It seems that Ja Rule is the type of man who wants to learn from his mistakes.
The 44-year-old rapper, whose real name is Jeffrey Atkins, shared a commemorative tweet to mark his completion of a Harvard Business School online certificate course in ‘Fundamentals of Entrepreneurship’ on Tuesday.
His foray into learning the ins and outs of being a suitable and successful entrepreneur comes four years after he co-founded the disastrous Fyre Festival, which put his business partner Billy McFarland in the slammer.
The Graduate: Ja Rule shared a commemorative tweet to mark his completion of a Harvard Business School online certificate course on ‘Entrepreneurship Essentials’ on Tuesday
‘I’m not the sharpest knife in the drawer, buuuuut …,’ Ja Rule tweeted along with a photo of his Ivy League completion certificate.
The certificate lists Jeffrey Atkins as having completed the Entrepreneurship Essentials program, which is a four-week virtual education course.
Unlike the astronomically expensive MBA program at Harvard Business School, which costs students $ 73,440 for the year 2020-21, the online program costs just $ 1,050.
There are also no prerequisites for the program, which means that anyone can do it if they pay the fees and complete the course, while the traditional MBA program has an acceptance rate of less than 20%.
Student: The certificate lists Jeffrey Atkins as having completed the Entrepreneurship Essentials program, which is a four week virtual education course that costs $ 1,050 with no prerequisites to enroll
‘Entrepreneurship Essentials consists of approximately 25 to 30 hours of material delivered over a four-week period. You can complete the course on your own time, meeting regular deadlines, ‘according to the Harvard website.
Other celebrities have participated in similar Harvard Business School programs in the past, ranging from $ 10,000 intensive three-day programs to expensive multi-year certification programs that cost more than $ 40,000.
These celebrities include Ciara, Chip and Joanna Gaines, Swizz Beatz, Maria Sharapova, Karlie Kloss, Katie Holmes, Channing Tatum and Tyra Banks.
Banks were really criticized in 2012, when she was vague about her qualifications at Harvard Business School and was called in for making it look like she had completed the full MBA program.
However, although the certification course is not as rigorous as the MBA program, the virtual classes are still taught by Harvard professors.
Alumni: Other celebrities have participated in similar Harvard Business School programs in the past, ranging from $ 10,000 intensive three-day programs to expensive multi-year certification programs that cost more than $ 40,000 – including Tyra Banks, who was criticized in 2012 by apparently try to pass your diploma like a real MBA
In particular, Professor William Sahlman, who teaches the Fundamentals of Entrepreneurship course, instructs anxious students on how to identify business opportunities, assess risks and rewards and provide guidance on financial issues that arise for start-ups.
All of these skills would have been particularly useful for Ja Rule when he co-founded what would become one of the most embarrassing events in modern history, the Fyre Festival.
The rapper helped develop the concept of a tropical music festival with Billy McFarland, who announced Fyre as the age-old mecca – populated by beautiful models, social media influencers like Kendall Jenner, Bella Hadid and Emily Ratajkkowski.
The execution of the luxurious music festival was a cataclysmic failure.
Lesson Learned: Principles of Entrepreneurship teaches you how to identify business opportunities, assess risks and rewards and provide guidance on financial issues, skills that would have been useful for Ja Rule when he co-founded the disastrous Fyre Festival with Billy McFarland
The guests arrived on the island of the Bahamas that was hosting the event and found the semi-finished place, its missing luggage and the promised gourmet kitchen replaced by cheese sandwiches and soggy lettuce.
Musical acts fell and many guests were imprisoned for days.
The calamity put McFarland in prison with a six-year sentence for defrauding investors of $ 28 million – which he was forced to pay.
Ja Rule ended up claiming that he too had been “hurried, tricked, tricked, the hood blinked and misplaced” by McFarland.
He was not held criminally responsible for the catastrophe and, in 2019, Ja Rule was fired as part of a collective action at the Fyre Festival.
Calamity: Ja Rule ended up claiming that he, too, had been “cheated, cheated, cheated, cheated, embezzled” by McFarland, who is serving a six-year sentence behind bars for defrauding $ 28 million investors