The Master of Entrepreneurship gives you the knowledge, skills and confidence you need to strike out on your own – or grow within an existing role
We offer this programme in Dunedin, and structure it to allow you to remain in your current job elsewhere in New Zealand or Australia if you wish.
The United States Association of Small Business and Entrepreneurship (USASBE) awarded the Outstanding Entrepreneurship Programme Abroad Award to our programme in January 2013.
Programme overview
The Master of Entrepreneurship is a three-semester qualification, divided into two parts:
Part I
The first twelve months (or two semesters) of the course is divided into six papers, each lasting six weeks. Each paper has an intensive four to five day on-campus course, followed by a number of assignments which students can complete off-campus.
Part II
The second part of the degree (one semester) consists of a business incubation report that is undertaken following the completion of the six papers. Participants undertake a real-life business project to assess the feasibility of their proposed service, product or business process, and to plan its implementation. Alternatively, students can base their report on a local entrepreneur’s new venture. This project integrates the knowledge and skills that students have learnt in the previous six papers, and bridges the academic and practical learning approaches.
View the papers for the Master of Entrepreneurship
What background do I need to enrol for the Master of Entrepreneurship?
Applicants seeking admission would normally be expected to have a Bachelor’s degree (in any discipline) or have an alternative professional qualification. The programme does not assume participants have prior knowledge of any particular business discipline, so the degree is suited to budding entrepreneurs from the arts, sciences and professions as well as Commerce. Satisfactory training or experience in management or business or other entrepreneurial activity would also be considered if it is deemed to be the equivalent of a degree.
Applicants seeking admission to the program would normally be expected to have a Bachelor’s degree (in any discipline) with a B/B+ grade average. However, emphasis is also placed on the life experiences and "entrepreneurial talent" of applicants, so a good grade average is not the only entry criterion.
Where is the programme based?
Many of our students come to Dunedin for the duration of the degree to experience life at Otago but others come for each paper from cities like Auckland, Wellington and even Australia and then return home. The structure of the programme means that you do not have to give up your job or move cities to study entrepreneurship at the University of Otago. However it is a full time programme so you do need to have sufficient time to dedicate to completing the assignments to achieve good grades.
