To develop social leaders and social entrepreneurs who are able to create sustainable and impactful solutions to local and global problems.
Focus of existing graduates is often to serve the corporate sector preferably multinational corporations, and the measure of their career success typically does not include developing solutions to societal problems. This program provides a curriculum and methodology that will connect the graduates to the realities of the problems confronting a developing nation like Pakistan. The graduates so produced will be mentally prepared to confront the problems relevant to the local environment, and create sustainable solutions. Unlike other graduates who want to run away from the problems in Pakistan, these graduates would consider these as important challenges to overcome before scaling their solutions to international levels.
BS Social Entrepreneurship and Social Leadership, a joint program of CBM and CESD, inspires and equips graduates to demonstrate leadership through creation of sustainable social advocacy enterprises focused on solving real life problems. This is an innovative and fully experiential learning program focusing on PBL; Project Based Learning and Problem Based Learning. It provides an interdisciplinary understanding of real life problems from humanities and liberal arts perspectives, and additionally enables students to envision and create enterprise solutions through managerial and leadership skills imparted in the program. The projects involve field work to explore real life social enterprises advocating solutions in areas such as education, health, violence, poverty, women empowerment and environment. These projects integrate course work of leadership and enterprise management studies with perspectives from several inter-linked subject areas such as philosophy, psychology, history, sociology, economy, power, culture, religion, ethics, arts, literature and aesthetics. This integration enables students to design sustainable solutions to local challenges that reflect their internal desires to benefit themselves and the community and that can give them confidence to take on the global challenges.
The Bachelor Program requires completion of 144 credit hours of course work in a total of 8 semesters or 4 years. Students must complete an internship and comprehensive exam as part of their degree requirements.
Experiential Learning: Learning by doing via PBL; Project Based Learning and Problem Based Learning: Eight thematic projects on real life problems. Projects are exploratory and descriptive during the earlier part of the program and are prescriptive and implementation oriented during the later semesters. These projects include fieldwork and internships as a mandatory part of the semester work as described below.
Focus on Social Problems:
During each semester, students work on a major experiential learning project dealing with a real life problem. Each thematic project consists of multiple sub-projects corresponding to the six threads linking the courses across the semesters:
Course design:
Courses designed around PBL sub-projects with deliverables requiring application, analysis/evaluation and creation levels of Bloom’s taxonomy.
Integrated Curriculum:
Courses in each thread integrate perspectives from multiple subject areas. Every semester has a course from each one of the following threads:
Portfolio based assessment:
Self Assessment, Peer Assessment, Teacher Assessment and External Assessment of the assignments and projects executed by students.
Pedagogy:
Faculty members are project supervisors, facilitators and mentors rather than lecturers.
Internship/Field Work:
The program consists of extensive field work, visits, surveys, interviews, and internships with social work organizations as an integral and mandatory part of the semester work. During the initial semesters this internship/field work spans 2 days per semester that will increase to 3 days per week. During the last year, the fieldwork/internship may constitute 4 days per week. Social Entrepreneurship Center facilitates the organization and enablement of these internship placements. In addition, the student would also do a full-time internship of 6-8 weeks during the final year.
Interested in this program? Visit the admissions page for more information.
Services for Designing Successful Careers of Graduates:
Entrepreneurship Center offers several services to enable the graduates of BS Social Entrepreneurship and Social Leadership to design a successful career in the social sector, public sector and CSR initiatives of the corporate sector and include:
Linkages with Industry Organizations:
PBL design of the curriculum ensures that students start connecting with the social sector organizations and social leaders from the first semester. Connection is through projects requiring field work, observation, interviews, case studies and internships and would help them identify a cause for which they are passionate. Students will be connected to public and social sector organizations working in the areas of education, health, poverty alleviation, peace, environment, globalization etc.
Projects in Collaboration with Social Networks:
Student projects are designed in collaboration with the wide network of industry contacts of IoBM and the advisory committee members of this program belonging to organizations such as Aman Foundation, OPEN, Acumen Fund, TCF, Indus Hospital, SEF etc.
Social Enterprise Start-up Incubation:
18 credit hours of incubation spread over 7th and 8th semester, requiring establishment of a functioning social enterprise. Students will be linked to leading Social Entrepreneurs who will be assist them in developing their idea, train them on how to launch a business which will also fulfill social needs. Constant support will be provided for a few months after the launch. Entrepreneurship Center will facilitate this field work.
Career in Public Service, Social Sector and Corporate Sector:
In addition to the Internship and Placement department of IoBM, the entrepreneurship centre guides the students in preparing for the CSS exams and for placement in social sector, public sector and CSR initiatives of the corporate sector organizations to enable the graduates to pursue their strategic visions.
Establishing Collaborations of Student Start-ups:
Entrepreneurship Center provides guidance and enabling of the startup of the student enterprises through strategic collaborations with existing social organizations.