MSc Entrepreneurship

The teaching and learning strategy is designed to benefit passive as well as active learners. Apart from catering for the needs of both types of learner and, therefore, providing a teaching and learning strategy that is fairer and does not disadvantage either group, it is intended to promote a sound understanding of theory and how it may be applied in practice.

Whilst, in Honey and Mumford’s terms, the pragmatist and activist learners are given the opportunity to experience the theorist and reflector learning styles, the theorists and reflectors are able to learn by doing, thereby helping develop in them the attributes of the activist and pragmatist.

This is seen as important in a programme that is intended to educate you ‘for’ entrepreneurship rather than simply educating you ‘about’ it. Hence it carries more weight in the assessment process.

The teaching and learning methods include interactive lectures, guest lectures (role models), case analyses, group projects, discussion groups and presentations.

The dissertation is the final element of the programme which provides an opportunity for a sustained period of research. It allows you to concentrate on topics that are of particular interest to you and it draws upon a range of different aspects of the taught programme, particularly the Research Methods module. It also gives an opportunity for you to work on your own with individual supervision.

The dissertation should be either an original piece of research adding to existing knowledge and demonstrating the candidate’s analytical skills, or an original and critical study of existing knowledge on the subject.

You can also opt to write a full business plan.

The University of Surrey has scored high marks in The Times employment league table for several years. Surrey graduates are among the most employable of any UK university. No other university can match our consistently high performance in the job league tables. For the past four years, almost all our postgraduates have found work or were undertaking further study within six months of finishing their degrees.

The University of Surrey is passionate about entrepreneurship. Several high-profile entrepreneurial speakers have been involved with the MSc Entrepreneurship programme.

One of the guest speakers, Nigel Biggs, who started both Pixology plc and The Digital Camera Company in Guildford, is working to bring real-life business experiences to all the students at the University. His wider aim is also to show how enterprise and entrepreneurship are important, both in local social organisations and to the community at large.

Vice-Chancellor Professor Sir Christopher Snowden said:

“We are delighted to have a successful local businessman as our founding entrepreneur-in-residence. Enterprise and entrepreneurship are vital in the new economy and this new initiative greatly strengthens the University’s support in this area.”

Nigel added:

“Since starting out as a one-man company, I have been passionate about small businesses. I want to help all those embryonic entrepreneurs with energy and enthusiasm to be inspired and confident about changing the world during their careers. I also intend to involve a wide variety of other entrepreneurs and business people in this role, as I believe it is the real-life experiences that students need to see and hear about.”

The Surrey experience does not end with your degree.

You will have developed friends and contacts in many different countries and industries. Many Surrey graduates are now captains of industry and can be found in every part of the world and in all sectors of the economy. This network is likely to last a lifetime and support your career development over a sustained period.

You will also be eligible to become a member of the alumni organisation SIGNET (the Surrey International Graduate Network). SIGNET members remain actively in touch with each other via the quarterly newsletter, the membership list and social events organised by the committee.

At the cutting edge of the British entrepreneurial community are the Asian businesses featured in this year’s Asian Rich List, compiled by Dr Spinder Dhaliwal. “This is a fascinating list, which takes in businesses from manufacturing to finance, from food to hotels, from pharmaceuticals to fashion. It includes first, second and third-generation achievers and also provides the definitive guide to who’s who in the Asian business world,” she said.

The list includes top names such as Lord Swraj Paul, the Caparo Steel magnate and Mike Jatania of Lornamead Pharmaceuticals, reflecting a move from traditional sectors such as textiles and manufacturing to high-tech, high-growth sectors such as pharmaceuticals, IT and media. “Their success testifies to the staying power of Asian business which successfully combines the dynamism of the free market with the go-getting, risk-taking heroism of the entrepreneur. Not forgetting, of course, the values of family, thrift and hard work and a commitment back to the community,” added Spinder.

In her report, ‘Asian Entrepreneurs in the UK’, compiled for Barclays Bank in September 2006, Spinder noted the changing sectors and phenomenal growth of this entrepreneurial minority. “The Asian business sector has created wealth faster than the rest of the economy. They have bucked the trend this year as they did last year and the year before that. Asian wealth now creates and sustains more jobs than it has ever done. It stimulates growth in industries and places that would struggle without the engine of Asian entrepreneurship,” she said.

She is optimistic for their future prosperity: “Established Asian entrepreneurs achieved success in decades full of challenge and controversy, and present conditions are no different: sluggish economic growth, stock market uncertainty and question marks about the housing market provide the starkest of economic backdrops to Asian success.”