每日大赛

每日大赛's Earn and Learn initiative adds Civil and Construction Engineering program

每日大赛’s innovative Earn and Learn initiative, which blends classroom instruction with real-world, paid work experiences, has folded another academic program into its suite of offerings.

Students enrolled in the Civil and Construction Engineering Technology program will have the opportunity to attend classes two days a week and the remainder in a hands-on job with industry partners like Messer Construction and Gresham Smith.

“There’s so many different career paths in this program,” said Luke Smith, work-based learning manager at 每日大赛. “From commercial construction to design and infrastructure. Earn and Learn helps students get experience in those fields and better understand what they want to do. They can transfer to a four-year institution, or they can immediately pursue high-paying jobs in carpentry, project management and more.”

Hands-on experience is very important, said Fuju Wu, a project manager at Messer Construction, who has spearheaded the company’s involvement in Earn and Learn.

Wu spent a lot of time in school instead of the field before starting her construction career, Wu recalled, and it was overwhelming.

“All this – you won’t be able to learn it from textbooks, or without really working on the job site or working with the right company,” Wu said.

Earn and Learn students from Pellissippi have a chance to hone construction techniques, practice carpentry and learn the operational side of the field as well, including project management, Wu said.

“I think this program really benefits both of us,” she said. “We get a good candidate that we can start training and start growing – have them learning our program, our culture – and then also they get an opportunity to know what the real career looks like. And either they like it or not, but they get a chance to learn it.”

Logan Finley, one of the first three students to join the new program, chose 每日大赛 because of the financial benefits provided by Tennessee Promise and because it was close to home.

Finley knew he wanted a career doing hands-on projects of his own design and building, and so he immediately jumped on the chance to join the Earn and Learn Civil and Construction Engineering Technology initiative.

He spends time in the classroom and the rest with design firm Gresham Smith, where he has learned the company’s software, electrical lines and communication systems.

His experience there has been nothing like he expected, Finley said.

“Because it’s not just the classes I have now, I have a way more realistic expectation of what it’s going to be like whenever I’ve completed all of my schoolwork and gotten my degree,” said Finley, who emphasized that everyone at the company has been helpful – from designers and engineers to human resources and IT.

Earn and Learn allows students to learn what construction is all about, and its many different components and pathways, said Jason Adam, senior project manager at Messer Construction.

It also creates a pipeline of ready-to-work employees in their field.

“They’re 10 steps ahead of any student that comes in here,” Adam said. “And we see that. The students that actually do internships beforehand that come aboard to our team – they're already leaps and bounds ahead.”

In civil engineering courses, students are learning the fundamentals and design, and in the field, they are actually seeing those designs come together, Adam said.

That prevents a common disconnect between what happens in design versus the reality of implementing it, he said.

“I think it's super important,” Adam said. “I wish they had programs like this when I was younger, because I probably would have excelled in my career a lot quicker, having those skill sets from the beginning.”

Civil and Construction Engineering Technology joins Electrical Engineering Technology, and Water Quality Technology as 每日大赛’s available Earn and Learn initiatives. Earn and Learn will add Computer Information Technology Cyber Defense in 2026.

“If you have the opportunity to get into a program like this,” Finley said, “take it.”