UC Davis Student Startup Center
Academics & Certificate

Entrepreneurship Curriculum

Earn academic credit toward the Certificate in Entrepreneurship while building real startups.

Featured Courses

Available to all undergraduate majors at UC Davis.

Audit Certificate Progress ↓
Core Requirement 3 Units

ENG 008: Introduction to Entrepreneurship

The gateway course. Open to every major, no prerequisites. Students form teams in week one and work an idea through jobs-to-be-done, customer discovery, beachhead markets, MVP design, pricing models, and pitch presentations.

Instructor: Aaron Anderson
Format: Fall, Winter & Spring Quarters
Open to All UC Davis Majors
Core • Featured 3 Units

ENG 108: Hands-on AI & Emerging Tech Ventures

Upper-division and project-driven for students with something to build. Find a problem worth solving, then engineer a solution with modern AI workflows, customer interviews, and lean execution.

Instructor: Dr. Alfredo Costilla Reyes (acostillareyes@ucdavis.edu)
Visit eng108.ai Registration Open
Speaker Series 1 Unit (P/NP)

ENG 009: Startup Speaker Series

Meets weekly in Bainer Hall 1503. Founders, investors, and technology leaders discuss technical architecture, fundraising, and team building with live student Q&A and networking.

Instructors: Ralph Aldredge & Aaron Anderson
Location: Bainer Hall 1503
Meets Weekly in Bainer 1503
Industry Sprints 4 Units

Innovation for Impact (“Hacking 4”)

Multidisciplinary tracks testing business solutions for pre-sourced industry and government challenges. Teams conduct 40–50 stakeholder interviews with weekly sponsor feedback.

Tracks: H4 Climate, H4 Health, H4 Food, H4 Social
Aliases: Hacking 4 Climate (ENG 189 / ECS 189)
Fall & Winter Tracks
First-Year Seminar 2 Units

FYAS: Startup School

Designed for first-year Aggies. Students are actively discouraged from arriving with a pre-set idea; the seminar teaches how to discover worthwhile problems based on Y Combinator's curriculum.

Eligibility: First-Year Students
Level: Lowest-commitment entry on-ramp
Newly Approved Seminar
Roadmap • In Development

Curriculum & Credentials Under Development

Future academic offerings currently being designed and proposed across the College of Engineering.

Undergraduate Minor

Minor in Technology Entrepreneurship

Structured sequence: Intro → ENG 108/H4 → Product I → Electives → Disciplined Entrepreneurship capstone.

Product Building

Product I & II (AI Tooling)

Hands-on product development courses utilizing cutting-edge AI and department-owned domain specializations.

Advanced Degrees

Product-Building M.S. & Joint MBA

One-year product-building master's degrees and designated emphasis for graduate researchers.

Degree Audit Tool

Certificate in Entrepreneurship Calculator

Check off your completed courses to calculate total units and verify your graduation certificate eligibility.