As someone who started a startup during undergrad at Georgia Tech, and received some funding from the university, it's nice to see these kinds of efforts.

But the shocker was when I saw "weekends". This initially sounded like a full-time thing, which would be amazing. And why not have some more hard deliverables and have it count as a 3-4 hour elective credit?

As for "You do have a chance but you would need to find a technical founder yourself."

Harsh. Georgia Tech has a ton of great minds on campus. Setup a site with the CoC allowing students to create a simple profile and express interest in potentially pairing with others for Startup Semester. Like the "I'm looking for a job" checkbox on github.

(For those reading this, Georgia Tech also has an incubator called Flashpoint http://flashpoint.gatech.edu/ )

It's great to see my school doing this, but looking at it doesn't seem very different from the senior design/capstone projects that many of the technical majors have already. I assume the big difference is not taking other classes along with this program and you don't have a customer lined up before starting?

For perspective my senior design project was a semester long "class" that met once every week or two for milestone updates from the groups, and occasional lectures/instruction from industry folks. My groups project was 4 of us designing and implementing a group management system for social orgs. Basic stuff like shared calendars, sub groups, email<->forum integration, permissions/views for officers and such. Obviously not the most ambitious project, but the kind of thing that a few college kids could feasibly do in a semester on top of a full course load.

I may have been slower than others, but my weekend time at GaTech was spent on laundry, groceries, and lots of CS homework.

Just give them some money and the summer term to focus. Being clever just makes this harder.

I'm not sure how I feel about this. From one point of view, I think this is an awesome idea, get energetic, smart students down the entrepreneurship path early. Then my experience of running an actual startup, the ups-and-downs, the intricacies of building a viable _business_, etc come to mind and I think this is a bad idea. It doesn't matter how much mentoring one has - unless you've been in the trenches of a real world business, you have no foundation upon which to base your own. Not everyone can be Zuckerberg (hell, even Facebook isn't profitable yet). I would much prefer an apprenticeship type of setup - or even better offer this course to alums, or be part of the executive MBA program - those in an executive MBA program have industry experience, come with ideas on how they can improve the vertical(s) they worked in, and understand the real world better than a student who has zero experience. Don't get me wrong - if I were a GATECH student right now, I would love to be part of this program!

University of Michigan already has a course that does something similar. Also, they introduced a 'Master in Entrepreneurship' focusing on all the aspects of Entrepreneurship. They are getting into it in a big way. I bet all the big universities already have courses, clubs or incubators serving similar purpose.

An innovative college needs to make this a four year concentration!

It will offer the students skills in design, development, online and regular marketing, PR, public speaking, team building, as well as internships at VC firms, other startups and more.

I graduated with a degree in the Recording Industry from a school in and around Nashville, which offered internships at labels and other industry focused businesses.

I'm surprised there isn't a web start-up concentration offered at any colleges similar to the Recording Industry concentration I studied. There should be!

I'm glad to see this spreading. A lot of people here are too young to know. Just a few years back, the zeitgeist in the CS/Engineering community was not about startups, which was a real shame. I bitched/ranted about schools not doing more to promote technical people to start companies. pg stated that over time it would invade from the ground up, which seems to be happening: http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=37850

[EDIT: Grammar, wording]

A little context: this appears to be an attempt to emulate UT Austin's 1SemesterStartup at Georgia Tech.

[ http://techdrawl.com/content/put-me-home ]

The University of Texas at Austin has had a similar class for a few semesters now. Glad to see the idea spreading.

http://www.1semesterstartup.com/

This is a good idea but why the limit of 30 or strict requirements? It's not like this program using up limited school resources like Flashpoint.

"make entrepreneurship much more accessible to undergraduates" = We'll focus on web startups because everyone can make websites (right?)

"We're dedicating an entire workspace just for teams to work, collaborate, and bounce ideas off each other." = We have a room with chairs and computers.

"Workshops on lean principles, peer teaching, individualized team deliverables" = We'll teach you what a to-do list and a convertible note is. It's not easy.

"Mentorship: Veterans entrepreneurs, business developers, specialists." = Unnamed people who don't know what they're doing tell you they know what they're doing.