Hands-On Entrepreneurial Engineering Management Course and Its Experiential Learning

Entrepreneurial Engineers are educated for the forthcoming economy and market, where entrepreneurs with technical skills have tremendous opportunities and career options. This new course was developed in Spring 2015 and offered in Summer 2015, delivering skills sets in engineering, marketing management, economics and globalization for the 21 century’s state-ofthe art Renaissance Engineers and Managers as a faculty-led program in Turkey. The authors strongly believe in experiential learning. Traveling, experiencing, and exploring other cultures helps students grow personally and professionally. It is one of the most in-depth learning experiences to immerse oneself in a new culture and customs in a whole new country. Students had the opportunity to learn by solving real-world industrial problems in a practical business model setting. They grasped how to bring products and services to market, and how to start their own company to market and sell product ideas. They understood how to be an entrepreneur in a small company, or how to lead successful entrepreneurial projects in a large company. They have learned subjects such as engineering economy, quality control, supplychain management, ergonomics, marketing, and operations control from course professors, young entrepreneurs, and industry visits. The course has been offered by one business management faculty and one manufacturing engineering technology faculty. There were five engineering and seven MBA students. The course had a number of teaching-with-technology tools, including Turnitin, Desire2Learn, and Podcasts. The evaluation component was the university approved IDEA evaluation. This paper will report the development, implementation, and evaluation components of this course and its best practices.