor text. The book helps students use the power of effective communication to lead people through the five stages of transformation using speeches, stories, ceremonies, and symbols.

Math145DeA2*
Quantification for Design through Foundations of Mathematics (4.5 credits)*
Design practices apply geometric and algebraic concepts and processes in order to accurately quantify physical properties around a given design problem. Measurement, survey, scaled representation, and the interrelationships of various drawing projection systems serve as frameworks for the application of these foundations in mathematics. Key applications of this work to the Design, Technology and Entrepreneurship context include analysis, measurement, descriptive geometry, coding, and drafting. (Foundations of Mathematics: Applied Geometry / Algebra)

Math245C4*
Elementary Statistics for Entrepreneurship (4.5 credits)*
Understanding the application of data is an essential tool to the success of creative ventures.This course in elementary statistics builds that skill set by having students experiment with such topics as: descriptive measures for empirical data, theory of probability, probability distributions, sampling distributions of statistics from large and small samples, estimation theory, hypothesis testing, correlation, and regression. Students then explicitly connect this knowledge and practice to both case studies in design and entrepreneurship, and to their own design project work.

Math245C5*
MicroEconomics (4.5 credits)*
Focusing on the impact of economics on Design, Technology, and Entrepreneurship initiatives, students study basic economic principles with particular emphasis upon microeconomic theory and problems. Among topics considered are the economics of the design shop and/or technology start up firm, the price system, resource allocation, the distribution of income, domestic economic problems, international trade, economic development, and comparative economic systems. Specific projects will emphasize the role of innovation in the microeconomic landscape.

Sci145C2*
Physics (4.5 credits)*
Design leverages the unique physical properties of matter to fashion our world. This laboratory course provides a non-calculus study of the fundamental laws and properties of matter, mechanics, heat, and sound. This course places emphasis on how we measure and manipulate matter in order to leverage mathematical solutions to design problems based on an understanding of the underlying physical phenomena.

Sci145C3*
Human Anatomy & Physiology – Design for the Human Form (4.5 Credits)*
An essential key to understanding design for human use is founded in critical knowledge of the human body. This informs designers to achieve success in everything from designing ergonomic products to successfully engaging the senses. This course takes a visual reasoning approach to the study of the human body and the basic structure of cells, tissues, and organs. Topics include the structure and function of the integumentary, muscular, nervous, and skeletal systems, and this knowledge is built systematically through modeling and visual representation.

The IDeATE program will begin in August, 2024. 

Yes. Students must apply and be accepted into the IDeATE program. Please see our admissions page for details.

The IDeATE Program has a total of 102 quarter credit hours of coursework. This is equivalent to 68 credits for schools based on a semester-hour system.