Banyuetan: Starting a business to get into graduate school? Don’t go astray
2024-08-11
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College students are the main force of innovation and entrepreneurship. Colleges and universities in various places should improve the innovation and entrepreneurship education system for students, strengthen policy guarantees, optimize the innovation and entrepreneurship environment, and fully stimulate the innovation and entrepreneurship vitality of young people, especially college students. At present, the number of college students starting businesses is considerable, and venture capital is highly active. While realizing their self-worth, they also stimulate the innovation and creativity of the society as a whole. Banyuetan reporters visited colleges and universities in many places and found that the overall situation of college students' entrepreneurship is positive, but under the constraints of factors such as the rigid evaluation and incentive standards and limited entrepreneurial resources, some college students' innovation and entrepreneurship mentality has begun to deviate.
Fancy on stage, vanishing on the market
Returning to hometown to become a "new farmer", creating own outdoor clothing brand, developing intelligent garbage sorting system... With the increase of entrepreneurship support policies in colleges and universities and the popularization of entrepreneurship education, college students' enthusiasm for participating in innovation and entrepreneurship is high, and entrepreneurship competitions organized by various entities are emerging in an endless stream.
Data shows that a successful youth entrepreneurship project can create 8 jobs. Many college students have taken advantage of their professional expertise and innovative thinking to start their own businesses. They use cutting-edge technologies, innovate business models, capture social pain points and needs, and add momentum and vitality to the development and progress of many industries. However, at the same time, a Banyuetan reporter found that all kinds of entrepreneurial competitions are mixed, and there are even a group of "professional contestants" who are good at submitting entrepreneurial project plans and making presentation PPTs.
Zhou Yang, an employment and entrepreneurship expert at the Ministry of Human Resources and Social Security, told the Banyuetan reporter that these students "show off on stage but disappear in the market", and they repeatedly participate in competitions to win prizes based on their project applications, but after winning the prizes, their projects have not made any progress for a long time. "Some companies specifically organize student teams to participate in various entrepreneurial competitions, and use the prize money to make profits, forming a gray industry chain with 'smooth operation'."
In some authoritative innovation and entrepreneurship competitions, there are many entrepreneurial projects with high technical content and good application prospects. A reporter from Banyuetan found that some graduate students started their own businesses based on their research projects and academic resources of the school. This type of entrepreneurial project is valuable, but due to the difficulty and depth in technology and scientific research, it lacks marketing and product promotion, which makes it difficult to commercialize it. In the end, the project results ended with the publication of several papers. The industry summarizes this type of entrepreneurial model as "paper-based entrepreneurship."
Not starting a business is a disguised loss of points
What businesses are college students starting? Taking some Guangdong universities as an example, Banyuetan reporters learned that the proportion of graduates from relevant universities who have had entrepreneurial experience during their studies reached 21.8%. A certain university has about 200 to 300 students applying for entrepreneurship every year, which can incubate about 50 entrepreneurial projects of students on campus.
A deeper look into the entrepreneurial fields reveals that the entrepreneurial projects are concentrated in the fields of wholesale and retail, agriculture, forestry, animal husbandry and fishery, accommodation and catering. The China Youth Entrepreneurship Development Report shows that in terms of entrepreneurial capital, 75% of the interviewed youth rely on personal or family savings to start their own businesses, and only 10.6% obtain funds through financial channels such as venture capital companies. The interviewed experts believe that due to this, many college students still tend to choose industries with low technical and financial barriers to start their own businesses.
A survey conducted by Ban Yue Tan reporters found that some universities promised entrepreneurial incentives such as "extra points" and "guaranteed admission to graduate school", which have become a bargaining chip for some students. For example, a university in Shandong stipulates that "on-campus college students who start their own businesses can obtain 12 practical credits, and successful entrepreneurial members can be recommended for graduate school as students with outstanding training potential." When Ban Yue Tan reporters talked with students participating in innovation and entrepreneurship in some universities in Beijing, the topic revolved around "guaranteed admission to graduate school" and "credits", while key entrepreneurial links such as "profit model" and "market demand" were rarely mentioned. An investor said: "Many college students' business plans are full of passion, but they can't even clearly explain the basic profit model."
Looking through the project list, we can find that many entrepreneurial projects focus on areas with relatively high market maturity, such as "bike sharing", "food delivery platform" and "live streaming by internet celebrities". According to the analysis of college entrepreneurship instructors, some college students have entrepreneurial anxiety. Under the encouragement of "starting a business will get extra points", not starting a business becomes a disguised loss of points, which leads to some college students "passively starting a business" or "following the trend to start a business".
Identify “pseudo-entrepreneurship” and encourage “real entrepreneurship”
"Performance-style entrepreneurship" of "changing vests to participate in the competition", "follow-up entrepreneurship" of "adding credits by signing up for a project", and "thesis-style entrepreneurship" of "difficult to promote project results" are superficially the original intentions and entrepreneurial mentality of some college students that have gone astray. In fact, they reflect the rigid evaluation and assessment system of entrepreneurship in some universities and the incompleteness of the relevant entrepreneurship education system. In this regard, the interviewed experts gave the following suggestions.
——Optimize the design of the entrepreneurial competition system and support entrepreneurs with development potential. Fang Zhijie, deputy director of the Employment Department of the Shanghai Municipal Human Resources and Social Security Bureau, believes that various entrepreneurial competitions need to track the results of the entrepreneurship throughout the life cycle to help contestants stand out in the market mechanism. It is recommended to establish a blacklist system for competitions. Once the so-called "professional contestants" are found, they will be banned from the competition and other penalties, squeezing out the living space of gray industries such as competition tutoring and competition ghostwriting.
Huang Zhijian, dean of the School of Innovation and Entrepreneurship at Shenzhen Polytechnic, said that off-campus investment institutions can be organized to assess the market prospects of student entrepreneurial projects and assess the projects on a fixed basis to achieve "real practice". Universities can also cooperate with investment institutions and industry associations to provide financing support, market promotion and other services for entrepreneurial projects.
——Strengthen rational entrepreneurship guidance and further optimize the youth entrepreneurship training system. Xie Dongfeng, principal of Gansu Lianda Vocational Training School, and other interviewed experts suggested that colleges and universities need to clarify the evaluation indicators of entrepreneurial projects, attach importance to the market performance and social value of entrepreneurial projects, and guide students to focus on the essence of entrepreneurship, rather than losing sight of the main point and using entrepreneurship as a means to achieve other goals such as postgraduate study. At the same time, improve the entrepreneurial internship system and entrepreneurial training system, increase college students' awareness of entrepreneurial risks, and guide them to make rational decisions.
——Improve the mechanism for converting scientific research results and further increase the landing rate of entrepreneurial projects. Shanghai entrepreneurship guidance expert Fu Jun and others suggested that enterprises release technical problems and key projects to the public, adopt the "unveiling the list and taking charge" system, and encourage college students and start-ups to incubate innovative entrepreneurial projects. At the same time, through the real-time updated entrepreneurial map, help college student entrepreneurs identify opportunities and effectively solve the problems in the development of start-ups.
