America excels at entrepreneurship and USF in particular has a top
entrepreneurial business school. Entrepreneur Magazine ranked the USF
Entrepreneurship MBA Program among the TOP TIER University
Entrepreneurship Programs in 2004. According to Forbes & Princeton
Review 2004, USF is ranked among the Top 25 of "America's Most
Entrepreneurial Campuses".
USF is just a short distance from the technology start-ups and giants of Silicon Valley, and in the heart of the cutting-edge digital economy of San Francisco. Silicon Valley continues to provide high-salaried, challenging jobs. A survey of practicing engineers by EETimes magazine found that two of the most important factors in securing the best salary were to "work for a Silicon Valley employer" and "earn an M.S. or Ph.D." USF offers this unique combination. MSCS students have taken jobs at top companies such as Apple, BEA, IBM, Intel, Microsoft, and Oracle, among others.
In partnership with the Entrepreneurship MBA
program, the Computer Science department offers an emphasis in
entrepreneurship for the MS Computer Science and MS Web Science (formely Internet
Engineering) degrees. Students enrolled in the entrepreneurship
emphasis take a standard MSCS or MSIE degree, but take their electives in the
top tier Entrepreneurship Program from the business school alongside
MBA students:
- MBA 6607 Corporate Entrepreneurship and Innovation (2 units)
- MBA 6601 Entrepreneurial Management (2 units)
- MBA 6603 Creativity & Innovation (2 units)
- MBA 6620 Silicon Valley immersion (2 units)
MSCS students take 7 (4 unit) computer science courses and 8 units of MBA
courses for a total of 28+8=36 just like the 9 course (36 unit)
pure MS computer science. MSWS students normally take 8 courses, two of which are electives. For this emphasis, MSWS students must take 6 courses plus the 4 MBA courses.
In addition, students are required to prepare a business plan
and prototype during the masters project course and enter
the USF International
Business Plan Competition, one of the world's premier competitions.
The entrepreneurship emphasis goes beyond a traditional
graduate technology degree to teach students what to build not just how
and, further, teaches students how to form a company around their
ideas. Students network with business students, venture capitalists,
and other entrepreneurs from the nearby Silicon Valley during their
education, thus, connecting with current and future leaders.
Note: The entrepreneurship emphasis is only open to exceptional
students and requires a 3.3 GPA and >= 100 ibt TOEFL for int'l students.
The following charts illustrate how the
entrepreneurship courses are integrated into a typical path taken by
MSCS and MSIE students (students have several options in the core
CS classes).
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Endorsements
"I wish there had been an entrepreneurship emphasis like USF's when I
was in computer science graduate school; my career has been a
combination of just that: technology and management. I hope USF's MS
students, particularly those taking the emphasis in entrepreneurship,
will consider Adobe upon graduation."
Dr. Charles M. Geschke
co-founder and Chairman of the Board, Adobe Systems
"Today's business world demands both deep technical skills
and expansive business acumen. Excellent USF CS graduates
demonstrate both these traits and BEA looks forward to hiring
more outstanding talent."
Alfred S. Chuang
Chairman, co-founder, CEO
BEA Systems
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