The Babson MSEL Coaching Experience
The Babson MSEL Coaching Experience takes place twice during the year in connection with the Creating Your Course. Here, students share their passion and knowledge about new venture creation through Babson’s partnership with the Network For Teaching Entrepreneurship (NFTE). MSEL students have the opportunity to coach aspiring high school entrepreneurs in low income communities in fall and spring semesters. Read about Changyu Hu’s ’19 MSEL Coaching experience:
On November 2nd, the MSEL class of 2019 visited Brighton High School and spent six hours coaching local students about entrepreneurship. This experience is part of our Master of Science in Management in Entrepreneurial Leadership (MSEL) “Creating You” course. The experience helped me further understand my communication style and identify opportunities for self-improvement to become a better consultant.
We arrived at Brighton High School first thing in the morning, and after a few sips of coffee immediately got started coaching. Because of the academic and professional diversity of our program, we had a variety of coaching teams on different subjects like manufacturing, technology, food, health care, etc. Each industry had 3-5 coaches from our MSEL program to help the students brainstorm startup ideas and design the business models.
Throughout the day, we not only made friends with the students, but also broadened our own perspectives about entrepreneurship. I met with one high school student who had a ride-sharing business idea. She had this idea because she and her classmates generally spent more than $20 per day on commuting between school and home. Her ideas would help herself and her classmates reduce the costs of commuting. For her, entrepreneurship was a solution to help solve one of her daily life problems. In another example, I met a high school student who had a t-shirt business he had been working on for two years. He used his graphic t-shirts to communicate with his customers, his business was built from his passion and creativity. For him, entrepreneurship was a way to spread his creative ideas. By talking with many students, I learned a lot more about what entrepreneurship is and how to discover business opportunities through observations of daily life.
These hands-on learning experiences enable me to continue to learn from my peers. In my coaching group, my classmates Sanjana and Dharal showed me how to use design thinking to help students brainstorm ideas. Jevon, Shana and Isa helped me to effectively communicate with teenagers and get them to open up and actively participate. It was also great to work with my other classmates and explore entrepreneurship consulting together.
The Network for Teaching Entrepreneurship (NFTE) coaching experience was fun and rewarding. We made new friends with aspiring entrepreneurs, we taught and coached others about new venture creation, and took a deeper dive into our own skill set and communication styles. I look forward to taking what I’ve learned from this experience to make an even bigger impact as a coach next semester.
Changyu Hu is a student in the Master of Science in Management in Entrepreneurial Leadership (MSEL) program. Prior to coming to Babson, Changyu graduated in May 2018 with an undergraduate degree in Economics from the University of California, Los Angeles (UCLA).