This is a very good trend. College aged people will be better off if they take control of their future.

The Huffington Post reports.

The Rise of Entrepreneurship Among College/Graduate Students and Young Professionals

For the past several years, Barbara Hou has gained valuable insights into entrepreneurship, and she shares them (along with other founders) in her soon-to-be-published book Startups Demystified: Founders Share Strategies, Secrets, and Lessons Learned.

In addition to being a doctoral candidate at Harvard University, Hou continues her research into the dynamics of startups and teaches entrepreneurship courses. Previously, she was executive co-director of Harvard Innovation and Ventures in Education.

Recent articles What is “Generation F?” and Tracing the Causes and Consequences of Generation F by Barbara Hou and Jocelyn Mosman piqued my interest because I too have noticed an increased interest in entrepreneurship among female college students and college-bound high school girls. To learn more, I scheduled a phone conversation with Barbara Hou.

In today’s blog post, I’m sharing our conversation via a series of questions and answers.

1. What experience do you have as an entrepreneur and how has this experience affected your current research on startups?

When I was 28, I founded an educational startup that was trying to establish a global leadership university for women from Asia and the Middle East. We raised more than US$6 million dollars and identified 100 acres of land for the campus site. Although we ultimately couldn’t secure the university license from the Malaysian Ministry of Education, the whole experience was transformative. I learned about what it takes to found and lead an organization.