Meet Siri Terjesen, Professor at Florida Atlantic University. The USASBE Medium team sat down with Siri to learn more about her; her is what she had to say:
Question: How did you get into entrepreneurship education? What was your path?
My path to entrepreneurship education was a bit of a trial by fire — it was an Entrepreneurship course at the London School of Economics’ summer school- I was invited to first TA one summer and then to teach the whole course the following summer in London, and then the next summer in Beijing. Although I was pursuing my PhD in entrepreneurship at the time, my focus was really on men and women leaving corporations to set up their own companies- so the education piece was new and lots of fun. I’m still in touch with many of those LSE students from 15 years ago, and quite a few have gone on to establish quite successful companies in a range of sectors from restaurants to art.
Question: What is your favorite class to teach and why?
This is so hard- I really see my classes as modular in that I try to synthesize some great materials that I’ve collected over the years, and am always on the look out for new cases, readings, simulations, games, and discussions. Certainly any course on new venture strategy allows me to cover some important topics around critical thinking and decision making before going into specifics. Ideally students are working on venture ideas that they would like to really bring to the market.
Question: What does your research focus on and how does it inform your teaching?
I have been fortunate to work on many different fields in entrepreneurship over the years, and try to build those into my teaching. I am quite interested in new venture performance (and failure)- and examining the multiple facets (customers, supply chains, finance, etc) that can lead to success.
Question: How has membership in USASBE benefited you?
USASBE has provided this great network of like-minded scholars who also really care about their teaching, and the chance to really wrestle with new topics like: How do we teach blockchain? How do we prioritize the many competing demands in running an entrepreneurship center? And how can we best develop the next generation of entrepreneurship scholars and teachers?
Question: Can you share a fun fact about yourself? Something that makes you unique?
The researcher in me also loves genealogy, and I’ve built a database of over 30,000 relatives on both my mom and dad’s side of the family. If a conference or some other research role brings me in geographic proximity, I’ll try to meet some distant cousins during the trip!
