It is situated in the heart of Nashville, Tennessee — perennially ranked as one of the USA’s top ten entrepreneurial metropolises. Nashville abounds with successful entrepreneurs, in all industries, and the OEC maintains very tight ties to this vibrant constituency. At the same time Nashville is a large enough metropolis (1.5 million residents) to allow abundant business and networking opportunities for our MBA entrepreneurship students.

The compact university campus naturally encourages significant interaction between Vanderbilt’s professional schools. The Law School (and the Law School Clinic — a popular destination of our entrepreneurs) is thirty steps outside of the Business School. The Medical Center and the Engineering School are less than a 5-minute walk from the Business School. Our entrepreneurship students actively engage engineering students in the design of their product prototypes. We currently have a medical device student venture that involves consultations with some of the Medical Center physicians as well as occasional use of some of the operating theaters.

Vanderbilt is endowed with highly successful business entrepreneurs among the faculties of the Business School, the Law School, the Medical School, and the Engineering School. The presence and enthusiasm of such individuals makes it effortless for our entrepreneurship students to receive ‘real world’ advice from the best of the lot. Vanderbilt University is very active in spinning off biotech/life science start-up ventures.