ECON 173B
Introduction to Social Entrepreneurship
Description: Lecture, one hour; research group meeting, two hours. Requisite: course 173A. Full-scale immersion into world of social entrepreneurship. Introduction to basics of business planning for social enterprises. Students are assigned in teams to work with participating social enterprises in Los Angeles area to implement new revenue-generating business plan for social enterprises to which they are assigned. Teams receive support from MBA student volunteers as advisers on how to work effectively together and how to resolve issues that arise with staff of assigned social enterprise. Courses 173A and 173B must be taken in consecutive terms. P/NP or letter grading.
Units: 4.0
Units: 4.0
1 of 1
Most Helpful Review
Spring 2021 - This class is…something. How much you learn greatly depends on your team and nonprofit. If you get stuck with say a team that only wants to do the bare minimum because they know they’re getting A’s you probably won’t learn too much. It’s a shame because this is a desperately needed class in a major that teaches things that are pretty much worthless to 90% of us taking it. This class is basically a guaranteed A which is nice but has some unintended drawbacks: IMO a lot of lazy people work hard for a day to get into this class just so they can slack off and not do anything to focus on other classes. The faculty advice would often be conflicting but that’s business for you. What is annoying is that this class is taught by Econ people rather than business people and it shows. We were told how great what we were doing was the whole way through until the judges (entrepreneurs themselves) tore it up because it lacked any real substance beyond buzzwords and generality. If you have a team that doesn’t care you’re kind of screwed because it really needs all hands on deck to succeed. A lot of your workload depends greatly on the nonprofit you’re matched with. Some know exactly what social venture they want and others barely know anything about social entrepreneurship. Some have a lot of resources and others don’t. Some will have staff that are very helpful and some will have staff that are either unresponsive or treat you like errand boys. The lectures can drag on but there is usually some good stuff in there. Overall I suppose I’m glad I took it despite everything. I think it could be a really great experience for some. It’s really a roll of the dice. Worst case you get stuck with a useless team/nonprofit but you get an A.
Spring 2021 - This class is…something. How much you learn greatly depends on your team and nonprofit. If you get stuck with say a team that only wants to do the bare minimum because they know they’re getting A’s you probably won’t learn too much. It’s a shame because this is a desperately needed class in a major that teaches things that are pretty much worthless to 90% of us taking it. This class is basically a guaranteed A which is nice but has some unintended drawbacks: IMO a lot of lazy people work hard for a day to get into this class just so they can slack off and not do anything to focus on other classes. The faculty advice would often be conflicting but that’s business for you. What is annoying is that this class is taught by Econ people rather than business people and it shows. We were told how great what we were doing was the whole way through until the judges (entrepreneurs themselves) tore it up because it lacked any real substance beyond buzzwords and generality. If you have a team that doesn’t care you’re kind of screwed because it really needs all hands on deck to succeed. A lot of your workload depends greatly on the nonprofit you’re matched with. Some know exactly what social venture they want and others barely know anything about social entrepreneurship. Some have a lot of resources and others don’t. Some will have staff that are very helpful and some will have staff that are either unresponsive or treat you like errand boys. The lectures can drag on but there is usually some good stuff in there. Overall I suppose I’m glad I took it despite everything. I think it could be a really great experience for some. It’s really a roll of the dice. Worst case you get stuck with a useless team/nonprofit but you get an A.
AD
1 of 1
