It’s one thing to have members of your family attend the same university over time. It’s quite another to have four siblings all at the same university at one time.
Four members of the Self family of Somerville – Tucker, 21, a junior majoring in computer science; twins Emma, a sophomore majoring in civil engineering, and Ella, a sophomore majoring in computer science, both 20; and Darby, 18, a first-year student majoring in mass media and strategic communication – are all together on campus this year at the University of Tennessee at Martin. They all have an older sister, Kelsey, who lives in Muscle Shoals, Alabama, where she is a medical assistant and pharmacy technician.
Even more unusual is the fact that their parents, Dr. Bob Self and Chas Self, did not attend UT Martin.
“(Bob) actually went to the University of Alabama and then Samford,” Chas Self said.
Chas said it is “kind of cool” to have all of her children at the same university.
“I don’t worry about them because it’s Martin,” she said. “I work at Fayette-Ware (High School), so a lot of my Fayette-Ware kids end up applying and going to Martin.
“Several of the parents ask me, ‘Do you not text them every day?’ No, no I don’t. I don’t worry about them. They know where I am if they need me; I’m not trying to helicopter my kids in college.”
When it was mentioned that they have family members on campus if anything comes up, Chas mentioned UT Martin personnel who could also help the students.
“And they’ve got (admissions counselor) Candice (McCloud),” she said. “I mean, hello? Candice is awesome.”
All four students went to Fayette-Ware, and each decided to come to UT Martin because of what they wanted to study, although by the time Darby entered college, a big part of her decision was that her brother and sisters were already there.
Chas said all four of the students took computer and technology courses at Fayette-Ware.
“They all took IT (information technology), networking and cabling,” she said. “The girls all pulled cables in the building, and Tucker built some sort of computer dune buggy.
“They all have a good bit of TCAT hours (Tennessee College of Applied Technology). All four completed networking: Emma and Ella had four years, and Tucker and Darby each had three. Tucker and Darby also completed four years of STEM (science, technology, engineering and math) classes; this was a lot of 3D printing and robotics.”
All four students are excelling in their studies but are individuals through and through.
Tucker started out in the UTM University Scholars Program, but found that it wasn’t a good fit for him, but all three of his sisters have found a home in that program. Chas praised Honors Program Director Dr. John Glass and Assistant Director Dr. Abigail Shelton for their work with the program.
“They all had options; they all got into several other great colleges across the U.S.,” Chas said. “They could have done other things, but they all chose to go to Martin.
“I think they chose it because it’s small but not too small, so they could get one-on-one instruction with their professors. That’s what really drew them to Martin.”
Chas said that it was meant to be for these children come to UT Martin.
“These kids were destined to be at UTM,” she said. “There was math comp there for Emma, Governor’s Scholars there for all three girls, RisingStar for the twins. Martin was meant for them.
“When Tucker didn’t get into MIT after being waitlisted, he was upset. Ella talked him into going to Martin just to get his college going. His two best friends were going, so he agreed, and he loved it. Everything just worked out like it was supposed to. Tucker will now tell you that he is right where he is supposed to be and how much he loves Martin.”
Tucker
The only boy in the family, Tucker is the oldest among the Self students at UT Martin. He is soft-spoken and studious and chooses to focus primarily on his schoolwork.
Tucker was the first of the four to come to UT Martin. He said he chose to come to UT Martin because it is close to their home in Fayette County, “but not so close like a 5-minute walk.
“I like the idea of having more personal class time, rather than having a large lecture room full of people. I also like that it’s very walkable.”
Tucker said he would like to have a career involving computer software development.
“I’d like to create basic programs that people would use for their computers,” he said. “I really enjoy the problem-solving aspect of the work.
“Many of the problems involve finding the solutions efficiently and making sure that it is correct every time the information is input.”
The study of computers comes naturally to Tucker, who enjoys playing video games in his spare time.
Tucker said that he was happy that his twin sisters, Ella and Emma, decided to come to the same university, but didn’t think his being on campus played a part.
“They fully made their own decision,” he said. “My coming here probably influenced them, but I’m not too sure about that.”
He added that having his younger sisters all on the same campus is “pretty much like growing up with them.”
Emma
Emma is studying civil engineering at UT Martin, a college she feels was pre-selected early on.
“I came to campus and took the middle school math contest in the sixth grade,” she said. “So, I saw what the college looked like. When I went to visit other colleges in high school, UTM kind of set the bar.”
Now that she is on campus as a student, she said she likes the smaller class size and the feeling of community.
“I know that other universities have a lot more people, but you’re not so friendly with everybody,” she said. “You don’t know as many of your professors; you don’t have the relationships that I do with mine.”
