Skip to content
ENTR

External Engagement

10 course points · Three equally weighted papers · Paper 1 waived with full credit

🌎 Overview

Find entrepreneurial stories beyond our assigned course material, then use them to test what you’re learning in class. Complete Papers 2 and 3 as reflections on qualifying events or founder-focused media and keep them in the External Engagement section of your workbook. Everyone receives full credit for Paper 1; no work is required for that waived entry.

External engagement is a separate category worth 10 course points. All three papers count equally, including the full-credit Paper 1 waiver; each contributes one-third of the category (3⅓ course points). The five developed themes and external papers have separate deadlines below.

🤔 Rationale

Our cases give us a shared set of stories to work with. Going beyond them lets you follow your own interests, hear from different kinds of founders, and see whether the patterns we’ve noticed hold up elsewhere.

An event can also give you something a case can’t: a chance to ask a question, meet someone, or hear the less polished version of how a business came together. Take advantage of those opportunities when you can. Thoughtfully chosen media can give you plenty to investigate, too.

🏗️ Structure

Choose a qualifying story

Choose a substantive story about starting or helping start a venture. Firsthand accounts and founder-focused stories narrated by someone else can qualify; a general news update does not automatically qualify. If you’re unsure, ask me before investing a lot of time.

You can attend an Entrepreneurship Program, Innovation District, or other UGA / Athens-area entrepreneurial event. You can also choose a founder-focused book, podcast, talk, film, article, or interview that meets the same test. Choose something with enough substance to analyze a founder’s decisions and experiences.

The Ecosystem Announcements slides, UGA ENTR newsletter, Innovation District newsletter, and the Innovation Hub and Entrepreneurship Program calendars are good places to look. Confirm the event’s time, location, and registration details yourself.

Write a focused reflection

For each entry, include these three parts. Use headings to make them easy to find.

  • Brief overview. Identify the founder, venture, event or source, and when you attended, read, watched, or listened. Include a source link when available. Give just enough context for someone who wasn’t there to follow your reflection.
  • Your assessment. Discuss specific decisions, moments, or claims that caught your attention. What did you find convincing, surprising, useful, or questionable—and why? Explain your response using details from the story.
  • Course connections. Connect those details to concepts, cases, speakers, or themes from class. Explain the relationship: does this founder’s experience support a lesson we’ve discussed, complicate it, or suggest a limit? Show what the comparison helps you understand.

For example, hearing that a founder hired a close friend gives you a starting point. The useful reflection asks how that choice affected roles, relationships, and rewards, what evidence shows the consequences, and how it compares with a founding team we’ve studied.

Aim for roughly 250 words, with flexibility when you have something useful to say. Give most of the space to your assessment; three or four specific observations with thoughtful analysis are plenty. Paragraphs or a list of complete sentences both work. There is no separate one-page requirement. First person is welcome here—your own assessment is part of the assignment.

Keep the work together

Write in your workbook’s External Engagement section and refer to the entry from your themes log or journal when it supports a developing idea. You may use the journal’s audio / video option if that helps you explain your thinking; include a clear label and an accessible link.

Already completed an engagement paper? Paste it into the relevant workbook entry and label it “completed before rubric.” You do not need to rewrite it to match the newer format. The existing option to count a substantive book reflection of at least two pages as two engagement reflections remains available; label that clearly and develop enough evidence and analysis to support the broader scope.

Submission

Complete these entries in your shared workbook; there is no separate eLC upload or Slack message. Make them easy to find and check that links or recordings open correctly. AI may help capture notes, transcribe, or organize your thinking, but write the submitted prose yourself. This permission does not extend to generating other assignments. The syllabus’s academic honesty and late-work policies apply.

📓 Grading

Each paper receives a score out of 10 in eLC. The three percentage scores are averaged and scaled to 10 course points; Paper 1 receives 10/10 automatically. Papers 2 and 3 receive separate scores using the criteria below:

  • Strong work identifies a qualifying source, uses specific evidence, offers a thoughtful personal assessment, and develops clear course connections. The reader can see what you learned and how you reached that conclusion.
  • Work that needs development includes the basic context and some reflection, but relies on broad claims, thin evidence, or course connections that are named without being explained.
  • Incomplete work leaves out a required component, uses a source that doesn’t meet the eligibility test, or mainly retells the story without analysis.

Completing the required entries matters, and so does what you do with them. These scores are separate from the Theme Journal’s two checkpoints. You don’t have to agree with a founder or come away inspired; a carefully supported disagreement can make an excellent reflection.

⏰ Timeline

  • Paper 1 receives full credit automatically; no submission is required for this waived paper.
  • Complete Papers 2 and 3, including any qualifying work already submitted. Paper 1 is waived with full credit.

Both required reflections are due November 19, 2026 before your section’s class: 11:35 a.m. or 2:55 p.m. Eastern. Five developed themes have a separate deadline: November 3 at 11:59 p.m. Eastern. Aim to finish one reflection before fall break so the work is spread out; that is a suggested pace, not another deadline. The earlier one-week-after-the-event rule no longer applies.

Source: Fall 2026 course syllabus — External Engagement, reviewed October 13, 2026 and reconciled with John’s current instructions. Current requirements and deadlines are maintained on this course site.