CUNY CareerPATH and CUNY Language Immersion Program Life, Liberty, and the Pursuit of Happiness: Entrepreneurship and Your American Dream Cyndi Casey LaGuardia Community College David Hellman CUNY Office of Academic Affairs July 7, 2014 www.cuny.edu This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International License. This workforce solution was funded by a grant awarded by the U.S. Department of Labor’s Employment and Training Administration. The solution was created by the grantee and does not necessarily reflect the official position of the U.S. Department of Labor. The Department of Labor makes no guarantees, warranties, or assurances of any kind, expressed or implied, with respect to such information, including any information or it’s completeness, timeliness, usefulness, adequacy, continued availability or ownership. The CUNY CareerPATH Program is an equal opportunity employer/program and auxiliary aids and services are available upon request to individuals with disabilities. CUNY CareerPATH and CUNY Language Immersion Program Life, Liberty, and the Pursuit of Happiness: Entrepreneurship and Your American Dream Cyndi Casey, LaGuardia Community College David Hellman, CUNY Office of Academic Affairs July 7, 2014 www.cuny.edu This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International License. This workforce solution was funded by a grant awarded by the U.S. Department of Labor’s Employment and Training Administration. The solution was created by the grantee and does not necessarily reflect the official position of the U.S. Department of Labor. The Department of Labor makes no guarantees, warranties, or assurances of any kind, expressed or implied, with respect to such information, including any information or it’s completeness, timeliness, usefulness, adequacy, continued availability or ownership. The CUNY CareerPATH Program is an equal opportunity employer/program and auxiliary aids and services are available upon request to individuals with disabilities. Entrepreneurship Curriculum Syllabus, 7/24/2014 Life, Liberty and the Pursuit of Happiness: Entrepreneurship and Your American Dream CLIP CareerPATH Curriculum Cyndi Casey, LaGuardia Community College David Hellman, CUNY Office of Academic Affairs Image: “Jackpot,” 2005, oil on canvas, by Wayne Thiebaud 1 Entrepreneurship Curriculum Syllabus, 7/24/2014 Table of Contents Syllabus page 3 Unit 1: Intro to Entrepreneurship Week 1 page 15 Unit 2: The Zappos Way Week 2 page 55 Week 3 page 91 Week 4 page 127 Week 5 page 157 Week 6 page 185 Week 7 page 205 Unit 3: Business Management and the “Transformative Power of Hospitality” Week 8 page 221 Week 9 page 263 Week 10 page 285 Week 11 page 311 Week 12 page 330 Career page 331 Exploration Set CAT-W Set page 355 Texts & Images page 366 2 Entrepreneurship Curriculum Syllabus, 7/24/2014 Life, Liberty and the Pursuit of Happiness: Entrepreneurship and Your American Dream Syllabus “We hold these truths to be self-evident, that all men are created equal, that they are endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable Rights, that among these are Life, Liberty and the pursuit of Happiness.” THEME What do these immortal words of the Declaration of Independence mean to you? To many people who live here, to many people who were born in other lands and who come here as immigrants, independence and liberty mean the freedom and opportunity to be your own boss—to start and run your own business—to be an entrepreneur. 3 Entrepreneurship Curriculum Syllabus, 7/24/2014 Have you ever wanted to go into business for yourself, to be your own boss, to manage your own start-up? When you were a kid, did you ever sell lemonade on the street corner, or homemade empanadas, or sticky rice and mangoes to passersby? In your spare time, have you ever daydreamed of a get-rich-quick scheme? Have you ever tried to make it happen? What does it take to run your own business? What skills? What attributes? What know- how? What resources? Do you have the skills, the attributes, the know-how and resources? Do you have the drive, the instincts, the initiative, the ingenuity, the determination, and all the rest? Do you have the business bug? Have you got the entrepreneurial gene? And if you do, do you think that going into business for yourself means that you will be free, that you will be independent, that you will be happy, that you will achieve the American Dream? Whether or not you wish to go into business, as a college student, you will need to take charge of your own education—to become an entrepreneur and manager of your own learning. You will need to assess opportunities, assess your skills, and make decisions about your education and career choices. In this course, you will explore career choices and learn what it means to take charge. What is your American dream? What