Emma is the vice president and president-elect for the campus Rotaract Club, an international collegiate service organization at UT Martin that plans local and international service projects according to the needs of the community. Rotaract is affiliated with Rotary International.
“We have a canned food drive going for We Feed Weakley,” she said, referring to the nonprofit organization named for the county that UT Martin is in. “Different organizations and individuals bring in cans of food, and the cans that they bring to us are wrapped by them in construction paper if they want to, and we set up a sculpture of the cans outside for people to see and bring more cans.
“Eventually, we unwrap the cans and bring them to food banks. It has a fun aspect to it and a Thanksgiving aspect as well, because the kind of cans that we ask for are for foods found at Thanksgiving.”
Emma is also the fundraising chair for the University Scholars Organization. One of those fundraisers is an annual haunted house, held last Oct. 26 with proceeds going toward the University Scholars Organization. It is held at the Holland McCombs Center adjacent to the quad at UT Martin.
The UTM University Scholars Organization is the registered student organization of the University Scholars Program. University Scholars Organization funds go toward several needs, including nonprofit organizations, organization banquets, scholarship requests and disaster relief.
Emma is also a graphics lab teaching assistant, working in the engineering AutoCAD lab, one that uses computer-aided design (CAD) software developed by Autodesk.
“I work in the first AutoCAD lab,” she said. “I took the AutoCAD class last year, and I had a decent rapport and got along well with my professor.
“I’m not doing any grading right now; I’m basically ‘in training,’ but I will start doing that next semester.”
While Emma has not yet taken any of the main civil engineering courses thus far, she said the field is interesting.
“I’m excited to do the engineering internship that we will have,” she said. “It helps people find what they want to do.”
Emma is older than her twin sister, Ella, by about an hour, but it isn’t a competition with the Selfs, who all enjoy having their siblings on campus.
“I don’t know what it’s like to not have my family on campus,” Emma said. “I do like having my siblings because I can just go bother them at any time – they can’t escape me!”
Last summer, Emma worked as a SOAR leader during the Summer Orientation And Registration events for first-year students, showing them around the campus.
Emma received dual enrollment experience through the UT Martin Somerville Center and attended the Governor’s School for the Humanities with Ella.
She also went to the Vaughn RisingStar Youth Summit in May 2021 and the UTM Governor’s School for the Humanities in the summer of 2022 with Ella when they were in high school, giving them an opportunity to see the UT Martin campus.
Ella
Ella is studying computer science and has an art minor. She knows where her interests lie, but is unsure about what field she wants to pursue as a career.
“I was going to try and do web design, but I’m not really sure what that looks like for me right now, degree-wise,” she said. “But, we’ll figure it out. I’ve got time.”
Ella is a Peer Enabling Program Leader, or PEP Leader, someone who helps first-year students have a smooth transition into college life.
Her interest in computer science began when she was much younger.
“When we were little, we all used to play video games together, like any family does,” she said. “I would especially play video games with Tucker. We were all obsessed with Minecraft, and it’s a really easy game to modify, so it was almost natural to just shift to computer studies because I had already seen it since I was 6 years old.”
As she got older, Ella’s artistic side started coming through.
“As I got older, I started to draw, and I thought, ‘Maybe I don’t want to do computers exclusively forever,’” she said. “’Maybe I don’t want to learn the 0’s and 1’s and code’ – not that I would be doing assembly anyway. Art just seemed a little more fun, I guess.
“When you first sign up, they want you to look at everything and all you can do (as a career), and it’s almost overwhelming at times. I’m like, ‘I just wanted to do the one thing, actually, guys.’”
Ella said in high school, there were networking and information systems classes, but no coding classes.
“The high school I went to, we had networking and information systems,” she said. “I think we all took it, so we all had a ton of TCAT hours for networking and information systems. But, there was no coding class, so that was the closest thing we could get to computers and computer science.”
Ella said that when she needs help with a computer-related course, she calls Tucker and talks it over with him.
“I feel like he’s a really good developer,” she said. “He knows how to code and create programs. I think that’s where he’s headed with that.”
Like Emma, Ella came to UT Martin to take part in the Vaughn RisingStar Youth Summit in May 2021 and the UTM Governor’s School for the Humanities in the summer of 2022 when she was in high school.
“I just like Martin as a place,” she said. “I really like the campus; I like the quad and all the trees, and I don’t feel like it’s too big. I toured a couple of other schools, and I was not too crazy about the size of them or the layout. With Martin, everything is centralized.
“When I came here for Governor’s School, everyone was so nice – which is their job, so of course, they were nice! I feel that really affected my decision a lot.”
Ella said she decided during her junior year of high school to come to UT Martin, but her twin sister, Emma, was not so sure.
