Mentoring the Future Entrepreneurs: An Exploration of Female Students’ Perceptions

Abstract

Entrepreneurship courses in Pakistan, designed in line with the Higher Education Commission (HEC) guidelines, aim to encourage university graduates to pursue entrepreneurial career pathways. Despite their comprehensive structure, these courses overlook a key component that is closely tied to entrepreneurial success: mentoring. This study primarily explores how female graduate students perceive mentoring and its potential value when integrated into entrepreneurship education. Adopting a qualitative exploratory design, semi-structured interviews were conducted with fifteen female graduate students from three major Pakistani cities who had completed an entrepreneurship course. The data were examined using Reflexive Thematic Analysis as outlined by Braun and Clarke (2021). The findings of the study highlight that female undergraduate students consider mentoring an essential support mechanism during entrepreneurship training. The study concludes that embedding mentoring within entrepreneurship curricula could play a significant role in enhancing female students’ personal growth and professional readiness.