Shuford Away
Semester Away
London, United Kingdom
January 17 — April 26, 2026
At A Glance
UNC Honors in London – Entrepreneurship Track
- Program Leader: Jed Simmons
- Program Contact: Holland Page
- Program Partner: Honors Carolina
- Dates: January 17th – April 26th, 2026
- ECON 325 Bootcamp: January 4th – January 16th, 2026 in Durham, NC
- Prerequisites: ECON 125 or Permission from Instructor
- Eligibility: Open to all UNC-Chapel Hill undergraduates (second-year status or greater) with a 3.0 GPA who have completed ECON 125. Students who complete this program will be admitted to the Shuford Program in Entrepreneurship.
- Application Due Date: September 10th, 2025
While ECON 125 is a prerequisite for the program, students must also complete ECON 101 OR ECON 111 to fulfill all minor requirements.
Program Overview
The Shuford Program in Entrepreneurship partners with Honors Carolina for an immersive entrepreneurship experience in London. Students live and work in an iconic city while completing most of the Entrepreneurship minor in a single semester, combining virtual communities of UNC students taking classes while sharing their experiences in entrepreneurial internships in a variety of industries. Through their coursework and additional programming, students will meet entrepreneurs, venture capitalists, product leaders, thought leaders, design thinkers, and industry leaders, visiting companies and venues at the heart of London’s entrepreneurship and innovation ecosystem. Students complete ECON 325H, ECON 327H, and ECON 393H in addition to the required Shuford Program internship. Students who are accepted and commit to completing the Shuford Semester Away program are automatically accepted into the on-campus Shuford Program in Entrepreneurship.
Studying at UNC’s Winston House on historic Bedford Square, students live in a central London neighborhood, attend seminars within the shadow of the British Museum, conduct research at the British Library, learn from professors who make London their home, and take advantage daily of the artistic, musical, theatrical, and cultural riches of this unique metropolis. Students earn at least 15 credit hours through 5 required courses; they remain enrolled at UNC-Chapel Hill with a full semester’s work going toward general education and major or minor requirements. An internship for 20 hours per week provides valuable educational experiences in a cross-cultural context and satisfies the Shuford Program requirement.
Internship placements combined with academic coursework allow students to appreciate connections between theory and practice and gain exposure to potential career choices. A suitable placement for each student will be based on their goals, interests, previous coursework, and skills. Positions are available in art and design, education, theater, film, business, government, journalism, law, social enterprise, entrepreneurship, marketing and PR, museums, social services, and more.
Program Components
Professor: Honors Carolina Faculty
Prerequisites & Permissions: None
Grading Status: Letter Grade
HNRS 378 The London Experience is a guided journey through local and UK cultural and historic sites. All students are required to take this course during their semester to ensure an immersive and enriched cultural experience.
Professor: Jed Simmons, Vickie Gibbs
Prerequisites & Permissions: ECON 125
Grading Status: Letter Grade
ECON 325H Entrepreneurship: Principles, Concepts, Frameworks, and Fluency is the foundational course in the Entrepreneurship Minor. This course is designed to help students prepare for the 21st Century and provides a foundation in key principles, concepts, and fluency in entrepreneurship, specifically in the areas of design thinking, understanding consumers and customers, company strategy, and entrepreneurial finance and capital formation.
Students will study the building blocks of innovation while preparing for their careers and network, learning important skills and tools important in startups and growth companies such as branding, storytelling and video making. This course is taught as a two-week intensive “boot camp” at the beginning of the semester to provide a granular approach to the most important tasks required to create a new enterprise. The course meets for more than four hours a day at American Underground in Durham, NC before students depart for London.
Professor: Jed Simmons
Prerequisites & Permissions: ECON 325
Grading Status: Letter Grade
ECON 327H celebrates London’s innovation, creativity, and entrepreneurship, as well as Britannia’s personality. London is one of the global centers for finance, flowers, fashion, retail, food, drinks, art, sport, creativity, tourism, venture capital, web 3.0, media, and baking. The course is a deep dive with site visits, guests, cases, readings, videos, and experiences. We will call Winston House home, but we will be all over London visiting venues, stadiums, accelerators, creative spaces, offices, and a private garden.
ECON 327H fulfills either the HI-INTERN (IDEAs in Action Gen Ed) or EE (Making Connections Gen Ed) requirement.
Professor: Jed Simmons
Prerequisites & Permissions: ECON 125, ECON 325, AND an internship approved by the Shuford Program Career Services Manager
Grading Status: Letter Grade
ECON 393 Practicum in Entrepreneurship is the capstone course in the Entrepreneurship Minor. This course is a hands-on learning lab to prepare students for entrepreneurial life – it has been designed to enlighten students on the tools and skills required to be an outstanding entrepreneur, founder, investor, or employee. This course introduces students to speakers, readings, podcasts, exercises, assignments, and practical lessons about entrepreneurship. It provides students with a critical analysis of their performance as seen through the experiences of founders, startup executives, and seasoned corporate professionals across a range of disciplines to better understand the entrepreneurial and business ecosystem. Students develop both practical skills of financial and operational management and soft skills for personal and professional development needed to be competitive in entrepreneurial activity. The goal of this course is to provide students with a curriculum that takes the design-thinking model and challenges them to apply it to their own life.
ECON 393 fulfills either the HI-INTERN (IDEAs in Action Gen Ed) or EE (Making Connections Gen Ed) requirement.
Students take the lead on finding an internship that fits their interests (additional support is available) in growth companies like startups or scale-ups or for innovative departments within more established organizations. During the 20-hour-a-week internship, students gain hands-on experience, bridging classroom content from ECON 393H with practical skills gained at work.
Professor: Honors Carolina Faculty
Prerequisites & Permissions: None
Grading Status: Letter Grade
Students are also required to take 1 additional elective course through UNC. Descriptions for the available courses can be found here.
Program Costs
Billable Costs or Cashier-Billed Expenses are applied to your UNC Student Account. Tuition and program fees are not paid to the host institution.
- Study Abroad Admin Fee: $925.00
- Tuition & Fees (Academic Costs): $6,592.00
- Program Costs (Logistical Costs): $12,798.00
- BCBS Global Solutions Insurance: $156.56
- ISOS Risk Management Support: $75.00
- Internship Insurance: $12.00
Non Billable Costs or Out-of Pocket Estimates are estimated educational and living expenses while studying abroad and may vary based on your spending habits.
- Application Fee: $50.00
- Airfare: $1,500.00
- UK Visa: $800.00
- Books: $100.00
- Meals: $2,000.00
- Passport: $165.00
- Personal Expenses: $2,000.00
- Local Transportation: $100.00
The total anticipated cost of this program is $27,273.56. For the most current cost estimate, please see the Study Abroad Program Brochure here.