Yesterday I got to see what it’s like being on Dragon’s Den.

I was recently made a Visiting Professor at London Metropolitan University’s Business School and they quickly got me to work by inviting me on to a judging panel of a national competition to find Britain’s most entrepreneurial student.  One by one six students came along with their business plans and I was looking forward to being Duncan Ballantyne and have the nerves pop out of my head whilst reducing the candidates into gibbering wrecks within seconds.

But no – these were smart, well thought out propositions by students who had not only researched thoroughly their propositions but had actually physically tested them out alongside their studies. Things are very different from when I was at the LSE. I remember being in the bar one day in our second year at lunchtime with a friend of mine when someone approached him and said “Excuse me, are you Simon Ellis?” My friend confirmed he was and that very soon, he would indeed go along and see this gentleman. When he departed, I asked Simon if that was the school psychologist. “No,” he said. “Apparently that’s my tutor”.

I wasn’t much better – when I went to see my tutor at the end of the first year, my class reports were littered with comments like “Who is he?” and “Must be a mistake – never seen him” primarily because I was messing about in the students union running for very elected office going.

The students I met yesterday were not just attending their courses but alongside that were developing their own businesses, one supporting himself through both by working as a waiter. With graduate unemployment at monstrously high levels, it’s comforting to know that some students at least are taking responsibility for their own futures rather than sleep-walk into becoming a statistical reminder of how bad the economy will be for a fair amount of time.