While startup companies are largely attractive to entrepreneurs and technologically-savvy individuals, startup culture is realizing that it has a high demand for those with research capabilities, managerial skills, and decision abilities.
In other words, since startup companies need professionals who can efficiently run their entrepreneurial ventures, they also often need individuals who have been trained to do so in formal, advanced education.
If you see yourself working in startup culture, it's important to understand how startup culture has and will continue to affect the choices you make academically and professionally. Let's dive deeper and explore how choosing a graduate school and how arming yourself with a master's degree can provide you with the skills needed to succeed in a startup!
First Things First: What is a Startup Company?
A startup company is an entrepreneurial venture that incorporates launching new businesses in the form of a company, a partnership, or a temporary organization as a innovative, business model with potential for development.
1. Startup Companies Need Professionals with Leadership and Entrepreneurial Skills.
No matter your industry, if one of your professional goals includes managing and leading a team of people, then earning a graduate degree will help you develop the skills necessary to advance within your chosen field.
Your undergraduate degree most likely focused on the disciplinary aspects of your field, while a graduate degree will put emphasis on these extremely important skills:
Thus, in order to advance to a position of authority over others in your field, you will need to consider pursuing a graduate degree in whatever your chosen field is.
2. Startup Culture is Shaped and Propelled Forward by Tech-Savvy Professionals.
Today’s technology-dominated marketplace changes the way that professionals communicate, the way efficiency is accomplished, and the ways industries advertise.
The field of cybersecurity, for instance, continues to evolve with technology. Due to the increasingly connected world we live in, industries will always have a need for cybersecurity professionals. Technology continues to permeate areas of daily life in more ways than just your computer, thus making the need for cybersecurity analysts a continuing priority.
Keeping up-to-date on the way in which technology continues to evolve and change requires a more in-depth understanding of technology as a whole and how it affects specific industries differently. Gaining a more critical understanding of technology and how it has and will continue to affect your industry will, in most industries, require an advanced degree.
3. Startup Companies Seek Professionals who are Self Motivated and Know How to Take Initiative.
This new style of business model focuses on hiring workers who have a natural motivation to work without traditional incentives, which in theory, removes stressors from the workplace and allows workers to reach their full potential in their positions.
But the removal of a traditional business model also means that startup entrepreneurs need to develop their self-motivation and initiative-taking skills. This way, when faced with challenges, they are better able to respond.
As such, it's no surprise that hotbeds of innovative businesses like Silicon Valley are in constant need of leaders with graduate degrees.
West Virginia University can help you to establish yourself in startup culture!
Advancing your education is highly important in today’s job market, especially if you want to work in a competitive environment like a startup company. In addition, in an ever-changing landscape of technology, information, and research, it’s becoming increasingly clear that an undergraduate degree is often not enough to land that solid, lucrative job that will sustain you and your family in the long term.
Earning an advanced degree means a better chance of you reaching your full potential, and in turn, advancing your career in our evolving professional landscape.
Here at West Virginia University, we are dedicated to helping you be exceptional. Whether you're considering graduate school online, stressing about GRE test prep or financing graduate school, or getting excited about a career change, the WVU Admissions team is here to help you succeed.
We invite you to request more info today!
Check out our digital resource — Deciding If, When, and Where to Go to Graduate School — and let us help you and you navigate the graduate school admissions process!