do “life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness” mean to you? In this course, we will explore this, among many other, essential questions. UNITS “Life, Liberty and the Pursuit of Happiness: Entrepreneurship and Your American Dream” is divided into 3 units. Unit 1: Intro to Entrepreneurship? The first unit is a two-week introduction to the concept of entrepreneurship. In this unit, you will meet, on the page and on the screen, the news-making, path-breaking entrepreneur, Tony Hsieh, the CEO of Zappos.com and author of our first book, Delivering Happiness: A Path to Profits, Passion and Purpose. In the first two chapters of the book, Tony Hsieh describes his formative experiences, in life and in business—how he got started on his path to success. In this introductory unit, you will consider your own formation—how you got here, to this class, and where you may wish to go in the future. You will also begin reading “Business Day,” the daily business section of The New York Times. Unit 2: The Zappos Way. Not long after college, Tony Hsieh turned Zappos, a tiny internet start-up into a billion-dollar e-commerce megastore. How did he do it? What challenges did the company face and how did he and his partners address these challenges? What risks were involved and how did Tony Hsieh manage these risks? What roles do brand and company culture play in Zappos? What do you think are the 4 Entrepreneurship Curriculum Syllabus, 7/24/2014 strengths and weaknesses, the pros and the cons of the Zappos culture? What can you learn from the Zappos experience? How can you apply this learning to your own education and life? Unit 3. Business Management and the “Transformative Power of Hospitality”: Owning and operating your own restaurant is a quintessential entrepreneurial venture, for immigrants and non-immigrants alike. Many have succeeded. Many have failed. What does it take to make it happen? In this unit, you will read Setting the Table: the Transformative Power of Hospitality in Business, written by Danny Meyer, one of the most notable restaurateurs in New York City and indeed the United States. In his book, Danny Meyer presents principles and models of business management that apply not only to the huge and growing restaurant and hospitality industry, but to business at large. How can you apply the management principles that Danny Meyer describes in his book to your own educations and career paths? What do you want to do in your future? What do you want to major in? What career path do you want to take? In this unit, you will draw on things you have learned throughout the course to help you answer these questions. READING No matter what your major is, you will need to know about 40,000 words in order to read college texts fluently. How can you possibly learn so many words in English? By reading, every single day! If you’re not in the habit of reading much, it’s certainly time to change that. To improve your ability to read in English, we’ll practice specific reading strategies, which are ways to take control of your own reading process. Strategies include reading with a purpose; using your imagination and your background knowledge; learning how to ask questions about what you are reading, using the context to figure out meanings; re-reading, and taking notes as you read. The more you read and think about how you read, the more you’ll improve your vocabulary and grammar, too. Reading carefully has an influence on all of your language skills, and it’s the most important thing you can do to prepare for college. Luckily for you, this course is built on compelling, relevant and challenging reading: • Delivering Happiness: The Path to Profits, Passion and Purpose, by Tony Hsieh • Setting the Table: The Transforming Power of Hospitality in Business, by Danny Meyer • “Business Day” of The New York Times • Short readings from the media related to the theme 5 Entrepreneurship Curriculum Syllabus, 7/24/2014 WRITING Like reading, writing is tremendously important for language learning as well as for success in college and beyond. It is a process that involves many thinking and language skills—a process that involves among other things: brainstorming, outlining, prioritizing, organizing ideas, making connections between information and ideas, selecting the most appropriate vocabulary and structures, reviewing (re-looking at) your work and then doing it again—rewriting—revision. In this course, you will learn about the process of writing and develop the skills you need to develop the content of your writing, to organize your ideas and to express yourself clearly on the page. To learn to write well, you have to write a lot. That’s why we will write a new multiple-draft essay every week in addition to shorter writings in class, including double-entry journals and memos.