EDHEC students explore the entrepreneurial mindset at Station F

At EDHEC, entrepreneurship is not only understood as the act of launching a company. It is also a mindset: the ability to identify opportunities, take initiative, build networks and create value in uncertain environments. This philosophy is at the heart of the MSc in Entrepreneurship & Innovation, whose students took part in a learning track at Station F in Paris, one of the world’s leading start-up campuses.

Designed for students who wish to launch their own venture, join the innovation ecosystem, work with incubators or venture capital firms, or contribute to entrepreneurship and innovation projects in consulting, the MSc offers a practical immersion into the realities of entrepreneurial life. For Quentin Genissel, Director of the MSc in Entrepreneurship & Innovation, the visit to Station F was an essential opportunity to challenge assumptions and bring students closer to the daily experiences of entrepreneurs.
 

“Most students have sometimes a very biased representation of what it looks like to be an entrepreneur,” he explains. “By showing them around and by offering them the opportunity to meet actual entrepreneurs, they can have a rational identification process with entrepreneurs who share their personal and professional problems and challenges.”

Immersion in a major start-up campus

During the visit, students explored the Share Building, one of Station F’s three buildings, and discovered how the campus operates. Quentin Genissel emphasised a key distinction: “Station F is a start-up campus, not an incubator.” This distinction matters because Station F brings together a broad entrepreneurial community, enabling start-ups, support programmes, corporates, investors and schools to interact within the same ecosystem.

Yasmine Machwate, Head of EDHEC Incubators, highlighted the scale and richness of this environment: “Station F is a big campus with more than a thousand start-ups and 30 partner programmes, and EDHEC is part of this campus.” As one of the main programmes represented there, EDHEC works closely with the Station F team and wider community to ensure that its entrepreneurs benefit from what she describes as “a very tight and impactful ecosystem”.

For students, this setting offers more than a tour. It provides a direct encounter with the entrepreneurial world, its opportunities and its challenges. By meeting four entrepreneurs currently developing their projects at Station F, students were able to ask practical questions, expand their network and gain a clearer sense of what entrepreneurial careers can look like.

Learning from entrepreneurs and alumni

A central objective of the learning track was to help students connect with people they could identify with. Many of the speakers were alumni of the programme who had built careers within the entrepreneurship ecosystem. Importantly, these careers were not limited to founding start-ups. They also included roles across innovation, support structures and the wider entrepreneurial landscape.

For Quentin Genissel, this alumni connection is particularly powerful: “Students can really get their hopes up and be energised by the idea that it could be them in a few years.” Seeing former students progress into meaningful positions helps current participants imagine their own trajectories and understand the many pathways available after the MSc.

This approach reflects the programme’s broader ambition: to prepare students not only with technical knowledge, but also with confidence, perspective and professional connections.

Entrepreneurship as an everyday mindset

For Yasmine Machwate, the visit was also a way to broaden students’ understanding of entrepreneurship. “We really believe that entrepreneurship is not only about building a project, but also being entrepreneurial in your everyday life,” she says.

This message is especially relevant for students who may not yet know whether they want to become founders. The entrepreneurial mindset can be applied in many contexts: joining a start-up, supporting entrepreneurs through an incubator, investing in new ventures, driving innovation within a company, or developing creative solutions to complex business challenges.

By introducing students to the tools, networks and attitudes required in this ecosystem, EDHEC aims to equip them for a wide range of careers. The goal is not simply to encourage business creation, but to cultivate adaptability, initiative and the capacity to act in fast-moving environments.

Building confidence for the future

The visit to Station F offered students a concrete experience of the entrepreneurial ecosystem, moving beyond theory and into lived reality. They encountered entrepreneurs facing real challenges, alumni who had built diverse careers, and an environment designed to foster innovation at scale.

Yasmine Machwate summed up the intended impact of the day: “I hope students leave Station F today with a lot of inspiration, a lot of motivation, and also all the right tools they need to be entrepreneurial in their everyday life.”

For EDHEC MSc in Entrepreneurship & Innovation students, the experience was both educational and energising. It showed that entrepreneurship is not a distant or abstract ambition, but a professional path shaped by curiosity, resilience, networks and action. Whether they go on to launch ventures, join start-ups, work with investors or drive innovation inside organisations, the students left Station F with a clearer understanding of the ecosystem — and of the role they may one day play within it.