PSYC 494: Entrepreneurship in Psychology is described as: “Entrepreneurship in Psychology is a course designed to help students enhance their personal and professional development through innovation guided by faculty members and professionals. It offers students an opportunity to integrate disciplinary theory and knowledge through developing a nonprofit program, product, business, or other initiative. The real-world experiences that entrepreneurships provide will help students understand how academic knowledge leads to transformations, innovations, and solutions to different types of problems.”

In PSYC 494: Entrepreneurship in Psychology, I learned to:

•     Identify how to use knowledge accumulated from my general education and major coursework to create profit/non-profit programs, products, businesses, or other innovations.

  •             Apply disciplinary and interdisciplinary knowledge to the process of innovation.

  •             Demonstrate the ability to integrate professional and interdisciplinary knowledge to produce new programs, products, businesses, or other innovations.

  •             Describe how products/businesses/programs related to their career interests are created and influenced by different disciplines.

  •             Assess the effectiveness of innovations.

  •             Develop of a business plan and business plan presentation

Reflection Activities

In my entrepreneurship class we were tasked with creating a business or non-profit. I ended up creating a nonprofit by the name “We Your Friends”. My nonprofit touched on a big issue which is the rising costs of medical services and how it negatively impacts families. Another issue it touched on is increased rates of depression among adolescents. After being given the opportunity to volunteer at an outpatient clinic I reflected on how lucky individuals were to be able to have insurance. However, insurance is becoming increasingly expensive, and individuals who are just above Medicaid baselines often find themselves in situations of financial distress. In regards to this topic, I created the solution of creating a nonprofit facility that would be little to no cost to patients and their families. This nonprofit would provide speech, physical, and occupational therapy. It also provides wellness checks from pediatricians. Ans evaluations from developmental pediatricians. The second part of this that is extremely important is that this organization attends not only physical wellbeing, but emotional. My nonprofit provides opportunities for children and adolescents with developmental disabilities to socialize and participate in fun activities in a environment that is safe and focused on respect and acceptance. In the course of this project I learned that there is a great deal of research that goes into making a business. There are specific areas that need to be addressed starting out from salary to required materials to marketing. In the future I believe that I could possibly make this clinic a reality and end up referring back to my original business plan from this class. I believe that while my business plan is a great start, things often change based on funding, regulations, and even inputs from possible business partners. I am grateful that I had the opportunity to participate in an assignment like this one because the business plan is not something I would have likely generated on my own time. 

Final Business Plan

 

For the closing activity of the course my professor gave us the opportunity to reflect on our favorite assignments. I feel that each assignment helped me create my final business plan. I feel that I learned a great deal about the components of a formal business plan. I also believe that this class taught me the characteristics of a successful entrepreneur. I learned about the cycle of innovation, as well as innovation strategies, which was a key research component in the creation process. My favorite assignment in this class was reading and evaluating a reading assignment titled  The meaning of “Social Entrepreneurship” by J. Gregory Dees. Social entrepreneurs are change agents in the social sector, by “adopting a mission to create and sustain social value, recognizing and relentlessly pursuing new opportunities to serve that mission, engaging in a process of continuous innovation, adaptation, and learning, acting boldly without being limited by resources, and exhibiting heightened accountability to the individuals served and for the results of their actions: (Dees, 2001). I plan drawing from this assignment in the future because I plan to become a social entrepreneur who stays focused on my mission and making a change in the lives of individuals in the areas we will be operating in. I sincerely hope to embody each of the characteristics that make up a social entrepreneur,always focusing on the needs of the target group that I have dedicated to serve.

Learning Outcomes Reflection Paper