The road of entrepreneurship can be full of fortune and fame; just look at the example of Steve Jobs, Bill Gates, Henry Ford, and Walt Disney, who have all reached a near-mythical status with their commercial empires. But there is something in common among these remarkable success stories beyond immense wealth and fame – and that’s the fact that each one of them is a drop-out.
With college tuition rates always on the rise and the precedence of these incredible successes, it can be all-too-easy to dismiss what a post-secondary education can do for you in your entrepreneurial startup. However, there are some courses of study that can help you no matter what line of business you’re in. While college can be expensive, here are three courses of study that can be more than worth the cost of admission and the student loan debt that follows.
Marketing
There’s a universal truth about sales, and the niche that you’re catering to makes no difference: People need to know your product or service. More importantly, you have to convince them that they want it. Businesses, small and large, always require exceptional marketing efforts before breaking through to success. While hiring an advertising firm to help you with your brand can go a long way, these costs can be too costly for most startups.
Instead, you can learn the tips of the trade and market yourself with greater efficiency and more control over your brand’s image. It can be particularly fruitful to coach yourself on the best practices to boost your visibility online, as well as practices to avoid. Few assets are as beneficial to a startup as a visionary with a marketing degree in hand, especially if they know how to convert their marketing efforts into sales.
Computer Science
With e-commerce all but utterly transforming the face of commerce in most developed countries, the benefits of being able to establish a storefront online and effectively manage it is inestimable. The importance of good web design and development strategies can make the differences between becoming a global sensation or a dud, especially if you’re involved in a technological or marketing niche. Not only that, but hiring others to accomplish these tasks can be costly.
As an entrepreneur, it’s important to know at least a few basics of website design. Having a little bit of knowledge in both marketing and computer science can go a long way in ensuring your success. However, specializing in one with a major can take a lot of guesswork and expense in the process of creating and maintaining an online presence for your business.
Finance
While the face of commerce and marketing has shifting drastically within the past few decades, there is inherent value in knowing the basics of financial terminology, trends, and historical perspectives. The granddaddy of entrepreneurship majors is finance, and it always will be for some great reasons. Businessmen with a finance degree under their belt can act on educated predictions, enact practices to drastically boost their revenue, and know how to reinforce productivity as a leader.
Although learning the underpinnings of marketing and computer science can be quintessential to a successful business in this day and age, having a savvy business sense through this degree is another highly advisable route for entrepreneurs who want to benefit from the advantages of a college degree before setting off to blaze their own trail. While these degrees might not be essential to those with a solid background in them already, they are ideal disciplines that turn people from idealists to success stories.