When those judges narrow it down to one lucky winner, the victor can pad his or her pockets with $60,000 in seed money, which is plenty to get a business up and running.

Entrepreneurship definitely seems to be catching on at UW as is evidenced by the incredible growth of the PEI club. Bourassa-Shaw says, "Three years ago there were six PEI members. This year we have 160."

A guy who has been there done that, and who is still doing it for that matter, when it comes to student entrepreneurship is Pete Findlay, the CEO of a corporation called Cybercamps.

Findlay was the 1997 winner of the PEI business plan competition. He started a company that combined his two passions - technology and children. Cybercamps, which was created while Findlay was a student at UW, provides a forum for kids to learn all the things about computers that they aren't learning in school.

"I was faced with graduation and it was a choice between jumping into work for a big corporation or just taking the plunge and starting now," says Findlay. He opted for the latter, "I thought I might as well do it now. I'm young; I have no family to support. So I jumped in and took a risk."

That's one advantage college students have over others in the business realm, according to Findlay. Being young leaves students with relatively little to lose. Taking risks isn't quite as scary when a mortgage, car payments and kids aren't in the picture yet.

Findlay's risk paid off handsomely. His Cybercamps started as a venture that grossed around $40,000 in its first year, but has since grown into a multimillion-dollar operation with hundreds of employees around the country.

John Lunetta, a University of Indiana senior, may not have a multimillion-dollar corporation to his name, but his business still did plenty to help him get through school.

"The name of my business is American Wildlife Management, actually I incorporated myself so I guess you could say it's American Wildlife Management Incorporated," offers Lunetta.

In a nutshell, he goes where the wild things go, then he catches the wild things. "I manage urban wildlife problems. Essentially I solve human and animal conflicts. But that's not to be confused with going out and rounding up stray dogs and cats. This is strictly wildlife."

Lunetta says you'd be surprised how much money one can make rounding up raccoons, skunks and beavers. He says that during the summer months, from about the middle of May into August, he can make about $25,000. He also says that most wildlife managers who work full time make well into six figures.

But dealing with all those animals that go bump in the night doesn't come without a price, especially when one is trying to get a college degree at the same time.

"There was one time I was doing a job and I had a really big test at nine in the morning," reveals Lunetta. "I got a call at seven a.m. that a trap I had set for a skunk had gotten the skunk. ·So I thought, 'this is slick I'll get some coffee, get the animal, relocate it and go take the test.'"

Of course everything did not go quite as he had planned. Lunetta showed up to the house where the animal was trapped and neighbors, family and friends were already out in force gawking at the captured creature.

"I was walking up to the cage and this kid yells at me. Just as I was about to say something, I turned my head and I felt liquid go all the way up my left arm and down my left leg. It was the first time in my life I got sprayed."

Such are the trials of running a wildlife management business. But although he was sullied, Lunetta still made it to his test. " I sat in the far back row. ·I flew through that test," he says.