Agustín Parraguez-Huisman has what you might call an enterprising spirit.
In high school, he spun his personal talents into a side job that provides IT services for businesses. He had a direct window into the workings of small-scale businesses.
Many of Agustín’s clients were small companies not much larger than his own. And they struggled to understand and manage their finances.
“I saw that my clients needed someone with a fundamental base in accounting. They needed somebody who could understand finance statements and budgeting and who could communicate financial concepts to their employees.”
That was a need he could envision himself meeting. By the time he began his studies at Calvin, he knew he wanted to dig deeper into the financial side of business.
“I wanted to learn more about operating a small business,” he explains. “But I also wanted to understand how bigger businesses work.”
That made Agustín a natural fit for Calvin’s business department and especially for the entrepreneurship minor. But you don’t have to be a business major to tack on an entrepreneurship minor; it’s for anyone who wants to apply business-savvy to their area(s) of interest.
In a gig economy, companies prefer to hire contractors and freelancers for short-term engagements. And knowing this is a growing part of the workforce, Calvin works to meet the needs of those who wish to engage in it.
“We want to equip students to engage in the gig economy if they want,” says Professor Peter Snyder, who teaches entrepreneurship. “You might be working as a contractor, a writer, a programmer, or a musician, but what you’re ultimately doing is running a business. You need to be able to market yourself, handle your own finances, identify problems that your abilities can solve, and create value.”
Jobs in the gig economy are as unique as the people doing them. That’s why you get to decide how to specialize your entrepreneurship minor.
“There’s no one entrepreneurship journey,” Prof. Snyder notes. “So there can’t be one simple set of courses that people should take. If you want to do a small commercial venture like a coffee shop, there’s a set of courses for you to take. And if you want to work in a large-scale organization but approach it with an entrepreneurial mindset, we’ve got yet another academic path for you.”