Imagine taking part in an internship where you can use your knowledge, learn more real-world career information and be part of your university’s growth. Seth Edwards did just that.
Edwards is a rising senior construction management major from Clarksburg with a minor in business, and over the summer, he had an internship with Barger Construction, which is building the University of Tennessee at Martin’s Tennessee Entrepreneurial Science and Technology (TEST) Hub on the west side of the campus near the Student Recreation Center.
The TEST Hub is a $19 million facility that will combine educational facilities, entrepreneurial centers and manufacturing workshops surrounding a shared industrial makerspace.
The TEST Hub will also be the new home for the UT Martin Regional Entrepreneurship and Economic Development Center. The REED Center assists existing and potential business owners through one-on-one consultations and interactive training programs.
Edwards began his internship with Barger in April, the day that construction began for the TEST Hub.
“I was going to class, getting out of class, going to work, going home, eating supper, doing homework and doing it all again the next day – and I enjoyed it,” he said.
A former football player at West Carroll High School, Edwards was a quarterbacks student assistant with the UT Martin football team when he first came to campus.
“I enjoyed that,” he said. “My parents always believed that anything you do, you can learn something from. I might not be a coach, but I learned the management part. Like, if I’m talking with 100 players, I know a little bit about everybody.
“It’s the same thing when I go out to a job site. There might not be 100 people, but I learned how to talk to people and get to know people when I helped with football, and I learned responsibility. As an intern at Barger working with a big project, it’s not as nerve-wracking because I had learned about working with people and responsibility.”
At the TEST Hub site, Edwards works with the superintendent, which keeps him involved in several aspects of the project, including working with the different trade people, like plumbers, carpenters and electricians.
“The superintendent does a little bit of everything,” he said. “We’re making sure that when the trades come on-site, they can do their work. For example, we do our own rebar work that we use. I have to make sure that none of those materials are in the way of the plumbers.
“If somebody comes on-site and they have to sit there and not do any work because of something like that, it’s just wasted money because you still have to pay them for their time.”
Edwards said he felt fortunate to work on the TEST Hub site as an intern. Much of the TEST Hub deals with engineering, and construction management is a major in the UT Martin Department of Engineering.
“When they asked me if I wanted to work on the TEST Hub project, I said I did because I knew it was a bigger project,” he said. “It was for UT Martin, and it has ties to STEM (science, technology, engineering and math), so I know what some of the materials might be, and that’s pretty cool.”
Edwards said he eventually wants to be a construction project manager after graduation, but he wants to get there one step at a time.
“I want to start out as a superintendent or assistant superintendent,” he said. “I want to be in the field for a while. I want to learn the different trades because I feel like to become a project manager – making out schedules with the different trades – I want to be able to relate more.
“So, I want to be in the field more – maybe 10 years or so – and get different projects under my belt before I become a project manager.”
Edwards said he enjoys construction because the workers are able to see their work from start to finish and beyond that.
“When we first started the TEST Hub, we built a big hill,” he said. “It was just digging dirt, moving dirt, bringing in dirt, bringing in gravel – that kind of thing. Now, we look at it, and we have the building pad and other things.
“You can look back and remember the work you’ve done and see where you are and, one day, when the building’s done, you can say, ‘I built that. I was a part of that.’ You can see the work you’ve put in.”
Edwards plans to graduate next May.
For more information about UT Martin, visit www.utm.edu or call 1-800-829-UTM1 (-8861).
PHOTO: UT Martin rising senior Seth Edwards is shown taking a measurement to align the base plate pattern in the pier. Edwards said he is considering a career as a construction project manager.
