What We Believe
The Compass Fellowship is built by students to address problems in student business education. But, as we teach our students, the program itself is secondary to the philosophy. Our ventures may or may not succeed, but as long as the people believe and live the following philosophy, we have succeeded.
All Entrepreneurship Should Benefit Society
We have found that there is an institutionalized division between traditional philanthropy and for-profit business that does not need to exist. The most effective organizations – be they for-profit or non-profit – create social value and operate in a financially sustainable way.
Business should be financially sustainable, operationally possible, and socially beneficial. Through a fusion of these core business practices, the institutional division between business and philanthropy fades away.
Entrepreneurship is Best Learned through Experience
Entrepreneurs are driven by personal motivation, motivation that can only be sparked by experience. Traditional classroom business education fails to immerse students in substantial, motivational experiences. By exposing our fellows to innovative business and community leaders, we move them from their comfort zones to their learning zones, where true experiential learning takes place. To maintain the safe community culture of the fellowship, regular peer interaction is institutionalized, causing the development of unique friendships and mentor relationships.
In developing their own ventures, our fellows are able to apply their traditional educations to a real-life project, thereby encouraging them to be proactive in their learning. Currently, college curricula rarely if ever encourage students to translate what is done in class to a relevant pursuit. Compass Fellows, on the other hand, use their ventures as vessels to pursue more well-rounded educations. Such a model makes a serious effort to shape education to the needs of the individual, and brings business education to a wider population of youth.
N+1 Model of Education
Each person in the Compass community is a student and educator at the same time. The Compass Fellowship, through its use of the N+1 model of education, creates a sustainable network in which each member benefits from a network of mentors and role models, sparking motivation throughout the whole community.
The N+1 model states that people can acquire knowledge from a variety of sources, but motivation and inspiration come from those who are one stage beyond them in life. Children are inspired by older brothers, Freshmen by Juniors, and graduating Seniors by recent graduates.At every level of the program, Compass Fellows practice mentorship. First year fellows engage in teaching relationships with each other, as well as with their venture teams. Fellows are encouraged to reach out and engage younger generations in the social entrepreneurship movement at their high schools and local communities. Then, after completing the two year fellowship program, graduated fellows return to serve as mentors to new classes, filling the shoes of those who mentored them before. In this sustainable, cyclical model, the Compass Fellowship maintains a strong culture and age-diverse network that enables all participants to grow throughout their college experience and beyond. Our model of education encourages teaching as a distinct way of learning in all phases of life.
Student Based Community
In the university setting, students are constantly forming communities with peers who share their values and goals; however, infrequently are these student associations free from the dictates of faculty supervision or university mandates. Funding restrictions, advisor requirements, and the like serve to construct boundaries around the space in which students can create and learn. The Compass Community is entirely student-run for a reason: entrepreneurs thrive in the collaborative learning environment that we create. Working with those close in age to themselves, the constrictive atmosphere of hierarchy and mandates that often limits student efforts gives way to an egalitarian community, enabling all students to teach, learn, and innovate with their peers.
In the Compass Fellowship, Fellows are free to share their ideas in an open and supportive environment of fellow students and they learn that their ideas need no seal of approval to be valid. Mentors call upon a variety of professors, entrepreneurs, and experts in their local communities to teach students the business and personal development skills they need, but mentors and fellows alike know that they can apply these skills best in a student-based community. Fellows experiment with and implement their ideas outside of the classroom, and they choose to spend much of their free time in this creative space.
Copyright Compass Partners, Inc.