Wharton MBA Students Join Startup Incubator for the Summer: MBA News

By Tim Dhoul Updated Jul 28, 2014

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Harder but happier work says Wharton study

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What do MBA applicants want? Read the full report

Entrepreneurially-minded MBAs at The Wharton School are using the summer break to join the school’s incubator offices and develop their startup ideas.

It’s a handy alternative to the summer internship for those who know that when they graduate they want to run their own business.

Last year was the first time Wharton MBA students were offered free office space over the summer and the scheme has proven so popular that it’s thought it will soon be viewed as a USP for Wharton’s MBA program.

The school’s incubator, on the eighth floor of a Philadelphia building that has become a hub for tech companies, currently houses 18 startup companies according to Technically Philly.

Some of the new Wharton MBA student arrivals this summer include an e-commerce startup formulating prototypes for its wrinkle-free, ladies’ travel-wear and a company looking at ways international students in the US can access credit if they don’t have a social security card and, therefore, can’t apply for a credit card.

Wharton MBA students can also make use of these startup facilities after they graduate. Successful applicants to the Wharton Venture Initiation Program can access the incubator for five successive semesters.

Harder but happier work says Wharton study

The attraction of starting your own business has grown among MBA students at business schools the world over and Wharton is no different in this respect.

A study of 30,000 Wharton MBA alumni, for instance, showed that between 2007 and 2013 the proportion of MBAs who founded a company right after graduating rose from 1.5% to 7.4%. In addition, roughly 25% of Wharton alumni going back to 1990 had turned their hands to entrepreneurship at some point during their subsequent careers.

The same study also showed that career satisfaction levels were higher among startup founders in almost every industry.

“Even though they’re working at least as hard as the bankers, they have control over their own destiny,” said Wharton entrepreneurship professor and a coauthor of the study, Ethan Mollick.

The QS TopMBA.com Applicant Survey 2014 found that approximately one third of prospective MBA students cite the desire to form a successful new business as a principal reason for wishing to study an MBA. And this year, for the first time, that proportion is higher among female applicants than male.

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Tim Dhoul

Tim is a writer with a background in consumer journalism and charity communications. He trained as a journalist in the UK and holds degrees in history (BA) and Latin American studies (MA).