Exploring the Effects of Entrepreneurial Extracurricular Activities on Student Entrepreneurs

Abstract: Academic entrepreneurship is becoming more accessible and comprehensive, and with it, so too are entrepreneurial extracurricular activities (EEAs). Because the expansion of entrepreneurship education accessibility is limited to the last two decades, little has been explored on the exact impacts EEAs have on students enrolled in entrepreneurship education. This thesis focuses on expanding the recent body of knowledge in what qualities EEA participants develop and how they plan to use them in their futures. A comparative analysis between the ecosystems of two leading entrepreneurship academic institutions was conducted, with one being Lund University in Sweden and the other being Carleton University in Canada. The results obtained suggest that entrepreneurship students from a plethora of previous prior backgrounds can, as students, enlist in EEAs available to them and experience benefits typically at the cost of time, a commodity with a volatile price to student entrepreneurs. The findings continue by pointing out that the same diversity of possible EEA learning scopes may suitably match the variety of enlisting student entrepreneurs, in turn, allowing for qualities across all disciplines intersecting with entrepreneurship to be learned, though characteristics such as culture, nationality, and sex, may yield a negative impact on learning outcomes.