Class Acts In The Ivy Covered Halls

It has happened to more than one student in business school at the University of California at Los Angeles. She settles into her chair for the job interview. She has studied the company and is ready to offer her opinion on how it can grow. Instead, the recruiter asks her a much simpler question: Have you taken Cockrum?

Cockrum is William M. Cockrum, an adjunct professor who has been teaching a course in entrepreneurial finance at UCLA's John E. Anderson Graduate School of Management for the past 12 years. He is perhaps the best teacher of entrepreneurship in the country. And when alumni return to recruit at the school, whether they're with a high-tech startup or a Wall Street giant, they often want to know how job candidates did in his notoriously tough class.