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Entrepreneurship is a cornerstone of more comprehensive economic growth and a key engine of success. Entrepreneurship functions as a mechanism for a resilient, sensible, and expanded national economy based on knowledge, ideas, and intelligent design. Entrepreneurship is considered a developing field because of escalating social challenges worldwide, especially in UAE, where job openings after graduation are turning out to be limited. At the same time, the existing Covid-19 pandemic has worsened the situation with massive job loss and the downward trend of all kinds of businesses in the entire middle east region, including the UAE. Covid-19, well-known as coronavirus, the epidemic holds radically impacted industry transactions, consumer behaviors, and tendencies throughout the globe. The current pandemic brings a communal transformation from ground-breaking notions (Young & Grinsfelder, 2011). According to the World Bank report on Global Economic Outlook (2020), the COVID-19 recession has the sharpest relegates in economic growth among all global recessions. The world’s premier financial institution again reiterated that the COVID-19 downturn would be the deepest since World War II, and it would create more barriers to entrepreneurs in all fields (World Bank, 2020). The field is continuously thought of as a leading position in social participation and responsibility to economic development (Ebrashi, 2013). Many young graduates adopt entrepreneurship as a profession rather than looking for jobs in large corporations (Scarborough, 2012). Even a wide variety of forms of entrepreneurship is available globally, and most prospective businesspeople start in micro, small and medium enterprises (MSMEs) or social entrepreneurship. These most widely used forms of entrepreneurship are also very commonly opted ones, even in the UAE. During the current pandemic, this prospective entrepreneur’s community has a lot of fears due to the innumerable number of challenges identified by the existing businesses throughout the world. The importance and difficulty of challenges facing entrepreneurs can vary based on where they are in their entrepreneurial journey (Bennett & Chatterji, 2019; Looze and Desai, 2020). The impact of the pandemic on businesses has been massive and devastatingly destructive, and effects can vary associated with business characteristics, like industry, and business owner characteristics, like race (Fairlie, 2020; Kochhar, 2020).
The government of Dubai encourages entrepreneurs all through the Mohammed Bin Rashid Establishment for Young Business Leaders and Mohammed bin Rashid Al Maktoum Foundation. The UAE government's funding for young Emirati entrepreneurs is remarkably substantial, and there are numerous grants accessible for those with a healthy business plan. For instance, Dubai Chamber has set up Tejar Dubai or Entrepreneurs Development Program for promising entrepreneurs, including UAE nationals, to acquire and mentor bright business ideas. With the UAE economy projected to grow substantially. With a wealth of initiatives to entice entrepreneurs and assist startups in developing, 2019 appears to be a perfect time to launch a business within the Emirates. The new visa system and a range of incentives for young entrepreneurs appear favorable to attract new business leaders to the Emirates and boost the local labor market with new talent. In addition, the Federal Government conducted Expo 2020's youth attach scheme to inspire young people to become 'the innovators and thought leaders of tomorrow.' In the meantime, the government's UAE Youth program directing 21 to 30-age group youngsters is considered to support ground-breaking young individuals to advance smooth-edged business education. Based on the given justification, the researchers initiated the study to explore the opinions of UAE business program students in selecting entrepreneurship as a professional career along with challenges students are facing in this regard, particularly during the existing pandemic situation.