Deadline to apply for the ENT minor is fast approaching

Time is running out for students who want to learn what it takes to be successful in the launch of a new business. They have until October 18 to apply for admission to the Entrepreneurship minor, which provides enrollees — regardless of their background — with the knowledge, skills and mindset needed to get a fledgling venture off the ground.

The minor is open to JMU students in any major except Business Management (which offers its own track in innovation and entrepreneurship). Exposure to the tools and methods offered through the ENT minor will enable them to recognize entrepreneurship as a viable career path in its own right, and to identify the specific opportunities that best fit them. They learn how to compose a clear and concise written plan that can serve as the blueprint for their proposed venture, and to craft a pitch capable of attracting support from investors, suppliers, customers or potential employees.

With their newly acquired skills, students are in a position to take full advantage of the many enrichment opportunities offered to them by the Gilliam Center for Entrepreneurship, rounding out their introduction to the business-formation discipline.

Tarang Mishra

A third-year student from Fairfax, Virginia, Tarang Mishra is combining the ENT minor with a major in Political Science. He says his original attraction to JMU was a product of his discovery that the campus provided him with “different areas in which I saw myself being able to thrive.”

An aspiring U.S. State Department diplomat who already owns and operates Untitled Kingdom, LLC, a “motivational clothing” brand, Mishra says the Gilliam Center for Entrepreneurship and the programs associated with the ENT minor opened his eyes to ways “academics could be intermingled with things I’m passionate about—like my business.” He says that, when a friend told him about the minor, “it took me not even a split-second to decide that I would apply.”

Through exposure to the Gilliam Center’s entire set of program offerings — including the Fallon Challenge, Madison Inc. and the Dukes Venture Accelerator — Mishra has emerged as one of the center’s most prominent spokespersons, including formal designation as a student-ambassador.

Kiana Rudacille

Now in her second year at JMU, Kiana Rudacille of Culpeper, Virginia, is majoring in Industrial Design through the university’s School of Media Arts & Design as she also pursues an ENT minor.

She says she’s come to view her selection of a career as a pivotal decision in her life, and one that will determine many of those which follow it. This fundamental insight is what initially spurred her interest in the ENT minor, which she sees as a bridge to the fulfillment of her lifelong dream to become a founder of new commercial enterprises.

Rudacille’s ENT coursework has been reinforced by her experience in the Dukes Venture Accelerator program, a six-week workshop offered through the Gilliam Center.

The program provided her with one-on-one instruction from JMU alumni-entrepreneurs, mentors and industry experts on such topics as how to acquire customers, develop a business pitch and “de-risk” a startup company.

Rudacille has already harnessed her entrepreneurial spirit to the design skills she is developing in her major to create Kiana Designs, a boutique firm which crafts compelling visual assets — including logos, sales collateral and other marketing materials — for businesses of all kinds.