“I went to Governor’s School and knew I was going to go to UT Martin afterwards,” Ella said. “I think, for Emma, she applied at a couple of other places and didn’t know if she was going to go to Martin. She was just trying to see what it is she wanted to do.
“It wasn’t a decision we made together, but having me here probably affected her decision, and that probably goes both ways. She irritates me like any other sibling does, but I’d hate to be anywhere without her – don’t tell her that.”
Ella is active with the Student Government Association Legislative Council as the chair of the campus opportunities committee. She and Emma were both on the SGA Freshman Council, where Darby currently serves.
Ella is also active with the Zeta Tau Alpha social organization. She was on the cheer squad for seven years throughout middle and high school.
“I’ll just do anything,” she laughed. “People say, ‘Hey, come to this meeting,’ and I’ll go.”
Ella said she has enjoyed being on campus and being involved with organizations and fellow students.
“That’s probably why I came here in the first place,” she said. “The school is the way that it is and people are sociable and kind. It’s a smaller campus, so you can be involved with more things, and that’s something I really wanted.
“The classes are really cool. This semester has been more challenging than my past ones because the classes get tougher.”
Ella added that she really enjoys having her siblings all on campus.
“I love it; I love to bug them all day long,” she said. “I bug Tucker anytime I need help with an assignment. Darby and Emma are my best friends; I text them all day every day. When I get out of class, I text, ‘Guess what I just did in class.’ They get so irritated with me, probably.”
Darby
The youngest of the Self children, Darby made her way to the main campus of UT Martin this fall. She quickly joined the SGA Freshman Council and the staff of The Pacer, which goes along with her major in mass media and strategic communication.
Darby was a goalkeeper for the FWHS soccer team and was offered a scholarship from Millsaps College in Jackson, Mississippi, but chose to come to UT Martin.
Like her sisters, Darby is a member of the University Scholars Program.
Having three siblings on the campus is a good reason to join them – or not – but there were other reasons that Darby chose UTM.
“I went to the Governor’s School for the Humanities here, and the people who ran it were in my major,” she said. “I loved Dr. (Jerald) Ogg and Ms. Tomi (McCutchen), so that’s a plus.”
It is still early in her collegiate career, so Darby is not yet sure what she wants to do once she graduates.
“I want to do everything,” she said. “I want to be like Barbie. I want so many jobs.”
Darby has been a photographer at Fayette-Ware High School for several years. In fact, she returned to her alma mater Oct. 11 to take photos at the Wildcats’ football game for Senior Night and took senior photos over that weekend.
Darby said her favorite thing about being at UT Martin thus far is having her brother and sisters on campus.
“I go over and see them every single day,” she said. “They can’t escape me. The twins are in Scholars, so I’ll be sitting there doing my work and they walk in, and I’m like, ‘Oh – sit with me?’ and they can’t say no.”
Darby said she was the typical younger sister, always tagging along with the older siblings.
“All of their friends would be like, ‘Is Darby coming?’ ‘Yes, she is,’” she said. “They went somewhere the other day, and it was them and their roommates, and I just started tagging along. I’m like, ‘Me, too!’ My sisters are my best friends.”
Although she has already been published in The Pacer, Darby is thinking about changing her concentration to media design. She still does the layout for her high school yearbook.
“I like doing that, and I’ve taken pictures, obviously, and I’ve done some campaign videos before, and I think those are really fun to do, especially when they get posted on Facebook and you can read all the comments – so great,” she said.
“Emma likes to do things like that, too. Emma is way more into music than anything else. So, it’s like we have everything. Five years ago, we all got these little charms for our keychains. Emma has a radio and I have a camera and Ella has a paintbrush. It’s so funny because we all got those way before we all started diving deeper into everything. It just worked out that way.”
Darby said although she’s new to the campus, her transition has been a smooth one.
“I’ve done so many hours of dual enrollment in high school, so I’m used to doing the work,” she said. “Having a roommate is different; I’ve had my own room for my whole life. At Governor’s School, I had a roommate, and that was great.
“My current roommate is a (University) Scholar, so we have two of the same classes.”
‘Four Gone’ Conclusion
For the first time in three years, all four of the Self kids are on the same campus. They are all away from home this time, but in a way, they have made UT Martin a home of their own.
Bringing that sense of home to the college campus is an experience they can all enjoy and – only if they have to – one they can share.
PHOTO: Shown on the quad of the University of Tennessee at Martin are the Self family (L-R): Ella, Darby, Emma and Tucker. When Darby became a UT Martin freshman this year, it brought the four siblings together on one campus for the first time in three years, when Tucker graduated from Fayette-Ware High School.
