Many economists believe that entrepreneurs and small business owners are the major drivers of job growth in the United States. The Small Business Administration says companies with fewer than 500 employees have accounted for nearly 80 percent of the new jobs created in the U.S. over the past decade, and this trend is likely to continue. Gone are the days when UW grads would take a job with a large company and be employed there for the rest of their working careers. The entrepreneurial skills that were only applicable to startups are now needed by business professionals to manage and create their own jobs in an ever shifting market What students are realizing is that their college career represents the start-up phase of their new business. Entrepreneurs ask themselves "What do I know? "What am I good at?" "What am I passionate about?" After answering these questions, they start looking for gaps in the market that their skills and/or services could fill. Students need to start thinking like an entrepreneur and start asking themselves the same questions. Their answers will speak to their personal vision of who they want to be and where they want to go. For UW-Madison students this kind of thinking is more important than ever. UW students are pondering a future that will find many of them being their own bosses and creating their own businesses. This innovative outlook and entrepreneurial spirit is being celebrated nationally during the first-ever "EntrepreneurshipWeek USA" (February 25 — March 3), and the UW-Madison campus will be actively engaged in the week and will provide several opportunities for all students to think about entrepreneurship and what it means for their world and their future. In fact at 5 p.m. on Wednesday, Feb. 28, in the Main Lounge of the Memorial Union, students are invited to participate in a conversation featuring several UW-Madison-based, or Madison-birthed, entrepreneurs, among them: The creators of "Chad Vader," the Internet sensation that has received over 9 million downloads on YouTube, MySpace, and other websites. One of the founders of TurboTap, TIME Magazine's most amazing invention of 2005, a device that allows vendors to pour tap beer faster and more efficiently. TurboTap has been a featured story in the Wall Street Journal, ESPN the magazine, and Popular Science. The CEO/co-founder of Prep Cosmetics which offers a wide variety of designer makeup lines, color cosmetics, tools and accessories, and a professional makeup artist on staff. The founders of SconnieNation, which is dedicated to promoting the Wisconsin way of life via humorous apparel. The owners of ExchangeHut.com, a UW-Madison startup company that gives college students a space for exchanging textbooks and athletic tickers online. When they were students, entrepreneurs like these recognized opportunities and acted on them. On a campus like UW-Madison, students are exposed to so many possibilities that it can be difficult to decide which ones they may want to pursue. But recognizing opportunities does not mean taking every opportunity. The important thing is to find clubs, courses, hobbies, issues, etc. that you are passionate about. These can make you more interesting, more versatile, and more appealing, not to mention that most entrepreneurs cite passion, not money, as their leading motivator. Whether you believe it or not, college is one of the few times in your life where you are surrounded by people who want you to succeed and who are willing to help you do it. Use them. They might just help you to become your own boss, and make your own future. Charles Hoslet is managing director of the UW-Madison Office of Corporate Relations. Tyler Leeper is a first year MBA student at UW-Madison, the current president of the UW's Entrepreneurship Association, and president of Wingra Canoe & Sailing Center, a watercraft recreation center in Madison. UW-Madison was recently named one of eight Ewing Marion Kauffman Foundation "Kauffman Campuses," and will receive $5 million over five years to stimulate the awareness of entrepreneurship campus-wide, to help students from any part of campus access the skills of entrepreneurship, and to spur greater research commercialization statewide. UW-Madison will be "kicking off" that campus-wide effort during EntrepreneurshipWeek USA.