Maddy Rodak
marodak@ursinus.edu
The U-Imagine Center is starting a new initiative to help students on campus build business skills by providing bi-weekly entrepreneurial training sessions. In an email sent out from the U-Imagine Center, it is explained that these training sessions will take place during common hour. The sessions “will be open to all students and will cover a variety of concepts important to entrepreneurship such as public speaking and creativity.” Maureen Cumpstone, Entrepreneur-in-Residence at U-Imagine, clarified that the training sessions are “a student-run initiative.”
Junior Shannon Blessing and other students at U-Imagine shared how they think students who are interested in entrepreneurship would benefit from the bi-weekly training sessions. “Students can benefit from basic skill building tasks that are necessary to take an entrepreneurial thought or action to a higher level,” the students responded collectively.
The training sessions are a great way for students to prepare to take part in U-Imagine’s other projects and initiatives across the school year. As the students at U-Imagine went on to explain, “It gives them a snippet of what the U-Imagine center provides and the resources that we have to further develop an idea, social project, or initiative. These snippets are also able to provide an insight to the bigger projects we put on each year such as Bear Innovation, JumpStart, Digital Spark, and Rock a Thon.”
Blessing and the U-Imagine students discussed what the training sessions would include. “We have drop in hours and hours by appointment as well as these training sessions. The workshop and skills have a broad application so they are helpful in developing entrepreneurial mindset but they can also help students in whatever path they choose, such as promoting one’s self. These workshops are useful for developing soft skills needed in today’s world. This center works [at] no cost to the students and is completely student initiated. Our slogan for this year’s projects are ‘Passion to Action, Big Dreams Small Steps’, allowing students to feel comfortable coming into the center with any stage of an idea.”
Various skills and topics will be touched on throughout the sessions. The training sessions started on Sept. 18 with a LinkedIn workshop. The next session, focused on how to run a meeting, will be on Oct. 2, followed by website design on Oct. 23. There is a video workshop on Nov. 6, how to make a business plan on Nov. 20, and alumni stories on Dec. 4. If you are interested in these training sessions, contact the U-Imagine Center for more information.