As a senior and management major in the Isenberg School of Management, I’ve had plenty of exposure to the Chase Career Center, the business career center at the University of Massachusetts. Traditionally, a majority of their job listings are for the big four accounting firms, and for established, relatively traditional companies. While this is not a bad thing, and I don’t intend to undermine nor discredit their hard work and successful job placements, I want to point out that there are other options out there: startups.

UMass students have spawned many successful startups, and you can too.

Traditional career wisdom often teaches you to work at an established company for a few years to get your feet on the ground and then, if you so desire, create a startup once you have that work experience. I would argue exactly the opposite. Working at a big traditional company often only gives you a narrow view of its operations. You develop a few niche skills that keep the company moving and keep your job secure.

Startups afford you a 30,000-foot view of a company. You can explicitly see how a decision in one department directly influences another department. You get a realistic feel for business, which most notably boils down to skills like resourcefulness, work ethic and resiliency. Startups are the best places to develop these skills, bar none. Everyone at a startup is there because they want to be, not merely to pay their bills; it’s the ultimate team.

You can euphemize it as security, safety, uncertainty avoidance or the like, but I think it’s ultimately fear that controls us in this country and in this world. Whether it is fear of failure, fear of poverty or fear of rejection, it’s fear that controls a majority of our perceptions and therefore our actions. This fear leads us down safe, though traditional and often bland, career paths. Such willingness to conform has had disastrous consequences on our country’s innovation and resourcefulness, and consequentially, on our prosperity. In many ways our hope lies on the shoulders of our startups. It’ll quite likely be startups that innovate us out of our current environmental and economic crises.

While it’s often fear that holds people back, we cannot be afraid to fail. Truthfully, a majority of startups do indeed fail – up to 70 percent. While you wouldn’t necessarily take a bet with these odds in Las Vegas, a startup isn’t a bet, but rather, it is the embodiment of a genuine belief in yourself and the people you’re working with. Surely not everyone is afraid of such odds – all companies were once startups, even if they don’t fit that label anymore. Where would we be if Steve Jobs and Bill Gates didn’t drop out of college to form computer companies in their respective garages? While it’s easy to forget that Apple and Microsoft were once startups, they are a testament to the important role startups play in innovation.

People like Gates, Zuckerberg and Jobs are perceived as superhuman and idolized for their achievements through a distant but envious lens. It’s implied that these hyper-smart quirky college dropouts can create startups but that it’s out of a normal person’s reach. While these people are no doubt transcendent geniuses, that was not always the case. At one point or another, they were merely humble college dropouts making weird machines in their garages. Their public perceptions are a result of their body of work, not some innate ability that’s beyond the rest of us.

UMass students can create, and have created, successful startups. Whether started by former dropouts, grads or even current students, it’s very possible. Take Monster.com, one of the world’s largest employment websites which was founded by UMass dropout Jeff Taylor (who has since returned and received his diploma). Take CampusLIVE, a website founded by two UMass students, Boris Revsin and Jared Stenquist, who never made it to graduation (though they plan to). They recently raised $3.1 million in funding from Highland Capital Partners and have over 20 full time employees. Isn’t it ironic that many of the most successful people never finished college?

Then there’s Localocracy, a website founded by UMass grad Conor White-Sullivan in 2008, which recently was acquired by the Huffington Post for reportedly close to $1 million. Not too shabby. Take Schedr.com, which was started at UMass by current students Nikhil Thorat and Geoff Daigle (both class of 2012), and already has more than 20,000 users at over 40 schools. Sure, internships are great business experience, but the best business experience you can get is starting and running an actual business. My point is this: it’s possible to create a successful startup out of UMass if you just get out there and try.

My advice can be translated to forming any type of foundation, including non-profits. UMass grads have also founded many foundations with large impacts. Take ’05 grad and former hockey team captain Peter Trovato. In 2004, Trovato founded the Massachusetts Soldiers Legacy Fund (MSLF) after reading about a Massachusetts solider who had died in Iraq before meeting his newborn son. MSLF has since raised over $4 million in college scholarships for Massachusetts children whose parents were killed while serving overseas.

“I started the Mass. Soldiers Legacy Fund (MSLF) during my senior year at UMass and would encourage current UMass students to consider taking a chance in establishing their own business or social enterprise,” said Trovato. “Growing the MSLF has certainly been a time consuming and difficult task, but it has been the most rewarding aspect of my early career.”

“While I am not compensated for my work on the MSLF,” continued Trovato, “I have still learned a lot about entrepreneurship and organization building. The MSLF has given me the opportunity to interact and network with successful business and political figures; I’ve learned how to build and manage a board of directors, create budgets and projections and – most importantly – I’ve been able to solicit support and over $4 million worth of donations for individuals that deserve significant recognition: the families and children of fallen Massachusetts Service members.”

UMass class of 2008 grad and CampusLIVE Chief Operating Officer, Ryan Durkin, puts it like this, “Starting a company is the most exciting, scary, fulfilling, crazy, motivating thing in business. There is nothing quite like building something from nothing. And if you have such an appetite, but you don’t know what that ‘something’ is, I suggest diving in to figure it out. Now is the time to do it. The costs of building new technologies and innovating on old ones are so low. Barriers are low. Hungry talent in college campuses, UMass included, is high. Assemble a team. Build. Test. And retest.”

This advice is profoundly simple and relevant. We, as UMass students, will set the direction of future generations. We might not know what that direction is yet, but we’ll figure it out. The burden is on us, and the time is now – this is our opportunity. We must innovate instead of conform. We must take chances, for better or worse. Whether or not we’ll succeed remains to be seen, but surely we’ll fail if we don’t try at all.

Ryan Walsh is a Collegian columnist. He can be reached at [email protected].