Courses

Fall 2022 | Fall 2023

Many new ventures are born out of the personal passions of an entrepreneur, often in high-wattage industries like sports and entertainment. This class is designed to enable students to develop the critical thinking and skills necessary to succeed in entrepreneurial pursuits throughout their lives by exploring their passion areas, utilizing self-reflection and honing a tactical process that can be applied over and over.

Students will learn how to create value in any organization or professional situation, whether focused on new business development within existing companies (corporate entrepreneurship) or as stand-alone ventures (entrepreneurship), as well as the potential of a non-linear career path. Class will feature guest speakers from the sports and entertainment industries and require individual and group assignments.

Spring 2023 | Fall 2022 | Spring 2022 | Fall 2021 | Fall 2020

Co-taught by founder and designer Kendra Scott and serial entrepreneur Jan Ryan, this course is designed to provide hands-on, tangible tools to equip and empower female entrepreneurs. With a blend of lectures, experiential exercises and guest speakers, the class will immerse students in the core tenets of creating a new business, exposing the obstacles women face in contemporary society, and understanding the value of networking and mentorship, with an emphasis on team-based collaboration. Targeted students are those who are interested in the female founder’s unique perspective, are curious about starting their own company, or who simply want to pursue an understanding of the entrepreneurial mindset. The goal of this class is to confront common gender biases and conditioning, and in the context of the entrepreneurial journey provide actionable advice to empower students to see larger possibilities for their career.

Fall 2021 | Fall 2020 | Spring 2020

This practicum course provides an opportunity for students to develop and apply knowledge on establishing and growing a business in consumer product industries. The course uses a variety of pedagogical approaches and involves extensive teamwork and project work. Student projects will focus on developing strategies and plans for such a business and will apply key concepts related to developing product ideas, understanding customers, and establishing product-market fit.

The course will feature several executive speakers from consumer products companies, who will discuss their industry and entrepreneurship experiences, and will challenge students with “live case” situations that they have faced in the past (e.g., an unexpectedly large order comes in early in the company’s life); students will develop responses to the situations and will be able to learn from what the company actually did, and from relevant research findings.

During the semester, students will be provided with guidance from executives from consumer products companies, as well as from others within the entrepreneurship and innovation ecosystem of The University of Texas at Austin. At the culmination of the semester, teams will share their projects in a Demo Day presentation.

Fall 2022 | Spring 2022 | Fall 2021 | Spring 2021 | Fall 2020 | Spring 2020 | Fall 2023

From beyond the walls of the classroom and into a real-life creative studio, this hands-on experiential course will walk students through the steps of designing a jewelry collection through the Kendra Scott, LLC lens. The project-based course will encourage collaboration by building team-centered student groups from various disciplines. Students will gain experience by working directly in designated groups, with faculty from the Division of Textiles and Apparel and leaders from the Kendra Scott, LLC team. A series of student projects will focus on research, design, product development, product launch and merchandising for a jewelry collection suitable for the Kendra Scott, LLC target market.

The semester will end with a virtual student exhibition in partnership with the Kendra Scott, LLC team, where one student piece may be chosen for distribution in selected Kendra Scott stores. This experiential course is open to all majors at the junior and senior levels and will meet once a week for three hours.

The intent of featuring student designs is solely for the purpose of showcasing student work and celebrating Kendra Scott’s partnership with The University of Texas at Austin. 20% of the proceeds from this product are donated back to KS WELI.

Learn more about past TXA365 classes – including the virtual student exhibition.

Kendra Scott does not make a profit from this product.

Spring 2021

This course is designed to provide practical tools and know-how when thinking about STEM-focused innovation and technology commercialization. This class will introduce concepts of Needs Driven Innovation (derived from Stanford’s Biodesign), address the role of intellectual property protection and its link to the knowledge economy, look at the creation of a pitch deck for STEM technologies, explore technology commercialization in STEM sectors like energy, medical devices, software security, materials, and others, examine the anatomy of SAFE and convertible notes, and discuss other relevant topics to empower and inform a developing entrepreneur. Students will participate in lectures and discussions with specialized guest speakers.

Spring 2023 | Fall 2022 | Spring 2022 | Fall 2023

The Entrepreneurial LeadHERship experience will guide student leaders on a journey during which they will discover their personal values, strengths and authentic leadership style through a gender-informed perspective.

The experience will equip the next generation of leaders with the skills they need to thrive — and flourish — as a leader and entrepreneur through a gender-informed perspective. 

Read Man 337 EmBOLDen student blog from previous semesters.

Watch the Entrepreneurial LeadHERship Course Promo Video

Read Student emBOLDen Blog Posts From the SP2022 & FA2022 Entrepreneurial LeadHERship Course