Social Entrepreneurship Track

The Social Entre­pre­neur­ship Track (SE Track) requires busi­ness stu­dents to com­plete five courses within the School of Business’ Innovation & Entre­pre­neur­ship con­cen­tra­tion, for a total of 20 credits.

While the SE Track is for­mally rec­og­nized by the DMSB as a spe­cial­ized field of study, uni­ver­sity pol­icy pro­vides that track des­ig­na­tions do not appear on stu­dent tran­scripts. Stu­dents are encour­aged to use the SE Track des­ig­na­tion on their resumes, co-op and job appli­ca­tions, and any other mate­ri­als rep­re­sent­ing their aca­d­e­mic record at Northeastern.

Required Course­work

Struc­ture of the SE Track

The first required course in the five course SE Track is the intro­duc­tory core course enti­tled ENTR2206: Social Entre­pre­neur­ship. Addi­tion­ally, two of the required courses must be com­pleted as a “Field Research Pro­gram” in either the Domini­can Repub­lic or South Africa.  Two other courses included in the SE Track are tra­di­tional on-campus classes.  And finally, the cap­stone course for the SE Track includes an abbre­vi­ated optional field study com­po­nent, typ­i­cally done dur­ing Spring Break.

These courses include one course from the Entre­pre­neur­ship & Inno­va­tion Group’s gen­eral cur­ricu­lum and four spe­cial­ized courses from the Social Entre­pre­neur­ship curriculum

• ENTR2204: Inno­va­tion! or ENTR2303: Entre­pre­neur­ial Mar­ket­ing (4 SH)
• ENTR2206: Social Entre­pre­neur­ship (4 SH)
• ENTR3306/3308: South Africa Field Research Pro­gram (8 SH) 
  OR ENTR3316/3318: Domini­can Rep. Field Research Pro­gram (8 SH)
• ENTR4506: Advanced Top­ics in Social Enter­prise (4 SH) OR ENTR4501: Plan­ning for Growth Ven­tures (4 SH)

*ENTR2204, ENTR3301 and ENTR2206 are each offered in both the Fall and Spring semesters. 

**The Field Research Pro­grams are offered in Sum­mer 1 (DR) and Sum­mer 2 (South Africa) only.

***The cap­stone course ENTR4506 is cur­rently offered in the Spring semester.

Pre­req­ui­sites and Sequence:

Stu­dents are encour­aged to com­plete ENTR2206 before apply­ing for and enrolling in one of the Field Research Pro­grams. Stu­dents who have com­pleted ENTR2206 are given pref­er­ence in the appli­ca­tion process for each Field Research Program. 

Com­ple­tion of ENTR2206 is required for the cap­stone course ENTR4506.  Com­ple­tion of one of the Field Research Pro­grams is strongly encour­aged for enroll­ment in the cap­stone course ENTR4506.

SE Elec­tives

An addi­tional Social Entre­pre­neur­ship course enti­tled, ENTR3219: Busi­ness, Global Poverty & the Micro-finance Rev­o­lu­tion can be taken as an elec­tive, or under cer­tain lim­ited cir­cum­stances, sub­sti­tuted for one of the required on-campus courses.

Stu­dent Waivers of Requirements

There are three gen­eral areas in which stu­dents can seek a waiver of the course require­ments for the SE Track:

1. Juniors and Seniors as of the 2010–2011 aca­d­e­mic year who have com­pleted a dif­fer­ent sequence of four social entre­pre­neur­ship courses can seek a waiver to qual­ify for the SE Track.  The course sequence that will typ­i­cally result in a waiver is one Field Research Pro­gram, ENTR2206 and ENTR2219.
2. Hon­ors Pro­gram stu­dents who have taken hon­ors sem­i­nars that are sub­stan­tially equiv­a­lent to the required courses may also seek a waiver of one of the required courses.
3. Retroac­tive Effect: The SE Track may be earned by stu­dents who are enrolled in the 2010–2011 aca­d­e­mic year or after, and include courses and Field Research Pro­gram com­pleted by such a stu­dent at any time since Fall 2007 when the social entre­pre­neur­ship cur­ricu­lum commenced.