DRAFT: This module has unpublished changes.

 

IEE 220: Engineering and Business

 

This course provided an overview of business concepts like globalization, law, leadership, intellectual property, marketing, accounting, quality, project management, entrepreneurship and product development. The course incorporated two guest lectures on small business and patent law. The guest lecture on small business was very useful and informative. It gave an overview of how to assemble a team to build a business and about the different types of businesses that can be formed (i.e. LLC, sole proprietorship, and partnership). The biggest piece of advice the lecturer gave was to always have a contract, going as far to say that she had drafted and signed contracts on bar napkins. Contracts should be written so that they are long enough to cover the important parts, but short enough to be interesting. This was my favorite lecture because it helped me understand the differences between types of businesses and how to protect myself if I start a company.

 

This class relates to my GCSP work because it taught me basic business principles as a guideline for entrepreneurship. As I learned in this class, 70% of startups fail mainly due to poor business plans and execution. It is important to have an idea of how to run a business before creating a start up or entrepreneurial project. I learned many valuable business principles that will help me throughout my career as an engineer. One of the lessons in the class centered around project management techniques and critical path planning. This method helps the project manager determine how close a project will be to being delivered on time by calculating early and late finish times for the different components of a project. I have used this information extensively in my senior design capstone class as a tool to keep the project on track. The introduction to project management in IEE 220 helped me learn the importance of using business principles concurrently with engineering. Career wise, I would like to one day be an engineering manager and the foundation this class has given me will help me realize my career goals.

DRAFT: This module has unpublished changes.