By the time most students exit their classrooms, they're either thinking of their next homework assignment, their next test, or their next meal. But, a few who step outside the door of their classes on the University of Iowa's campus are thinking about moving closer to somewhat loftier ambitions: personal independence, say, or even that first million.

"Every time I leave this building, thousands of ideas are churning inside my head," says UI junior business major Zach Simmons. That's how he describes the inspiration he's received from instruction at the UI's John Pappajohn Entrepreneurial Center (JPEC).

Simmons combines coursework with a 40-hour work week. But he doesn't log those hours on a timecard for a work-study job or a downtown retailer. Those hours are his own. They're the hours he spends harvesting ideas for businesses to launch, businesses that might give him a lifelong career.

Simmons already owns a website business. After exploring the Web for a year or two, he began to see possibilities. The number of opportunities and amount of wealth created by the Net seemed to allow for business plans that might rival a Mission Impossible screenplay for sheer excitement. He grabbed roommate Anil Devaiah, a UI senior marketing major from Des Moines, and asked him if he wanted to become his e-commerce business colleague.

Their target? The steadily growing market of information-starved Frisbee golf fanatics—like themselves—around the globe. Imagine if the power of the Web could be harnessed to create a centralized source of tournament scores, course areas, and club listings for an expanding group of crazed fans. Simmons and Devaiah did it. Working with the national Professional Disc Golf Association, they collect and design the content for discrevolution.com.

And, they make money. Pooh-poohing the website banner ad (tawdry, too slow), Simmons insists that the shortest distance between the salesperson and the customer is still the direct sale. A disc flinger's biggest expense is a $9 plastic saucer. And, that's the product—the only product—he and Devaiah hawk to the disc golf disciples who log on to peruse scores and rankings.

The two students earn enough cash to more than cover rent for their off-campus apartment. Exposure to large numbers of people from all corners of the world, together with the interactive nature of the site and the low cost of its maintenance, is the key to disc-revolution.com's success. It was the perfect opportunity for a dream-to-business exchange, Simmons says.

"Entrepreneurship is all about how you look at opportunity," explains David Hensley, 86BA, director of the JPEC. "It's about being able to indulge your individual creative spirit—it's about a passion you have for something and about a desire to do something original."

Talk to any number of budding entrepreneurs, and you'll hear something slip into their conversation that smacks of a distinct distaste for the routine. They don't want to schlep to work every day, contemplating the frailties of their bosses, drifting into the American Daydream: a new start, lots of money, long stretches of vacation interrupted by short spurts of work.

But even those who join the corportate world need to start fending for themselves. "The old traditional model—that you graduate and you work for a company for 40 years—has gone out the window," says John Robinson, UI professor of computer and electrical engineering.

Robinson helped create the JPEC's Certificate of Entrepreneurship in the early 1990s. Fewer than a half-dozen of each year's graduating engineering students actually fulfill the requirements for that certificate, he says. Many opt to take only the few business classes they feel suit their needs. Which is fine by Robinson. It's enough, at least, to equip them with a few more tools for survival.

Much more than career success may be at stake. Nothing short of the health of the national economy rides on showing future generations the ins and outs of entrepreneurship, according to Hensley. Look at the tremendous power small businesses wield. In Iowa, they create more than three-quarters of all new jobs. They also offer greater opportunities for minorities and women to get into business. And, as fertile ground for innovation, new products, and technological revolutions, they attract new sources of commerce.

So, never mind that a million bucks and an endless vacation seem like daydreams. What's important, Hensley advises, is that we encourage the development of the entrepreneurial mindset, both in ourselves and in our children. Even with technology-savvy kids in high demand by leading companies—and even with starting salaries apparently still rising all over the country for new grads—independent spirits will continue to come to college to learn how to succeed on their own terms.

"You don't have to line up with the status quo," Hensley says. "Why worry about trying to fit into the business world when you can shoot for the stars?"

Gary Kuhlmann, 78BA, associate editor of Iowa Alumni Magazine, went to journalism school because he didn't understand the business world. He still doesn't.