Making sense of learning: insights from an experientially-based undergraduate entrepreneurship programme

Entrepreneurial learning is complex, reflecting the distinctive dispositions of entrepreneurs (including nascent entrepreneurs at an early stage in their entrepreneurial life course). The surge in entrepreneurship education programmes over recent decades and attendant increase in scholarship has often contributed to this convoluted field. Consequently, universally applicable articulations of entrepreneurship education can be problematic, especially demarcating between more formal and less formal learning experiences not necessarily confined to traditional educational institutions. We explore the ways in which nascent entrepreneurs during the first year of a specific three-year experientially-based programme experience and articulate their own ‘learning’ and development. By drawing attention to their deployment of sense-making narratives, we present the key findings which generate some important implications for theory and practice.